On November 9, 2026, Thilo Marauhn received the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit, awarded by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, from Dr. Julia Monar, Head of the Legal Department at the Federal Foreign Office. Marauhn, Professor of Public Law and International Law at Justus Liebig University in Giessen, is being honored for his contributions to international humanitarian law, to which he is dedicated at PRIF, among other roles, as Head of the Public International Law Research Group.
In her speech at the award ceremony, Monar highlighted both Marauhn’s more than 30 years of service with the German Committee for International Humanitarian Law and his 15 years as a member of the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission, of which he has been president since 2017. Established in 1991, the Commission carried out its first operational activities related to the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza during Thilo Marauhn’s presidency.
“Thilo Marauhn’s research is not only characterized by an extraordinary international and interdisciplinary scope; it is also consistently linked to political practice and the enforcement of international law standards. I am very pleased that his excellent, highly topical research and his long-standing commitment to international law are being honored with the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit, First Class,” said PRIF's Executive Director Nicole Deitelhoff on the occasion of the award ceremony.
Thilo Marauhn’s research focuses in particular on international humanitarian law, human rights, disarmament, and arms control. His expertise contributes to key PRIF projects and research networks. Among his current projects is “Seeing Antisemitism Through Law: Justice Through Experience”, for which he collaborates with Viadrina University in Frankfurt (Oder). The project collects court decisions with anti-Semitic references from Germany, Poland, France, and the United Kingdom and makes them available to the public in an open-access database. He also coordinates the preparation of a commentary on the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons.
Marauhn’s involvement in numerous committees reflects his commitment to upholding international law at the national and international levels: Since 1995, he has been a member of the German Committee for International Humanitarian Law, which he has chaired since 2014. The committee serves as a platform for dialogue between various departments of the German federal government, the German Red Cross, and the academic community. Since 2017, he has served as president of the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission under the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, which investigates serious violations of international humanitarian law in armed conflicts. From 2008 to 2018, he was a member of the Federal Foreign Office’s UN Policy Advisory Board.