Prof. Dr. János Martonyi university professor, habil., Ph.D., academic candidate in legal and political sciences was the head of the Department over 15 years, since it was established until 2010. He earned his law degree in Szeged at the Faculty of Law of József Attila University, where he graduated summa cum laude in 1967. In 1969 he made the bar exams and in 1971 the foreign trade legal expert exam. He worked from 1968 as legal advisor, then from 1979 as commercial secretary at Commercial Agency of Hungary in Brussels. From 1984 he was lawyer at the Ministry of Foreign Trade and the Ministry of Commerce, later vice minister and governmental commissioner. From 1990 until 1994 he was secretary of state, from 1998 until 2002 the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary. He was attorney at law from 1994 until 2008, since 2010 he is the Minister of Foreign Affairs again.

In 1979 he got candidate grade in sciences of law and state, senior professor since 2000. From 1988 until 2000 he taught at the Faculty of Law of Eötvös Lóránt University in Budapest, he was invited professor at European University in Brugge and Natolin (Warsaw) from 1994 until 1998 and at the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest from 1996 until 1997. From 1996 he was establishing associate professor at the Department of Private International Law at Faculty of Law, University of Szeged, since 2000 he is academic professor, from 1996 until 2010 he was the head of the Department.

His scientific research focuses on international economic law, European law and the law of globalisation. He is the author of more than 60 scientific publications in 5 languages. During his rich and fruitful academic work he wrote 50 articles and studies in Hungarian, 12 in English, 2-2 in German and French and 1 in Spanish. In the 1970s he published particularly in the field of transportation law, than in the 1980s his focus turned to the EC law, European integration, and the company and competition law. In the 1990s, especially in the second half, he published in the fields of Hungarian private law, EU law, global law relations. Some of his works in English: World Trading System and Socialist Countries of Eastern Europe (Background study prepared for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, June 1986), Helping and Hindering Hungarian Reforms: A Choice to Be Made (The Hungarian Economy, November 1987), Barter and Countertrade (Economic Background, Legal Structure and Problems to Overcome), Doing Business between the EEC and the Comecon (Seminar Services Int., Budapest, November 1987), Eastern European Countries and GATT (The Political and Legal Framework of Trade Relations between the European Community and Eastern Europe, 1989, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht), Privatisation in Hungary; International Privatisation, Global Trends, Policies, Processes, Experiences (Canada, May 1990), Some Issues of Capital Market Regulations in Hungary ("Round Table Discussion" EBRD, 1995), Competition in Hungary (European Counsel Direct 1996, with Zoltán Barakonyi).

He is fluent in English, German and French.