Chief Legal Officer and Head of the Legal Division

Purpose of the post

The Chief Legal Officer and Head of the Legal Division assumes a leading responsibility on ICRC legal matters both externally and internally and supervises the management of various teams of legal advisers.

Main duties and responsibilities

Leadership on people management

• Plays a leadership role in defining and developing the Legal Division’s priorities, in line with the Department’s wider ambitions
• Demonstrates a vision of the necessary connections between the various Units within the Legal Division,  promoting adhesion amongst the senior managers as well as encouraging them to contribute to the work on transversal issues within the Division, Department, the ICRC and externally
•  Manages in a participative manner her/his subordinates, in particular the heads of unit, in accordance to HR rules and procedures as well as ICRC’s People Leadership and Management principles
• Ensures adequate information flows among division members and record-keeping for institutional purposes
• Has direct financial responsibilities for the division budget

Leadership on International Law Issues

• Leads in proposing a prospective vision on the role of international humanitarian law,  its current status as well as anticipates possible developments, specifically  by identifying the main legal trends in relation to ICRC’s response to operational challenges
• Defines global legal positions of and potential policy implications for the ICRC and its positioning as a leading organization on current and emerging IHL issues.
• Establishes priorities and defines strategic action plans and institutional positions in response to these trends while building and maintaining transversal working relationships with other stakeholders in the ICRC whose work is impacted by such legal issues
• Ensures institutional coherence in major issues of IHL and other relevant norms and the provision of timely and adequate legal advice on operational issues
• Engages with key and high-level external stakeholders on institutional legal issues. This includes governmental, Movement, international organizations and academic stakeholders as well as overall responsibility for technical partnerships with specific National Societies within broader institutional framework agreements.

External representation

• Represents and engages the ICRC on legal issues with key and high-level institutional interlocutors as well as in multilateral fora, both in the political, policy and legal-technical fields such as legal peers in ministries and in National Societies as well as academic circles.
• Provides leadership in the development of a strategy relating to engagement with digital media

Contribution to the wider strategic and political orientations of the Department

• Contributes and assists the Office of the Director of the Department in defining the departmental strategic and political orientations, in particular in the area of international law issues.

Education and experience required

• PhD in law, or equivalent, with confirmed expertise in IHL and other relevant norms
• Confirmed experience in carrying out a job with varied substantive and managerial responsibilities.
• Fluent in both English and French

Desired profile and skills

• Excellent written and oral communication skills (English and French with advantage of other languages)
• Strong and positive management skills
• Excellent interpersonal skills and capacity for collaborative team work, both within ICRC and the Movement and across the legal sector
• Ability to lead, manage, motivate and develop people
• Ability to build partnerships within and outside ICRC
• Computer proficiency

Additional information

• Location :                           Geneva
• Type of contract :               Open-ended
• Activity rate :                      100%
• Length of assignment :       4 years, extendable
• Estimated start date :         January 2019
• Application deadline :      Sunday, 28th October 2018