Bimal N. Patel

Bimal N. Patel is Judge-elect, International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in June 2026 for the term 2026-2035, and takes office on 1 October 2026. He is an International Law Jurist, academician, administrator, and international relations scholar. He is Chairman of the Working Group on “Succession of States in respect of State Responsibility” and has been a member of the International Law Commission (ILC) of the United Nations since 1 January 2023,

He is the Vice-Chancellor and Professor of International Law of Rashtriya Raksha University. Patel has been serving as a Member of the National Security Advisory Board, an advisory board to the National Security Council headed by the Prime Minister of India since 2015. He is a member of the Financial Sector Regulatory Appointments Search Committee (FSRASC), Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, headed by the Cabinet Secretary. Patel served as the Director of the Gujarat National Law University from 2008 to 2019. He served as the Lead Academic Adviser to India during India's tenure as a member of the UN Security Council 2021-22. He serves as a member of High-Level Advisory Board of the ICRC concerning Global Initiative on International Humanitarian Law. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the ICRC International Review of the Red Cross, Geneva. Patel is co-chair of the American Society of International Law Interest Group on Law of the Sea and a Member of Antarctica Environment Protection and Governance Committee, Government of India. He has obtained multilateral legal and international relations experience at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) , which was awarded 2013 Nobel Peace Prize, for its extensive work to eliminate chemical weapons and the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, preparing the international humanitarian and international criminal law jurisprudence, the Hague, the Netherlands. Patel served at the United Nations Of Youth (UNOY), an international youth NGO, in its founding years in early 1990s, supporting the mission of Nikolai Firioubine, Maria Kooijman and Ute Roehl, founding members. UNOY was awarded recently in 2026, Luxembourg Peace Prize as the Outstanding Peace Organisation, recognized for advancing youth participation in conflict transformation and global policy reform.

Patel is the author or editor of more than thirty books and reference works on international dispute settlement, the law of the sea, the responsibility of international organisations and Indian state practice, published by Brill/Nijhoff, Kluwer Law International, Oxford University Press, Routledge and Eastern Book Company. He contributed a chapter on the history of international law in India in The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law, edited by Bardo Fassbender and Anne Peters, the book won 2014 Certificate of Merit of the American Society of International Law.