Felix Ermacora (October 13, 1923 – February 24, 1995) was the leading human rights expert of Austria and a member of the Austrian People's Party. He was a professor of international law at the University of Innsbruck from 1956, at the University of Vienna from 1964, member of Parliament for the Austrian People's Party from 1971 to 1990, member of the European Commission of Human Rights and the United Nations Human Rights Committee 1959-1980 and 1984-1987. In 1974 he was President of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and from 1984 he was UN Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan. In 1992, he cofounded the Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Menschenrechte, with his students and close collaborators Manfred Nowak and Hannes Tretter, and served as its first director.[1]
He was part of UN delegations investigating human rights abuses in Chile, South Africa, occupied Palestine, Iran and Afghanistan. On behalf of the Council of Europe, he investigated human rights abuses in Algeria, Greece, Ireland, Turkey and Cyprus. As an academic, a legislator and a UN official, he fought unconditionally against injustice and human rights abuses. In an expert opinion commissioned by the Bavarian government in 1991, Ermacora concluded that the Expulsion of Germans after World War II constituted a genocide and crime against humanity.[2] As the UN Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan, he uncovered "gross violations of human rights" by Soviet forces in Afghanistan, made public in a 1985 report.[3]
He received the German Great Cross of Merit, Commander of the Ordre national du Mérite of France, Commander 1st Class of the Order of the Polar Star of Sweden, the European Charlemagne Award of the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft, the UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education in 1983 and the European Human Rights Prize of the Council of Europe in 1992 (jointly with Médecins Sans Frontières) for "an exceptional contribution to the cause of human rights".[4] He received honorary doctorates at the universities of Cologne and Strasbourg, and was a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences from 1971. He was also a board member of the International Society for Human Rights.[1]
In 1999, the Felix Ermacora Institut was founded, and in 2005, the Felix Ermacora Human Rights Award was established by the Faction of the Conservative Party in the Austrian Parliament. The Felix Ermacora Society was founded in 2005, and is headed by Wolfgang Schüssel, the former Austrian Chancellor.[1]
His students include Andreas Khol, a former President of the Austrian parliament.
He died in 1995, of a disease he caught on a UN mission in Afghanistan and Pakistan in December 1994.[3]
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by |
Professor of International Law at the University of Innsbruck 1957-1964 |
Succeeded by |
| Preceded by |
Professor of International Law at the University of Vienna 1964-1992 |
Succeeded by |
| Preceded by |
Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Menschenrechte 1992-1995 |
Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by |
Member of the National Council of Austria 1971-1990 |
Succeeded by |
| Diplomatic posts | ||
| Preceded by |
President of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights 1974 |
Succeeded by |
| Preceded by |
UN Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan 1984- |
Succeeded by |
| Awards and achievements | ||
| Preceded by Ali Sadek Abou-Heif |
UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education 1983 |
Succeeded by Héctor Fix Zamudio |
| Preceded by Lech Wałęsa International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights |
European Human Rights Prize (jointly with Médecins Sans Frontières) 1992 |
Succeeded by Sergei Kovalyov Raoul Wallenberg |