Paul Berman 

Paul Berman 

Paul Berman is Counsel for International Law in the House of Lords of the UK Parliament. He was previously Legal Director at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office from 2021 to 2026, Director for External Relations and for Institutional Affairs in the Legal Service of Council of the European Union from 2012 to 2020, and Cabinet Office Legal Adviser and Director of the Treasury Solicitor’s Department’s European Division from 2009 to 2012.

After studies at Oxford and Geneva, Paul was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1990 and joined the legal cadre of the UK Diplomatic Service in 1991. As well as the above roles and posts in the FCO/FCDO, Paul has served as Counsellor for International and European Law in the Attorney General’s Office, as Legal Counsellor and Head of the Legal Section at the UK Permanent Representation to the European Union in Brussels, and as legal adviser in the ICRC Legal Division’s Advisory Service on International Humanitarian Law in Geneva. 

Paul has served as Chair of the UK’s National IHL Committee and as co-chair of the National Committee workstream of the ICRC’s Global Initiative on IHL. He has had a wide-ranging involvement in the development, application and dissemination of IHL and was responsible for the adoption of the EU’s Guidelines on IHL in 2005 and subsequently the establishment of the EU’s annual reports on the implementation of IHL. Paul is Visiting Professor at the College of Europe and a contributor to Satow’s Diplomatic Practice.