Tobias Vestner leads the Security and Law Programme. He teaches, researches, and organizes dialogue on the intersection between security policy and international law.
He heads the Symposium for Senior NATO/PfP Legal Advisors. Tobias Vestner also leads and teaches in the executive education courses Air and Missile Warfare: Navigating the Legal Dimension (Advanced AMPLE), Legal Dimensions of Contemporary and Future Use of Force, Weapons Law and the Legal Review of Weapons, as well as Negotiations Theory and Practice. He is also responsible for the event series Security and Law: A Reality Check, a public dialogue that explores how international law matters in security affairs.
Tobias Vestner has many years of experience in international law, international relations, and policymaking. Before joining the GCSP, Tobias Vestner was Research Affiliate and Global Futures Fellow at Georgetown University. Prior to that, he was Policy Advisor at the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, where he managed political processes with regard to the export of conventional weapons, and participated in the UN negotiations of the Arms Trade Treaty. Previously, while at the Law of Armed Conflict Section at the Swiss Federal Department of Defense, Sports and Civil Protection, he contributed to bilateral negotiations on military cooperation, and trained military officers in international humanitarian law.
Tobias Vestner holds a Master of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, a Master of Laws in International and European Law from the University of Geneva, and a Bachelor degree in Swiss law from the University of Lausanne. Tobias Vestner has Swiss and German nationality, and is fluent in English, French, and German. A former reserve member of the Swiss Special Forces Command, he serves as reserve Legal Advisor at the Swiss Armed Forces Staff. He is member of the Board of Directors of the International Society for Military Law and the Law of War and the International Institute of Humanitarian Law.
Book
- ‘A Guide to International Disarmament Law’, Routledge, June 2019 (co-authored)
Select Papers
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‘Targeting Private Military and Security Companies’, Military Law and the Law of War Review, forthcoming
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‘Addressing the Use of Human Shields’, Strategic Security Analysis, Geneva Centre for Security Policy, December 2019
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‘Book Review of the Leuven Manual on the International Law Applicable to Peace Operations’, International Review of the Red Cross, September 2019 (co-authored)
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‘Synergies between the Arms Trade Treaty and the Wassenaar Arrangement’, Strategic Security Analysis, Geneva Centre for Security Policy, May 2019
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’Prohibitions and Export Assessment: Tracking Implementation of the Arms Trade Treaty’, Geneva Paper 19/23, Geneva Centre for Security Policy, March 2019
- ‘Weapons Systems Supply and Operational or Logistical Support under the PSSA’, Geneva Centre for Security Policy, March 2019 (co-authored)
Digital Tool
- DisarmApp, ACW - Artifex Creative Webnet, January 2020 (co-created)