Felix Ermacora

Felix Ermacora (October 13, 1923 – February 24, 1995) was the leading human rights expert of Austria. He was a professor of international law at the University of Innsbruck from 1957, member of Parliament for the Austrian Conservative Party from 1971 to 1990, member of the European Commission of Human Rights and the United Nations Commission on Human Rights from 1958. 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 was appointed director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Menschenrechte at the University of Vienna.

He received the German and French orders of merit, the UNESCO Prize for Human Rights and the European Human Rights Prize of the Council of Europe. He received honorary doctorates at the universities of Cologne and Strasbourg, and was a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Science.

In 1999, the Felix-Ermacora-Institut was founded, and in 2005, the "Felix-Ermacora-Menschenrechtspreis" was established by the Faction of the Conservative Party in the Austrian Parliament.

Selected works

* "Handbuch der Grundfreiheiten und der Menschenrechte", 1963
* "Allgemeine Staatslehre", 2 bd., 1970
* "Österreichische Verfassungslehre", 2 bd., 1970/80
* "Grundriß der Menschenrechte in Österreich", 1988
* "Die Entstehung der Bundesverfassung", 5 bd., 1986-93
* "Menschenrechte in der sich wandelnden Welt", 3 bd., 1974-94
* "Menschenrechte ohne Wenn und Aber. Erlebnisse und Begegnungen", 1993