By ISA Secretary-General Mr. Michael W. Lodge
It is with great sorrow that I learned of the passing of Judge and former President of the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), Vladimir Vladimirovich Golitsyn, on 26 March 2023 and Judge Budislav Vukas, Vice President of ITLOS (2002-2005) on 30 March 2023.
Judge Golitsyn was born in Moscow, the Russian Federation, in 1947. He was a member of the Tribunal from 2008 to 2017 and its President from 2014 to 2017. Between 2011 and 2014, he served as President of the Seabed Disputes Chamber.
Judge Golitsyn held a Doctor of Juridical Sciences from the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia. He also held a Red Diploma of International Affairs (with honours) from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations and a Candidate of Juridical Sciences from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.
Judge Golitsyn was a key contributor to the development of the law of the sea. Among other prestigious positions, he was the Secretary of the Plenary of the Preparatory Commission for the International Seabed Authority and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (1987-1994), the Principal Legal Officer in the Office of the Legal Counsel of the United Nations (1997-2003), the Director of the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea (2004-2007), and a lecturer at the Rhodes Academy of Oceans Law and Policy (2009-present).
Judge Budislav Vukas, born in Rijeka, Croatia in 1938. He was also a member of the Tribunal from 1996 to 2005 and served as its Vice President from 2002 to 2005.
Judge Vukas wrote numerous publications on the law of the sea including “The Law of the Sea Selected Writings” published in 2004. He was a professor of Public Information Law at the University of Zagreb, Croatia. Judge Vukas was a founding member of the Association internationale du droit de la me rans and a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the Institut de Droit international, and the Croatian Society of International Law.
My sincere condolences to the families of Judge Golitsyn and Judge Vukas and to the government and people of the Russian Federation and Croatia.
For media enquiries, please contact:
Ms. Stefanie Neno, Communications Specialist, ISA, sneno@isa.org.jm