Speaker details

Biography

Professor Ernest Kofi Abotsi is the Dean of the UPSA Law School and an associate professor of comparative constitutional law and international law. Prior to his appointment, he was the immediate past Dean of the GIMPA Law School-a position he held for six (6) years. Dean Abotsi is also a practicing lawyer, a public intellectual, a member of the Ghanaian Bar, and also the chairman of the Ghana Forum of the Africa Bar Association. Dean Abotsi holds a Bachelor of Laws Degree and Barrister-at-Law Certificate from the University of Ghana and the Ghana School of Law respectively, as well as a Master of Laws Degree from the Harvard Law School, and a Doctorate in Constitutional and international Law from the University of Milan, Italy. He is widely consulted by leading Ministries and constitutional bodies in Ghana. In addition, Dean Abotsi has been a visiting scholar and guest lecturer in leading European and American universities including Oxford University, Fordham Law School, Indiana Law School and the University of Milan, Biccoca, Italy. Dean Abotsi has served on constitutional commissions and advised on reforms of the 1992 Ghanaian Constitution as well as the structural reforms and operations of key ministries and agencies of state. In addition to the above, Dean Abotsi has served on a number of boards and advisory councils and played pivotal roles in shaping the policy directions of corporate entities in Ghana including currently being the chairman of the advisory board of the Chief Executives Network of Ghana, (a body comprising the CEOs of some of the largest and notable corporations in Ghana). He has written extensively in leading peer review journals of law in the world and a text book on Ghanaian constitutional law. In the field of legal practice, he is a lawyer of with a more than two decades standing at the Ghanaian Bar. Given his niche expertise in constitutional and administrative law, he has consulted for a number of state-owned enterprises involved in the generation and distribution of electricity as well as regulatory bodies as well exploration and production of oil and gas and petroleum products. He is an honorary fellow of the Institute of Directors, a member of the Ghana Bar Association and Rotary International.