Melzer graduated summa cum laude from the University of Zürich with a PhD degree in law. Melzer has previously served for 12 years with the International Committee of the Red Cross as Delegate, Deputy Head of Delegation and Legal Adviser in various conflict areas. After leaving the ICRC, Melzer held academic positions as Research Director of the Swiss Competence Centre on Human Rights, as Senior Fellow and Senior Advisor on Emerging Security Challenges and at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. He has also served as Senior Adviser for Security Policy at the Political Directorate of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. Melzer has written several books, including Targeted Killing in International Law as well as the ICRC's Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities and the ICRC's Handbook International Humanitarian Law - a Comprehensive Introduction. He is also a co-author of the NATO CCDCOETallinn Manual on the International Law applicable to Cyber Warfare, and of the NATO MCDC Policy Guidance: Autonomy in Defence Systems,.
Melzer visited Julian Assange in prison on 9 May 2019, accompanied by two medical experts specialised in examining potential victims of torture and other ill-treatment, to assess his situation. On 31 May he described the treatment Assange had received from the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden, and Ecuador as psychological torture and the US indictments as the "criminalisation of investigative journalism". In a November 2019 statement Melzer criticised the UK government for placing Assange's life at risk by ignoring previous warnings about the state of his health. He said Assange "continues to be detained under oppressive conditions of isolation and surveillance, not justified by his detention status". He also said that Assange's access to legal counsel and documents were being severely obstructed, preventing him from preparing a defence against "the world's most powerful government". Melzer asked the UK government to stop Assange's extradition to the US, release him and allow him to "recover his health and rebuild his personal and professional life". The Swedish prosecutor announced that the investigation had been dropped as of 19 November 2019. The same month Melzer also strongly criticised Assange's treatment in all the legal proceedings in the U.K., U.S., Ecuador, and Sweden, stating that there was "no due process proceeding whatsoever" and "severe violations of due process consistently". In a January 2020 interview Melzer said he had never seen a comparable case where a person was subjected to nine years of a preliminary investigation for rape without charges being filed. He said Assange's lawyers made over 30 offers to arrange for Assange to visit Sweden in exchange for a guarantee that he would not be extradited to the U.S and described such diplomatic assurances as routine international practice. Melzer criticised the Swedish prosecutors for, among other things, supposedly changing one of the women's statements without her involvement in order to make it sound like a possible rape. Melzer said that the Swedish rape investigation was an abuse of process aimed at pushing Assange into a corner from which he was unable to defend himself. One of the women interviewed by Melzer later sharply criticized him and demanded his resignation. She said that by defining how a "proper rape-victim" would have to act, Melzer was engaging in victim blaming and that his report was partially "untrue and defamatory".
Honours and awards
Melzer's legal study called Targeted Killing in International Law was a joint-winner of the 2009 Paul Guggenheim Prize in International Law, awarded by the Geneva Graduate Institute.
Published works
Selected publications
“Targeted Killing in International Law”.
“Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities under International Humanitarian Law”.
"Cyberwarfare and International Law"
With Hans-Peter Gasser: "Humanitäres Völkerrecht – Eine Einführung", 2nd ed..
With Michael N. Schmitt et al., “Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare”.
“International Humanitarian Law - a Comprehensive Introduction”.
