Gian Luca Burci
Project Consultant
Gian Luca Burci was appointed Adjunct Professor at the Graduate Institute in 2012. He was also appointed Director of the Joint LLM in Global Health Law and International Institutions between the Graduate Institute and Georgetown Law Center. Professor Burci teaches international health law as well as courses and seminars on the law and practice of international organizations and on the role of international legal advisers.
Professor Burci served in the Legal Office of the World Health Organization from 1998 and was its Legal Counsel from April 2005 until his retirement in February 2016. Professor Burci previously served as Legal Officer in the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna in 1988-1989 and in the Office of the Legal Counsel of the United Nations in New York between 1989 and 1998.
Among other professional achievements, he was closely involved in the negotiation and implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and its Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, the revision and implementation of the International Health Regulations (2005), WHO’s response to the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak and WHO reform. At the United Nations, Professor Burci was one of the leads in the Office of the Legal Counsel on Security Council affairs, including notably UN economic sanctions, the use of force, peace-keeping operations and the Oil for Food Programme with Iraq.
He is the co-author of the leading monograph in English on WHO, editor of the first research collection on global health law and author of numerous articles and book chapters on a broad range of topics including privileges and immunities of international organizations, the powers and practice of the Security Council, peace-keeping operations, the law and practice of WHO, public-private partnerships, as well as the normative interfaces between human health protection and diverse international legal regimes.
Professor Burci holds a post-graduate degree in law from the University of Genoa, Italy.