Chair History

Department of International Law was established in 1990 as part of the Faculty of Law at al-Farabi Kazakh National University and became the first in the history of Kazakhstan specialized international law department. A founder of the department was Associate Professor, (later Doctor of Law, Professor) M.A.Sarsembayev and he was the first head of the department and managed it from 1990 to 2000. Establishment of the Department of International Law was connected with the process of gaining of Independence by the Republic of Kazakhstan. Previously specialized departments of international law were only in Moscow and Kiev. In al-Farabi Kazakh State University "International Law" discipline was studied at the Department of Public Law and Soviet construction, also at the Department of Administrative Law for a while (in the first half of the 70s) by different lecturers, including U.D. Dzhekebayev, N.S.Sagyndykov, M.A.Binder, A.S.Bogoduhov, M.A .Sarsembayev.

The first representative of Kazakhstan who received his the degree of candidate of sciences in international law, was a U.D. Dzhekebaev (MSU, 1959). In 1978, M.A.Sarsembaev (MGIMO) defended his thesis in international law.Those years he was lecturing on international law at al-Farabi University. In the period from 1985 to 1987, he was sent to organize the law department at Kabul University (Afghanistan) and give lectures on this subject. On his return from Afghanistan in 1989 M.A.Sarsembaev as a dean of the Faculty of Law, began the organizational preparations for establishment of a specialized Department of International Law in the Faculty of Law taking into consideration external economic independence of the Kazakh SSR.

After Kazakhstan has gained its independence, special attention in the training program of international lawyers was given to the aspects of foreign policy. During the period from 1990 to 1993 the core lecturers of the department started to form, the first members of which were G.B.Ispaeva, R.G. Ahmad, A.B.Idrisov, A.K.Urtembaev, P.K.Umirzakov, K.B.Batyrbaev, A. Karashev, S.Zh.Aydarbaev, Zh.M.Amanzholov, G.A.Mashimbaeva.

In 1994 M.A.Sarsembaev defended his doctoral thesis on International Law at the Institute of State and Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1998, the first Kazakhstan Dissertation Council for candidates in "International Law" was founded. S.J.Aydarbaev was first who defended the candidate thesis in the Council in 1999; he was head of the Department of International Law from 2000 to December 2003. From 2004 to September 2008 due to his doctoral studies the duties of head of the Department were transferred to Associate Professor, M.S. Dosymbekova. Since 2008, S.J. Aidarbayev again assumed his responsibilities as head of the Department. In 2011 he successfully defended his thesis for the degree of Doctor of Law, in September 2017 he was appointed as a dean of the Faculty of International Relations. The head of the department of international law was appointed a doctor of jurisprudence Professor Sairambaeva Zhuldyz Talgatovna. She is an expert in the field of international law, in 2001 she  successfully defended the dissertation on the topic: "International legal regulation of the status of transnational corporations".

Heads of the Department of International Law
Marat Aldangorovich Sarsembayev, 1990-2000	Sagyngali Zholamanovich Aidarbayev, 2000-2003, 2008 - 2017
Maryam Sultanovna Dosymbekova, 2004-2008	Sairambaeva Zhuldyz Talgatovna 2017 -present

For more than twenty years, the department of international law has been a major research center in Kazakhstan in the preparation of highly qualified personnel in International Law. The major volume of the research activities are conducted in International Law at the Department, several textbooks, monographs, and other educational and methodological developments in international law are published. There are most important works - Professor M.A.Sarsembaev’s monograph "International legal relations of the states of Central Asia" (Almaty, 1995), teaching aids- M.A.Sarsembaev "International Law" (Almaty, 1996), G.B.Ispaeva "The law applicable to contracts for the International Sale" (Almaty, 1999), M.B.Kudaybergenov "International Criminal Law" (Almaty, 2000), S.Zh.Aydarbaev "juridical regulation of foreign investments" (Almaty, 2000), S.Zh.Aydarbaev "The legal status of natural monopolies in the Republic of Kazakhstan" (Almaty, 2002). In addition, members of the department published a number of collective books and manuals, including "The United Nations and human rights" in Turkish (Ankara, 1998), "Private International Law" (Almaty, 1996), "Legal regulation of foreign economic activity" ( Almaty, 1996), "Human Rights" (Almaty, 1998), "Law of the sea and the hinterland of the state" (Almaty, 2000), "International economic organizations" (Almaty, 2001), and others- just over 30 textbooks. Moreover members of the department have developed and published various collections of international materials and national laws and regulations, including the "International Criminal Law" in 3 volumes, "Customs Law", "International Air Law", "The WTO and the Republic of Kazakhstan "in two volumes," Human Rights ", etc.

Department of International Law in the Republic was first in testing a variety of models of given specialty education. Thus, since 2000 undergraduate program was launched and in 2001 discovered Master's degree in "International Law" was established with specializations in three areas: "International law and foreign trade activities", "International Criminal Law" and "International Law and Diplomacy." In 2005, PhD program had been developed with a three-year study, which were guided not only by domestic scientific supervisor, but also by the foreign supervisor and with workshop in the leading scientific centers in Europe, the U.S. and China.

Teachers of the Department have developed and implemented the latest teaching disciplines in the educational process, which have never been studied in Kazakhstan previously, among which: "European Law", "The right of the CIS", "Fundamentals of the theory of public international law" (S.Zh.Aydarbaev), " Fundamentals of the theory of private international law ", the" International Civil Procedure "(G.B.Ispaeva)," Responsibility in International Law "," Actual problems of the diplomatic and consular law "(Zh.M.Amanzholov)," The international law of the sea "(T . K.Erdzhanov, A.A.Salimgerey), "The legal status of Landlocked Countries" (T.K.Erdzhanov), "International Criminal Law", "The International Criminal Process" (M.B.Kudaybergenov), etc.

During its existence, the department has strengthened in the organizational, scientific and methodological aspects. So, if in 1990 the department was represented by 4.5 members, at the present time, this figure had increased to 33 members. The department has research relations with universities in overseas countries, international organizations and foundations. Faculty members’ scientific works were published in different languages, as Kazakh, Russian, English, German, Chinese, Turkish, and others ​​in a number of foreign countries. International Law department actively uses different technology training in the educational process. Department faculty developed copyrights courses through presentations, MS PowerPoint (public international law, private international law, the law of armed conflict, the right of WTO (Erdjanov T.K.,Baymagambetova Z.M.,Nyssanbekova L.B., Tatarinov D.V), international law and Geopolitics (D.V. Tatarinov) for a variety of disciplines.

Over the past period Department of International Law has made significant progress in scientific and educational activities. The Department is confident in the future and sets new tasks that enables human resources department, presented 33 lecturers, including - 3Doctors in Law, 4 Ph.Ds, 15 Candidates in Law Sciences and 9 Masters in Law.