Legal scholar Vasillios Markezinis dies, aged 79

Sir Vasilios (Basil) Markezinis, a Greek-British barrister and legal scholar, has died in Oxford, United Kingdom, aged 79. 

The news was made public on Monday by his long-time friend, Nikandros Bouras, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at King's College, London, who said that Markezinis had been suffering from dementia in the past four years.

Markezinis was born in Athens on July 10, 1944, the son of the politician Spyros Markezinis. He received his law degree from the University of Athens with a perfect grade and his first doctorate with honors.

He was a tenured professor at the University of Texas and founder and director of the Institute for Transnational Law at the University of Texas at Austin. He was a professor at the University of London where he founded and directed from 2001 to 2007 the Institute of International Law, as well as the University of...