Background
Professor Dimitrijević was born on 9 July 1932 in Rijeka (then in Italy, today in Croatia).
Professor Dimitrijević was born on 9 July 1932 in Rijeka (then in Italy, today in Croatia).
University of Belgrade, 1951-1955, Bachelor of Laws, 1960-1962, Master of Arts, 1962-1965, Doctor of Philosophy International Relations. Spoken languages: SerboCroat, English, German, French.
Professor Dimitrijević was for many years the director of the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, a Serbian non-governmental organisation opposed to the regime of Slobodan Milošević. He was ordered to retire prematurely in 1998, while in the rank of full professor, due to his opposition to the newly passed and repressive Universities Acting. From 1995 he was the director of the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, and from 2005 a professor at the Faculty of Law of the Union University in Belgrade.
Dimitrijević was also a visiting professor at the universities of Split, Sarajevo, Virginia, Oslo, and Lund.
He was also a member and a vice-chairman of the United Nations Human Rights Committee (1983-1994), and served as an ad hoc judge on the International Court of Justice (2001-2003). Professor Dimitrijević died suddenly in Belgrade on 5 October 2012.
From 2000 he was a member of the Venice Commission on Democracy through Law of the Council of Europe, while from 2001 he was a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. He was a commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists from 2003, and from 2006 a member of its executive committee. Professor Dimitrijević was the president of the Yugoslav branch of the International Law Association (2001-2003), and a member of the Anticorruption Council of the Government of the Republic of Serbia (2001-2004).
He was one of the founders of the Serbian Forum for International Relations (in 1995) and the Balkan Political Club (in 2001), and was a member of the Serbian Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists association Centre since 1986.