Oliver C. Ruppel has been a Professor in the Department of Mercantile Law since 2011. Prior to this, he held one of the worldwide 14 founding academic chairs of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Geneva (Switzerland), which he established at the University of Namibia, Windhoek, where he had previously also served as Director of the Human Rights and Documentation Centre, a national institute established by statute under the Namibian Ministry of Justice. 

Professor Ruppel is the Director of the Development and Rule of Law Programme (DROP), an affiliate of Stellenbosch University’s School for Climate Studies. He also serves as Director of the Research Centre for Climate Law (ClimLaw) at the Faculty of Law of the University of Graz (Austria). Moreover, he is a Distinguished Fellow at the Fraunhofer Centre for International Management and Knowledge Economy (IMW), Leipzig (Germany); Professor Extraordinaire at the Catholic University of Central Africa, Yaoundé (Cameroon); Strathmore Law School, Nairobi (Kenya); the China-Africa-Institute for Economy and Law, Xiangtan University (China); and the European Faculty of Law, Ljubljana (Slovenia). 

Professor Ruppel is an International Arbitrator with the Association of Arbitrators of Southern Africa and the Swiss Chamber for Commercial Mediation. He is a member of the International Bar Association’s (IBA) Committee on Environment, Health and Safety Law; the International Conservations Union (IUCN) World Commission (WCEL); the advisory board of the Platform for Disaster Displacement, Geneva (Switzerland); the Society of International Economic Law (SIEL); the Association for International Law (ILA); the Wildlife Justice Commission, The Hague (Netherlands); and the Academy of Sciences of Cameroon. He serves on various editorial boards such as the Journal on Environmental Policy and Law; the African Journal of Climate Law and Justice; the International Yearbook on Soil Law and Policy, Springer; the Journal of African Foreign Affairs; the Legal Series on Climate Law and Governance, Nomos; the Legal Series on Law and Constitution in Africa, Nomos; the Journal for Soil Security; the University of Namibia Law Review, and the Nigerian Journal of Environmental Law. He was the Founding Director of the Policy and Energy Security Programme for Sub-Saharan Africa of the German Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) and served as Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) in the 5th Assessment of Working Group II of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).