Professor Gornig, born in 1950 in Deggendorf, studied law and political science in Regensburg and Würzburg, was a legal trainee at the Higher Regional Court of Nuremberg and received his doctorate in 1984 after his second state law examination under Professor Dr. Dieter Blumenwitz in Würzburg as doctor iuris utriusque. In 1986, he completed his habilitation and received the venia legendi for public law, international law and foreign public law. After holding professorships in Mainz, Bayreuth and Göttingen, he was appointed to the Georg-August University of Göttingen in 1989. There he was Director of the Institute of International Law and Dean in 1994/95. Since April 1995, he has taught at Philipps University in Marburg, where he held the Chair of Public Law, International Law and European Law and has since been Executive Director of the Institute of Public Law. From October 2006 until the end of September 2012, Professor Gornig was elected Dean of the Faculty of Law at Philipps University in Marburg six times. He was spokesman of the Research Center for Financial Services Law at Philipps University Marburg, spokesman of the Research Center for Medium-Sized Business, and spokesman of the Interdisciplinary Working Group on Europe at Philipps University Marburg. Until June 15, 2004, he was also a full-time judge at the Hessian Administrative Court in Kassel. Since 2009, Professor Gornig has been a deputy judge at the Hessian State Court.

From 2000 to 2003, Professor Gornig was Director of the Institute for German Research of the Göttinger Arbeitskreis, e. V. He is on the Board of the Göttinger Arbeitskreis and has been its President since April 2014. He has been President of the Gdansk Natural History Society since September 1, 2009. He is the founder and was for a long time the president of the Marburg Law Society. He is also co-founder and vice-president of the Marburg Society for Scientific Cooperation with Arab States. e.V. and co-founder and board member of the EU-China Institute for Comparative Law at the University for Finance and Economics in Nanjing (People's Republic of China). At Harbin University of Technology (People's Republic of China), he was Vice Director of the Institute of German Law. He is also the founder and co-director of the Center for Human Rights and Good Governance in Iringa, Tanzania. He is on the board of the German-Belarusian Lawyers' Association and has been on the board of the Marburg Scholars' Society since 2018. From 2005 to 2008, Professor Gornig was a member of the supervisory board of a large German financial services company based in Düsseldorf.

On March 13, 2003, Professor Gornig was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Law at the University of Pécs (Hungary). On March 20, 2009 he received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Law at the Lucian Blaga University in Sibiu (Romania), and on December 10, 2009 he received an honorary doctorate from the Universidad Autónoma de Chile in Temuco (Chile), of which he is also a founding member. Professor Gornig is a permanent visiting professor at Lucian Blaga University in Sibiu (Romania), Harbin Technical University, Wuhan University, Nanjing University of Finance & Economics, Nanjing Hohai University (People's Republic of China) and the National Technical University of Kaohsiung I (Taiwan).

In 2021 Professor Gornig received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesverdienstkreuz) and in 2022 the Order of Bernardo O'Higgins of the Republic of Chile. It was awarded by the President at the request of the Chilean Foreign Minister. In 2023 he received a two-volume commemorative publication for his life´s work, edited by Peter Hilpold and Christoph Perathoner.

Professor Gornig's teaching activities include constitutional law, all compulsory subjects of administrative law, international law, European law and general political theory. He has authored and edited over 600 publications in ten languages on constitutional, administrative, international and European law. The focus of his academic work is on international law. His lecturing activities are extensive. He retired in March 2016.

Professor Gornig is married to the self-employed pharmacist Doris Gornig and has two children, Christopher (born 1987) and Carolin (born 1990).

May 15, 2022