Jens Dieckmann is a German Lawyer. He is Founding and Senior Partner of Becher & Dieckmann in Bonn. The practice was established in 1997.
Jens Dieckmann can offer clients more than 20 years of high level international litigation and negotiation practice in high profile, complex cases, combined with highly developed advocacy skills. He has worked in and lead international teams of lawyers at various international criminal tribunals.
Background and Expertise
- International Criminal Practice
Jens Dieckmann has represented clients in all areas of national and international Criminal Law incl.
- International Business Crimes
- Serious Crimes
- War Crimes
- Cross Boarder Defence
- Extradition
- Terrorist Cases (incl. Al Qaida (GIMF and Al Tawhid/Al Zarkawi), GIA (Algeria) – and FDLR-Cases)
In addition, Jens Dieckmann has a varied national and international practice as Counsel in International Human Rights Law (incl. UN Human Rights Council and European Court of Human Rights) as well as Asylum Law and Immigration Law. In Germany, he has been instructed in more than 9000 cases in Asylum and Immigration Law since 1996.
He has represented and advised private clients from more than 80 different countries. He provides consultancy to Governments and NGOs in the field of International Criminal Law and Asylum Law.
Recently, he expanded his experience and international practice to the field of International Arbitration and Dispute Resolution. He is a Member of the German Institution of Arbitration (DIS e.V.) and Associate Member of the Dubai International Arbitration Centre (DIAC).
Jens Dieckmann has repeatedly been instructed as an Expert in German criminal law in British criminal and civil court proceedings.
Notable Cases
The Prosecutor v. Milan Lukic & Sredoje Lukic, ICTY (IT-98-32/1)
Co-lead Defence Counsel for Sredoje Lukic, Trial and Appeal (partly acquitted).
The Prosecutor v. Sadri Selca, ICTY (IT-04-84-R.77.2)
Duty Counsel, Indictment withdrawn by OTP.
The Prosecutor v. Astrid Haraqija & Bajrush Morina, ICTY (IT-04-84-R77.4)
Lead Defence Counsel, Trial and Appeal.
The Prosecutor v. Joseph Kony et al., ICC (ICC-02/04-01/05)
Assigned ad hoc Counsel in the interest of the Defence of Joseph Kony et al., admissibility procedure and Appeal.
The Prosecutor v. Abdallah Banda Abakaer Nourain, No. ICC-02/05-03/09
(Situation in Darfur, Sudan), Common Legal Representative, Associate Counsel, for all participating victims, 2011 to present.
The Contempt Case of Dragomir Pecanac, ICTY (IT-05-88/2-R77.2)
Assigned permanent Defence Counsel.
The Prosecutor v. Zdravko Tolimir, ICTY (IT-05-88/2)
Assigned Witness Counsel to Mr. Dragomir Pecanac.
International CrimeAchievements
- The International Criminal Court (ICC)
- The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
- The International Criminal Tribunal for Ruanda (ICTR)
- United Nations Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT)
- The Special Tribunal for the Lebanon (STL)
- Part II of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) Courts’ Register of Legal Practitioners (2013-2017)
Jens Dieckmann regularly trains and gives key note lectures in Asylum and Immigration Law as well as International Criminal Law inter alia at the Universities of Oxford, Lausanne, Vienna and Kyiv.
- Member of German Bar Association (DAV)
- Member of International Criminal Bar (ICB-BPI)
- Member of Association of Defence Counsel at the ICTY (ADC-ICTY)
- Member of International Criminal Court Bar Association (ICCBA)
- Member of the German Association for the United Nations e.V. (DGVN)
- Member of amnesty international
- Member of The German Institution for Arbitration (DIS e.V.)
- Member of the International Bar Association (IBA; Committees: War Crimes, Arbitration; Arab Regional Forum)
- Member of Dubai International Arbitration Centre (DIAC; Associate Member)
- Member of Arbeitskreis Völkerstrafrecht
- 2006 to present – Elected member to the Board of the ADC-ICTY (membership-committee, amicus curiae committee, ad hoc committee for Post Tribunal Matters, 2014-2016 executive committee and Co Vice President of the ADC-ICTY, 2016-2017, 2017-2018 Chair of the disciplinary committee).
- 2007 to 2019 – Vice President International Criminal Defence Lawyer – ICDL – Germany e.V.
- 2015 to present – Committee Officer/Conference Coordinator, Co Vice Chair of the War Crimes Committee of the International Bar Association (IBA); appointed to the IBA War Crimes Committee Advisory Board.
- 2015/16 – Member of the Drafters Committee and the Interim Board of the International Criminal Court Bar Association (ICCBA).
- 2016/17 – Elected member to the ICCBA Executive Council (being one of in toto 14 elected members of the EC) as well as to the ICCBA Professional Standards Advisory Committee.
- 2017/2018 – Re-elected member to the ICCBA Executive Council. Elected ICCBA Vice- President for Victims and Chair of the ICCBA Victims Committee.
- 2017 to present – Appointed to the Legal Advisors Conference on Refugee Law of the Independent Welfare Organizations and the UNHCR in Germany (“Rechtsberaterkonferenz”).
- 2018/2019 – Re-elected member to the ICCBA Executive Council. Re-elected ICCBA Vice- President for Victims and Chair of the ICCBA Victims Committee.
- 2018 to present - Appointed to the Expert Commission on Asylum by the Federal Board of Amnesty International, Germany.
- 2023/2024 – Re-elected member to the ICCBA Victims Committee.
- 2024 - Registered in the database of pro bono lawyers at the Office of the Ombudsperson to the ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee of the United Nations Security Council.
- Jens Dieckmann and Teresa Quadt, Refugees in Europe from an International Criminal Law Perspective, Cambridge Journal of Politics, Law and Art (CJPLA) Special Edition: The Human Agenda (1 July 2024) available here
- "The Role of Defence Counsel in Pre-Trial" in: Colleen Rohan and Gentian Zyberi (eds), "A Defence Perspective on International Criminal Justice" (Cambridge University Press, 2017) · Apr 1, 2017
- "Representing the "General Interests of the Defence": Boon or Bane? - A Stocktaking of the System of ad hoc Counsel at the ICC" International Criminal Law Review - ICLR - vol. 11 (2011), p. 105-136
- "UN Ad Hoc Tribunals under Time Pressure - Completion Strategy and Referral Practice of the ICTY and ICTR from the Perspective of the Defence" International Criminal Law Review - ICLR - vol. 8 (2008), p. 87-108