Mohamed Chande Othman is former Chief Justice of Tanzania, a position he held from December 2010 to January 2017, after periods as a Judge of the Court of Appeal and the High Court. He currently serves as Eminent Person appointed by the UN Secretary General under a UN General Assembly mandate and charged with the examination of new information relating to the tragic death on 17-18th September, 1961 of the 2nd United Nations Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjöld and other members of his party. He is also Chancellor of Ardhi University in Tanzania; Chairperson of the Africa Group for Justice and Accountability (AGJA), a Pan-African independent group of legal experts on International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights; and is a member of Elders Council of the African Judges and Jurists Forum (AJJF).

In 2019-2020, Justice Othman served as one of the Independent Experts appointed by the Assembly of State Parties of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to review the ICC and Rome Statute System.

Justice Othman’s previous experience includes that of Prosecutor General of East Timor, and Chief of Prosecutions of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). He has also served as a member of the UN Human Rights Council’s High-Level Commission of Inquiry into the Situation in Lebanon following the Israel-Lebanon Armed Conflict in 2006 and as the UN Human Rights Council ‘s Independent Expert on the human rights situation in the Sudan (2009-2010).

Justice Othman has published books and peer-reviewed articles on International Humanitarian Law, Refugee Law, Criminal Law and the Law of Evidence.