Dr. Christopher Soler
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.
