Max du Plessis SC > Doughty Street Chambers > London, England > Barrister Profile

Max du Plessis SC

Position

“He has decades of experience in comparative jurisprudence deeply rooted in his vast understanding of international law” – “A model barrister – persuasive and effective advocate and an accomplished writer”

Max du Plessis is a barrister, Lincolns Inn, and senior counsel in South Africa and previously an Associate Tenant at Doughty Street.

He has an extensive practice in international, administrative and constitutional law; and has acted or appeared in leading cases on international law and human rights in the International Court of Justice, the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights and the SADC Tribunal, and has acted as adviser to governments and NGOs on questions of international and international criminal law.  He has acted as counsel in South Africa’s leading international law cases before the Constitutional Court and Supreme Court of Appeal (including cases on diplomatic protection, the death penalty, the duty under international law to combat corruption, and extradition and non-refoulement).

Max has represented NGOs in South Africa in utilizing South Africa’s Implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Act in pursuing cases against individuals accused of international crimes in Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Gaza and Madagascar.

He has written widely in the field of international and international criminal law. Max is adjunct professor of international law at the University of Cape Town, and adjunct professor of public law at the Nelson Mandela University.

Languages

English, Afrikaans (spoken)

Memberships

Society of Advocates, South Africa

Member of Lincoln’s Inn, England.

Education

LL.B (Honours), University of Natal (1997, top of the year)

LL.M, University of Cambridge (1999 – Mandela Scholar and Cecil Renaud Scholar)

PhD – Africa’s Response to the International Criminal Court in (UKZN), University of Cambridge (2012)

Max was the Colenso Fellow at Cambridge University, and the Oppenheimer Fellow at Oxford University, on both occasions taking time off from practice to finalise publications in international law.