1. What is the title, rank and position of the Legal Adviser?

The Legal Adviser is a director-general in the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs and carries the title “ambassador”.

2. What are the principal functions of the OLA?

The main task of the OLA is to provide legal advice to the Minister and to other services of the ministry on issues of public international law, European law, human rights law, and international humanitarian law, as well as on international aspects of constitutional and other fields of municipal law. Additionally, the OLA advises other ministries on issues of international and European law.
The Legal Adviser represents Austria in certain proceedings before international courts and tribunals (e.g. ICJ and ECtHR, but not ECJ) and certain human rights treaty bodies. The Legal Adviser and/or the members of the OLA attend international conferences concerning matters of international and European law.
The OLA is also actively involved in designing Austria’s international human rights policy (including co-ordination within the EU) and its presentation at the multilateral and bilateral levels. Together with the Constitutional Law Service of the Federal Chancellery it co-ordinates the implementation of Austria’s international obligations in the field of human rights. The Legal Adviser is also co-chair, together with the legal adviser of the Austrian Red Cross, of the Austrian National Committee for the Implementation of International Humanitarian Law.
The Treaty Office within the OLA administers the procedural aspects of the conclusion of treaties and keeps a list of the treaties concluded by Austria. In certain cases, it fulfils depositary functions.

3. Please give a brief description of staff employed by the OLA, including overseas staff. What is the distribution of posts between men and women within the OLA and what category of staff do they respectively belong to?

Currently there are about 25 university graduates, mostly lawyers, working in the OLA in Vienna.
The Austrian diplomatic service has no special career track for lawyers and expects every diplomat to be a generalist. However, diplomats who have worked as a lawyer in the OLA tend to return to the OLA during their career. Since there is no special career track for lawyers, there are no postings abroad formally reserved for lawyers. Nevertheless, there are some postings that require legal expertise and are usually for diplomats who have worked in the OLA (e.g. postings at the permanent missions to the UN in New York and Geneva or at the Permanent Representation in Brussels).
There are currently 14 female and 11 male graduate staff working in the OLA. The Legal Adviser and 2 out of 3 heads of department are male. 4 out of 9 heads of units are female. In addition, the support personnel of the OLA consists of 6 female and 2 male staff member.

4. Are there any specific recruitment and promotion policies, provisions and/or quotas to ensure non-discrimination and equal opportunities, e.g. for the underrepresented sex, for persons with disabilities or for persons belonging to ethnic or religious minorities or of immigrant origin?

The ministry supports the promotion of women. The Federal Equal Treatment Act provides for positive action until a quota of 50 % female participation has been reached on all levels, and in the ministry a working group on equality dealing with all issues concerning equal treatment and non-discrimination of women as well as a policy on the advancement of women are in place.

Apart from the promotion of gender-equality, the above-mentioned act also prohibits direct or indirect discrimination based on sex, ethnicity, religion or belief, age and sexual orientation, and the general rules for the employment of persons with disabilities apply.

5. Is OLA staff trained on gender equality issues and are these issues mainstreamed into the OLA’s work?

The ministry supports the promotion of women. The Federal Equal Treatment Act provides for positive action until a quota of 50 % female participation has been reached on all levels, and in the ministry a working group on equality dealing with all issues concerning equal treatment and non-discrimination of women as well as a policy on the advancement of women are in place.

Apart from the promotion of gender-equality, the above-mentioned act also prohibits direct or indirect discrimination based on sex, ethnicity, religion or belief, age and sexual orientation, and the general rules for the employment of persons with disabilities apply.

6. Briefly describe the organisation and structure of the OLA.

The directorate-general (“Sektion”) headed by the Legal Adviser is called “Office of the Legal Adviser and Headquarters Issues” and comprises, in addition to the OLA, the protocol and the headquarters and conference departments.The OLA consists of three departments: the department for general international law (covering also the international aspects of constitutional and municipal law), the department for European law, and the department for human rights and minorities.
Each department has one or more units for specialised areas: Treaty Office, multilateral legal issues, economic and environmental law, sanction regimes, international criminal law and the fight against corruption, legal issues of EU institutions and EU foreign relations, minorities, international women’s issues as well as human rights in the UN context and election observation.
In addition, the OLA is supported by a consultant, normally a professor of international law.
Currently, the consultant is Professor (ret.) Gerhard Hafner of the Universities of Vienna and Graz.

7. What is the OLA’s place within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs?

The ministry consists of seven directorates-general, each of which comprises several
departments.

8. What are the main contacts of the OLA within Government?

The OLA is the principal service within the government for issues of public international law, general European law and international human rights law. It advises other ministries when they have to deal with these issues.
The OLA has privileged contacts with the other legal services of the government, in particular with the Constitutional Law Service of the federal chancellery, the ministry of justice and the government advocates (“Finanzprokuratur”) at the ministry of finance.

9. Please describe the relations of the OLA with lawyers in private practice, academics and legal institutions.

The OLA is approached on a regular basis by Austrian private lawyers when they have to deal with issues of public international law. In certain lawsuits against Austria before foreign courts, the OLA liaises with the private lawyers representing Austria in these cases.
The OLA enjoys a close relationship with the academia. Members of the OLA teach at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna and at Austrian universities, participate in the annual Austrian conference on public international law (“Österreichischer Völkerrechtstag”) and meet with academics on a regular basis to discuss current issues of international and European law. University assistants working in these fields are encouraged to work in the OLA for a certain time. Some of them later join the diplomatic service and work in the OLA.

10. Please provide a brief bibliography on the OLA, if available.

Since 2011, the Legal Adviser, together with other experts of the OLA, issues a short report on the “Recent Austrian practice in the field of international law” each year, summarising interesting issues, questions and solutions from the work of the OLA. A similar report is compiled annually by the OLA’s Department for European Law on the “Recent Austrian practice in the field of European Union law” since 2012. See:
“Recent Austrian practice in the field of international law”, in: Zeitschrift für Öffentliches Recht (Journal of Public Law), Verlag Österreich.
“Recent Austrian practice in the field of European Union law”, in: Zeitschrift für Öffentliches Recht (Journal of Public Law), Verlag Österreich.