David Tolbert currently serves as United Nations Assistant Secretary-General, Expert on the United Nations Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials (UNAKRT). On 9 July 2009, he was appointed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as a registrar for the special tribunal prosecuting the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Tolbert will begin work at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon on August 26, 2009.
Previously, he was Deputy Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). He was appointed to this position by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in August 2004. Before becoming the Deputy Prosecutor of ICTY, he was Deputy Registrar in the same institution.
He has worked in the area of international law for many years. He has served as the Executive Director of the American Bar Association's Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (ABA CEELI), an institution that manages rule of law development programmes throughout Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Prior to that, he worked for four years as Chef de Cabinet to former President Gabrielle Kirk McDonald and as the Senior Legal Adviser of Registry at the ICTY.
He also serves as Chief of General Legal Division of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Vienna, Austria and Gaza.
Tolbert obtained his B.A. magna cum laude from Furman University, his J.D. from the University of North Carolina and his LL. M. with distinction from the University of Nottingham. He has published widely regarding international criminal justice, the ICTY and the International Criminal Court (ICC) and has represented the ICTY in the discussions leading up to the creation of the ICC. He has also taught international law and human rights at the post-graduate level in the United Kingdom and practiced law for many years in the United States.