[3] Damaška was born in Brežice in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, present-day Slovenia in a Croatian family.
As a student he showed interest in science, and in his fourth year he gained a scholarship at the Hague Academy of International Law in the Netherlands.
[5] Damaška become the youngest full professor at the University of Zagreb in 1968, where he taught criminal proceedings in a department held by Vladimir Bayer.
In that time, he was among the most significant and the most influential scientific authorities in the sphere of criminal proceedings in the SR Croatia.
[4] Between 1970 and 1971 he was a chairman of the Committee on Criminal Justice Reform of the Parliament of the SR Croatia.
[5] After the Croatian Spring in 1971, he went to the United States, where he taught at the University of Pennsylvania Law School from 1972 until 1976.
[4] His book The Faces of Justice and State Authority (1986) is considered to be his most significant work.
[6] He was awarded the Life Award by the American Association for the Comparative Study of Law from 2009 and Order of Danica Hrvatska with a face of Ruđer Bošković from 2006, as well as the honorary doctorates from the University of Pavia from 2005 and the University of Zagreb from 2012.