He has a J.D. from New York University Law School.

Dinstein formerly held the posts of President (from 1991—98), Rector (1980—85), and Dean of Law at Tel Aviv University.

He served twice as the Charles H. Stockton Professor of International Law at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He was also a Humboldt Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany, a Meltzer Visiting Professor of Law at New York University, and a visiting Professor of Law at the University of Toronto.

Dinstein is President of Israel’s national branch of the International Law Association and of the Israel United Nations Association. He served as Chairman of the Israel national branch of Amnesty International and as a member of the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law. He is a member of the Council of the San Remo International Institute of Humanitarian Law.

Dinstein has written on international law, human rights, and the laws of armed conflict.

Books

• The Conduct of Hostilities Under the Law of International Armed Conflict, ISBN 0521198135], Cambridge University Press (2nd ed., 2010)
• The International Law of Belligerent Occupation, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 052172094X (2009)
• War, Aggression and Self-Defence, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521797586 (4th ed., 2005)
• War crimes in international law, co-editor with Mala Tabory, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, ISBN 904110237X (1996)
• Freedom of Religion and the Protection of Religious Minorities, The Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (1991)
• The Release of Prisoners of War, International Committee of the Red Cross (1984)
• Models of Autonomy, Transaction Publishers, ISBN 0878554351 (1981)
• The Laws of War at Sea, (1980)
• The Defence of "Obedience to Superior Orders" in International Law, A. W. Sijthoff (1965)

Articles

• "Comments on Protocol I}, International Review of the Red Cross (2010)
• "War, Aggression and Self-Defence", Commonwealth Law Bulletin, Volume 32, Issue 4 (December 2006)
• "Comments on War", Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy (2003)
• "The Parameters and Context of International Criminal Law", Touro Journal of Transnational Law (1988)
• "International Criminal Law", The Israel Law Review (1985)
• "Oil pollution by ships and freedom of the high seas", Journal of Maritime Law & Com. (1971)