Ahmer Bilal Soofi did his graduation from Government College Lahore and his LLM from the University of Cambridge in 1988. He was enrolled as an Advocate of High Court in 1988 and as an Advocate of Supreme Court in 2000. Currently he is the Senior Partner of a well reputed law firm ABS & Co having its offices in Lahore and Islamabad.
Ahmer Bilal's areas of expertise include High Courts and Supreme Court litigation and also transactional work. He has appeared in several cases before the Supreme Court of Pakistan having national importance. He has also advised Government of Pakistan on several important legal issues.
Ahmer Bilal is the life member of Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan and is the founding President of Research Society of International Law. He was elected as a Member Advisory Council of United Nations Human Rights Council for period of three years in March 2011.
Ahmer Bilal Soofi acted as an expert from Pakistan to provide country report that became part of the ICRC Customary Study on IHL. He has done extensive work for improving legislation in Pakistan relating to HR and IHL. In this regard Ahmer and his team carried out a one volume comprehensive comparison of Pakistan’s entire legislation with the Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocols and the Rome Statute.
He also supervised preparation of a ratification memo for the ICCPR containing comparison of Pakistan’s domestic legislation with the provisions of the ICCPR that formed one of the basis to ratify the ICCPR by the Government. Likewise, his work on CAT and its legislative comparison was considered by the Government when ratifying CAT.
More recently, he has advised the Government on the Child Rights Convention. He has also advised the Government on the legal aspects of the country report from Pakistan on UNSC Resolution 1540. He has also advised the Government of Pakistan on the implementing legislation relating to BWC and CWC.
Ahmer Bilal negotiated in seven successive sessions of the UNGA Adhoc Committee on behalf of G-77 and Pakistan, the UN Convention on Corruption and several of his suggestions received support from negotiating states and were eventually incorporated in the text of the Convention. He was appointed Chair of several working groups. Ahmer was also made member of the 14 member Consistency Group to review the language of the entire Convention.
Later he was made member of the Experts Group to prepare implementing guidelines for the UN Convention. He has been a member of a UNODC Experts Group on Terrorism relating to interpretation of offences contained in UNSC resolution 1373.
Ahmer Bilal is invited frequently to lecture on various aspects of international law issues relating to Pakistan at the National Defense College Islamabad, Command and Staff College Quetta, National Management School Lahore.
He remained a visiting Professor of International Law at the Punjab University for over 10 years. His 45 lecture series on international law are recorded by the Virtual University of Pakistan as an offered course.
Ahmer Bilal was also commissioned as an examiner for a PHD work by the University of Trento, Italy. He has also delivered talks and lectures at venues like International Development Law Organization Rome, Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Sri Lanka, Shanghai University China, Fletcher School USA and Royal United Institute, London.
Ahmer Bilal is member of the Board of Governors of World Wide Fund for Nature Pakistan (WWF). He has represented the civil society before important public interest litigation before the Supreme Court and obtained injunctive orders preventing de-frostation in important national parks of Pakistan.
Ahmer Bilal has also served as Federal Minister in the Caretaker Government, responsible to hold the 11 May, 2013 General Elections.
