Born in 1957; education at Jean-Paul-Gymnasium (Hof an der Saale), Franz-Ludwig-Gymnasium (Bamberg) and Goethe-Gymnasium (Karlsruhe); 1976 prize of the Foundation F.V.S. (for paper on "La pensée française et l'héritage historique"); legal studies at the University of Heidelberg and the University of Cambridge (Clare College); 1981 first juridical state examination; 1983 Dr. jur. utr. (Heidelberg: summa cum laude); doctoral dissertation on the liability of the EEC for wrongful normative acts); clerkship at various judicial institutions (including the Federal Constitutional Court); 1985 second
juridical state examination;

1985 research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (Heidelberg); research areas: international arbitration, British and French law;1989 Dr. jur. habil./venia legendi for German and foreign public law, public international law and European law (University of Heidelberg, law faculty; thesis on "The Liberty of Conscience and the Normativity of Positive Law" - Maier-Leibnitz-Prize: special prize for constitutional law awarded by the Federal Minister for Science);

1990 professor for public law at the University of Bonn;

1991 call to the University of Konstanz: chair for public international law and European law, constitutional and administrative law; 1993-94 vice-dean, law faculty;

Since 1995 professor at the University of Bonn: chair for public law; director of the Institute of International Law and Institute for Public Law; member, board of directors of the Center for European Economic Law (Zentrum für Europäisches Wirtschaftsrecht).

1999-2004 Vice-rector of the University of Bonn
United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law Corresponding Member, Academy of Law of Colombia; Member, Human Rights Committee of the International Law Association (ILA);Honorary professor at the Universidad Pontificia Javeriana (Bogotá); honorary Professor of the Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Señora del Rosario, Bogotá; Visiting Professor, inter alia, at the University Paris I (Sorbonne), New York University (Global Law School); Universidad Autónoma de México;Adjunct Professor at the City University of Hong Kong. Guest lectures, inter alia, at the Asser Institute, Den Haag, the University of Tel Aviv, Columbia University, University of Virginia, Vanderbilt University, the University of Cape Town, Pontificia Universidad Comillas (Madrid).

Publications: Die Haftung der Europäischen Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft für fehlerhafte Rechtsetzungsakte (1983); Gewissensfreiheit und Normativität des positiven Rechts (1989); Die friedliche Nutzung der Kernenergie in Lateinamerika (1991); Die Verfassungsänderungen im Einigungsvertrag (1991); Internationales Wirtschaftsrecht (textbook on International Economic Law) (8th ed. 2009; editions in Chinese, Japanese and Spanish); Europarecht (textbook on European law) 12th ed. 2010; editions in Chinese, Hungarian, Polish and Ukrainian); Völkerrecht (textbook on public international law) (9th ed. 2010; Spanish edition); Internationale Praxis Gentechnikrecht (commentaries and the documents on the regulation of genetical engineering in the European Union, USA and Japan, 1996 et seq.); Die Befugnisse des UN-Sicherheitsrates
(1998); co-editor and author, Maunz-Dürig, Kommentar zum Grundgesetz; co-editor (with George Bermann/Peter Lindseth), Transatlantic Regulatory Co-operation, 2000. About 180 publications in German, English and Spanish (German and foreign
constitutional law, administrative law, European Union law, public international law,international economic law).

Current research areas: international economic law (inter alia investment protection, international trade law, international regulation of biotechnology); European Union Law; constitutional law; comparative public law, legal aspects of “good governance”.

Herdegen taught International Regulation of Biotechnology in Fall 2011. He is teaching International Economic Law: Salient Issues; and International Regulation of Biotechnology in Fall 2012.