Professor Tiyanjana Maluwa, a Malawian legal academic based in the United States, was on Monday, 23 August 2021, elected a member of the Institute of International Law (Institut de Droit International) at the Institute’s 2021 session, which is currently taking place in a virtual format. The Institute is comprised of the world’s leading international lawyers and is considered the most authoritative academy of international law. Founded on 8 September 1873 at the Ghent Town Hall in Belgium by eleven renowned international lawyers, it was established as “an institution independent of any governmental influence that would be able to contribute to the development of international law and act so that it might be implemented”.
Professor Maluwa is currently a Professor of Law and International Affairs at the Pennsylvania State University School of Law, where he has held the H. Laddie Montague Chair in Law since joining the university in 2004. Prior to that he served as the first legal adviser in the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, and previously as the legal counsel of the OUA/AU in Addis Ababa. Professor Maluwa started his academic career at the University of Malawi, before moving to the University of Botswana and, subsequently, the University of Cape Town where he was Professor of Law.
Professor Maluwa’s election to the Institute of International Law marks him out as Malawi’s most highly acclaimed international law scholar. He has published extensively in this field, as an author, co-author and editor of numerous books and author of over a hundred published law journal articles and conference papers. One of his most recent articles examined the legal aspects of the unresolved boundary dispute between Malawi and Tanzania over Lake Malawi. At Pennsylvania State University, Professor Maluwa also served as the founding director of the School of International Affairs for eight years and, concurrently, as the Law School’s Associate Dean for International Affairs for a decade.
Alongside Professor Maluwa, two other new members from Africa (Algeria and Senegal) were elected to the Institute, bringing to 15 the number of African members out of the approximately 160 current members. Professor Maluwa is the first Malawian to be elected member, and only the third person from the southern African region (the other two being international law professors from South Africa).
Congratulation Tiyanjana you make Malawians and fellow Mzedi alumni very proud. Keep on raising the Malawian Flag.
Congrats