Office: Pretoria
Position: Executive Director
Anton du Plessis is the Executive Director of the ISS. He has worked on human security, international criminal justice and rule of law issues in over 20 African countries, with a focus on delivering training and technical assistance to senior law enforcement and criminal justice officials. Anton has three law degrees and is an admitted advocate of the High Court of South Africa with more than 14 years of legal and management experience. He has worked as a consultant and expert advisor to various UN entities and other intergovernmental organisations, including the UNSC’s Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate and the UN Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force. Anton is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader (2014 - 2020). He is also vice-chair of the Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Terrorism. Before assuming his current positions, Anton was head of the Transnational Threats and International Crimes Division (TTIC) at the ISS. Prior to joining the ISS to found TTIC in early 2008, Anton was a criminal justice and counter-terrorism legal expert for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna. Before that he was head of the Crime and Justice Programme at the ISS where he worked on a broad range of crime and criminal justice policy, research and technical assistance projects. Anton has also worked as a Senior State Advocate at the National Prosecuting Authority of South Africa where he specialised in the prosecution of serious and violent offences, including rape and gang-related crimes. Anton has published numerous articles, book chapters and training guides, and is the co-author of Counter–Terrorism Law and Practice: A Practitioners’ Handbook published by Oxford University Press.