Dr Christopher Soler was appointed State Advocate
by the President of the Republic on 19 October 2020 further to a recommendation
by the Prime Minister in terms of a report compiled by an independent
Appointment Commission composed of three retired judges and chaired by Chief
Justice Emeritus Joseph Azzopardi.
He holds a Master of Arts (M.A.) in Contemporary European Studies from the Sussex European Institute, University
of Sussex (UK), a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in International Criminal Law from the
Centre for Legal Studies, University of Sussex (UK), a Doctorate in law (LL.D.)
from the University of Malta and a Ph.D. in public international law from the
University of Amsterdam.
Dr Soler acted as Director, Legal Services, of the
University of Malta between February 2008 and September 2020, and as
Chairperson of the Refugee Appeals Board between August 2013 and August 2020.
He worked as a criminal court-appointed expert, acted as legal counsel at
trials by jury, extradition proceedings and in high-profile criminal and
constitutional (human rights) cases before courts enjoying criminal
jurisdiction, the Constitutional Court of Malta and before the European Court
of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. He
also represented clients who were accused before Italian, Tunisian and United
States criminal courts. Since obtaining his warrant to exercise the legal
profession in the year 2000, he has been lecturing, examining, and supervising
theses particularly in the fields of Maltese criminal law, public international
law, international criminal law, international human rights law, refugee law
and criminology (namely, victimology). He participated in seminars and
conferences on international refugee law at the Jean Monnet Centre of
Excellence on Migrants’ Rights in the Mediterranean based in Napoli, Italy.
Dr Soler attended the fifteenth session of the
Assembly of State Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal
Court in The Hague as a member of the Maltese delegation. Under the auspices of
the Maltese Presidency of the EU Council, after undertaking training
administered by the École Nationale
d’Administration of Strasbourg, he chaired
the Comité Juridique – International Criminal Court and
the Comité Juridique – Public International Law Working Groups
of the EU Council between January and June 2017.
In 2019, T.M.C. Asser Press and Springer Verlag
published and distributed his book titled ‘The Global Prosecution of Core
Crimes under International Law’. Dr Soler also published legal materials with
Oxford University Press, Wolters Kluwer and in local law journals such as ‘Law
and Practice’ issued by the Malta Chamber of Advocates, ‘Id-Dritt’ issued by the Malta Law Students’ Society,
and in the ‘Mediterranean Journal of Human Rights’ issued by the Faculty of Laws,
University of Malta.