Robert Black (born 12 June 1947) is a Scottish lawyer who is Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh.

In January 1981, he was appointed to the Chair in Scots Law at Edinburgh, until he took semi-retired status as Emeritus Professor in 2005.

[2] Black has taken a close personal and professional interest in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing of 21 December 1988, particularly because he was born and brought up in Lockerbie, Scotland.

Black is often referred to as the architect of holding the non-jury Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial at the neutral venue of Camp Zeist, Netherlands, and applying Scots Law to the Lockerbie case.

At the end of the nine-month trial, on 31 January 2001, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted of the murder of 259 passengers and crew of the aircraft, and of 11 people in the town of Lockerbie.

Black reported on this first meeting with Megrahi, as follows: Responding to remarks alleged to have been made by former Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, critical of main prosecution witness Tony Gauci, and reported in The Sunday Times of 23 October 2005, Black described the alleged remarks as "an indication that various people who have been involved in the Lockerbie prosecution are now positioning themselves in anticipation of the SCCRC holding that there was a prima facie miscarriage of justice and sending it back for a fresh appeal."

In an interview with The Scotsman on 1 November 2005 Black said Megrahi's conviction was "the most disgraceful miscarriage of justice in Scotland for 100 years."

Despite widespread concerns about the potential for pre-trial publicity prejudicing a jury, Black now believes the accused may have fared better under the conventional procedure than in the non-jury trial that he formulated.

[9] In February 2009, Black proposed a number of Scots law changes so as to expedite the Lockerbie appeal verdict.

Black spends six months of the year at his second home near a remote village in the Northern Cape of South Africa.