After having obtained his LL.B. law degree at the London School of Economics in 1972, he spent a year at the University of Warsaw, at its Department of International Law, as a British Council Scholar, rounding of this cycle of studies at the UC Berkeley School of Law where he obtained an LL.M in International Law. He subsequently returned to the LSE where he obtained, in 1981, his Ph.D, which was published by the Oxford University Press in 1983: European Human Rights Convention in Domestic Law: A Comparative Study. He also obtained, in 1974, the Diploma of the Strasbourg-based International Institute of Human Rights and was called to the English Bar in 1981.
He has worked for the Council of Europe since 1985. As of April 2005, he is Head of the Legal Affairs & Human Rights Department of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Previous in-house experience includes work in the then Directorate of Human Rights. Between the years 1995 and 1997 he was secretary to an informal working party on Protocol No.11 to the European Convention on Human Rights, under the co-chairmanship of the Deputy Secretary General & the President of the European Court of Human Rights, before becoming, in 1996, the Head of the Secretary General’s Monitoring Unit, with responsibility to set up and launch the Committee of Ministers confidential monitoring procedure.
Other functions/activities
Since 1986 he has been legal correspondent for "The Times" newspaper, London and over 320 of his law reports have been published to-date. He is also a member of the Administrative Council of the International Institute of Human Rights, Strasbourg; member of Scientific Advisory Board of the European Yearbook on Human Rights and a member of the Advisory Board of the European Human Rights Association. Since 1994 he is a Visiting Professor at the University of Strasbourg’s Institut des Hautes Etudes Européennes.
Other professional experience
Before joining the Council of Europe in September 1985, Dr Drzemczewski undertook various types of legal work, lecturing and consultancies around the world before the European Court of Human Rights. He is also a founding member of INTERIGHTS. From 1979 to 1985 he was Senior Lecturer in Law at what is now the Metropolitan University, in London. For a period of 14 years he taught “International Law of Human Rights” at the University of Notre-Dame’s Summer Law Program in London.
Publications
European Human Rights Convention in Domestic Law. A Comparative Study
Human Rights: Cases and Materials
"A major overhaul of the European Human Rights Convention control mechanism: Protocol No. 11", in Collected Courses of the Academy of European Law / Recueil des cours de l'Académie de Droit européen, Vol.VI, Book 2, 1997.
He also co-edited "Domestic Implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights in Eastern and Western Europe", in volume 2 of the All-European Human Rights Yearbook 251 pages. He has published widely and has written over 130 articles and case-notes on international and comparative law issues in numerous legal periodicals, with particular reference to human rights in Europe.
