Walter Kälin (born 1951 in Zurich) is a Swiss humanitarian, constitutional lawyer, international human rights lawyer, activist, and advocate. He is also known as a legal scholar and a renowned professor. He has been a leader in changing Swiss laws and international laws for humanitarian purposes and he has been published extensively on issues of human rights law, the law of internally displaced persons, refugee law, and Swiss constitutional law.[1]
Kälin has been a professor of international and constitutional law at the University of Bern since 1985.[1] He is also a former Dean of the Faculty and Head of the Legal Department.[2]
He has acted as a consultant for numerous agencies and organizations – including the Swiss development agency, SDC, UNHCR, UNHCHR, UNDP, and others – on matters of decentralization, human rights, and refugee law.[1] He was notably counselling and representing asylum-seekers as a member of the Swiss section of Amnesty International.[3]
Walter Kälin (on the left) at a press conference for the preparation of Swiss constitutional reform (1995)
In 1991–1992, Kälin served as the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the situation of human rights in Kuwait under Iraqi Occupation.[4] He was also a member of the Swiss government's Steering Committee for "the preparation of constitutional reform" and he was chairman for the preparation of the reform of the judiciary (1995–1996).[1]
