Anne Peters

Her research interests include constitutionalization and the history of international law, global animal rights, global governance and the status of humans in international law. Since 2019 Anne Peters is chairwoman of the German Society for International Law (DGIR).

Peters' research interests relate to public international law including its history, global animal law, global governance and global constitutionalism, and the status of humans in international law. Peters’ theses are the following:

She has been a member of the Council of International Law of the Federal Foreign Office since 2013 as well as of the Research Advisory Board of the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik – German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

Peters was president of the European Society of International Law from 2010-2012, as well as board member of the German Association of Constitutional Law (VDStRL) from 2014-2015. She was a member (substitute) of the Venice Commission (European Commission for Democracy through Law) for Germany (2011-2015) and legal expert of the Independent Fact Finding Mission on the conflict in Georgia (2009). She has been a member of the Board of Directors of the German Society for International Law (DGIR) (2017-2019), of the General Council of the International Society of Public Law (I-CON-S) since 2014 and Vice-President of the Foundation Board of the Basel Institute on Governance (BIG) since 2002.

She has been a visiting professor at Sciences Po (2009), Paris Panthéon-Assas University, Institut des hautes études internationales (2014), Beijing University, Institute of International Law (2014 and 2016) and the Université Panthéon -Sorbonne (2015). She was a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in 2012/2013.

From 2001 to 2013, Peters was Full Professor of International and Constitutional Law at the University of Basel. From 2004 to 2005 she was dean, from 2008 to 2012 research dean of the Law Faculty of Basel and from 2008 to 2013 member of the research council at the Swiss National Science Foundation. Since 2013 she is director at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg. Also since 2013, Peters is Professor (Titularprofessor) of Public Law, International Law, European Law and Comparative Law at the University of Basel, Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and since 2014 Honorary Professor at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg.

Anne Peters studied Law, Modern Greek and Spanish at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, at the University of Lausanne, at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg and at Harvard Law School. Peters earned her doctorate in 1994 at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg on the basis of her Dissertation-Thesis “Das Gebietsreferendum im Völkerrecht: seine Bedeutung im Licht der Staatenpraxis” (The regional referendum in international law: its significance in the light of state practice). From 1995 to 2001 she worked as a research assistant at the Walther Schücking Institute for International Law of the Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel. She obtained the Habilitation-qualification at the Walther-Schücking-Institute of Public International Law at the Christian Albrechts University Kiel on the basis of her Habilitation-Thesis “Elemente einer Theorie der Verfassung Europas” (Elements of a Theory of the Constitution of Europe) in 2000.

Anne Peters (born November 15, 1964 in Berlin) is a German-Swiss jurist with a focus on public international law. She is director at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, honorary professor at the University of Basel, University of Heidelberg and Free University of Berlin, and at William W. Cook Global Law Professor at Michigan Law School.