Team and Contact

Philipp is a research associate at Bucerius Law School and a PhD candidate at the Walther Schücking Institute for International Law. He holds a scholarship from Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes and is currently a visiting scholar at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law in Cambridge. His fields of research include international adjudication, transitional justice, legal aesthetics and critical legal studies.

Raffaela is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law and manager of the project “Scientific Blogs as Infrastructure for Digital Publishing and Academic Communication: Expanding the Model Project ‘Völkerrechtsblog’“. Her fields of research include international courts and tribunals with a special focus on the ECtHR, human rights law, and the relationship between international and domestic law. Her current research project focuses on Open Access, the right to science and epistemic justice.

Dana Schmalz is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, she holds a scholarship from the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation. Her work centers on refugee and migration law, human rights, and legal philosophy. In her current research project, she is exploring how population growth has been an object of international legal activities.

Christian is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory and a member of the research project “Methods of the history of global law”. His fields of research include the history and normative foundations of the modern law of the sea, processes of norm-genesis in international law and comparative international law.

Hendrik is Researcher at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) and Lecturer at Goethe University Frankfurt. His research focuses on the role of norms in international and transnational relations, particularly in the fields of the use of force, the history of international law and transnational labour relations. One of his current research projects examines The Justification of War and International Order: From Past to Present (OUP 2021, together with Lothar Brock).

Sebastian M. Spitra is a Post-Doc Fellow at the Department for Legal and Constitutional History of the University of Vienna and a member of the Junge Akademie at the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz. His fields of research include the history of international law, postcolonial legal studies, cultural heritage law and global legal history.

Anna Sophia is a Junior Researcher at the Leibniz-Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institute and PhD candidate at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Her fields of research include Internet Governance, the relationship of states, non-state actors and individuals on the internet, the international law of statehood and international legal theory. In her PhD she explores if a new contouring of our understanding of the state under international law is both possible and necessary in the age of the Internet.

Justine is a Research Assistant in International Law and a Law Clerk (‘Rechtsreferendarin’) at the Higher Court Berlin. She studied law in Potsdam and Paris Nanterre, and holds a Master of Laws in International Law from University College London (UCL). Her fields of research include International Human Rights Law, Comparative Constitutional Law, and Fundamental Rights.

Céline is a PhD candidate within the State Silence Research Project (ERC funded) at University College London (UCL). Her current research focuses on non-appearance in inter-state disputes before international courts. Her main fields of interest cover international adjudication, human rights, and EU law.

Thomas works as a Legal Associate for Institutional and Administrative Law at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Beijing, China. Previously, he worked as a Ph.D. researcher at the Chair for Public Law and Comparative Law at Humboldt University Berlin and was a visiting scholar at Columbia Law School, New York. His research lies at the intersection of public international law, the law of international organizations, and law & development.

Sué is a legal trainee (Rechtsreferendarin) in Frankfurt am Main. Her research focuses on international legal theory, especially regarding sources and interpretation.

Julian A. Hettihewa studied law in Berlin and London and is a Ph.D. candidate and research assistant at the Institute for Public International Law in Bonn. Julian was a lecturer at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and is currently a Visiting Student at the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing. His research focuses on the relationship between international law and youth. He is interested in international legal theory and critical approaches to international law.

Jens works in the Leipzig office of Luther. His areas of practice include private construction law, real estate transactions and European state aid law. However, international law is part of his DNA. His previous professional stages include work for a public international law chair at the University of Jena and the Walther Schücking Institute at Kiel University. He has also been involved with the Jessup Moot Court competition since 2011 as a participant, coach, national administrator and judge. He is a member of the Jessup Rules Committee.

Spyridoula (Sissy) Katsoni is a PhD student at Ruhr-University Bochum and a Research Associate at the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict (IFHV). She is a SYLFF Young Leaders Fellow and a member of the SYLFF Mikrokolleg on Forced Migration. Her research interests include international refugee law, human rights law, treaty interpretation and state responsibility.

Ass. iur. Lukas Kleinert, Master Droit, LL.M. is writing his Ph.D. at the University of Hamburg on an European and public international law related topic. He has been a member of the editorial team of the Völkerrechtsblog since 2018.

Valentina studied law in Berlin, Germany, and Birmingham, United Kingdom. Currently, she works as a clerk for the German Federal Ministry of Justice. She is interested in public international law and the law of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Meike Krakau is a PhD candidate and a Research Assistant at the Chair of Public International Law and Public Law at the Ludwig-Maximilians University (Munich). Her research interests include international environmental law with a special focus on climate change litigation, human rights law and international adjudication.

Polina Kulish is a PhD candidate and a research associate at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena. She holds a Konrad Adenauer Scholarship, and has been active in multiple moot court communities as a participant, trainer and judge. Her fields of research encompass the law of international organisations, including the UN, EU, and EFTA, law of international security and media law. In her current research project, she is exploring the nature of member states’ compliance in international organisations.

Dr. Isabel Lischewski is a Post-Doctoral Research Assistant with Prof. Dr. Nora Markard at WWU Münster. Her research interests lie in global governance, critical theory, and access to justice.

Darshana Mitra teaches citizenship and immigration law at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata.  Her work is on human rights, citizenship law, refugee law and migration, and currently she is also working with Parichay, a legal aid clinic she co-founded, which seeks to provide legal assistance to persons excluded from the National Register of Citizens in Assam, India.

Miriam Nomanni is a Research Assistant at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena and is currently working on her doctoral thesis “Der Strafvollzug an Verurteilten nach dem Völkerstrafgesetzbuch”. Her fields of research include international criminal law and its tribunals as well as universal jurisdiction and the enforcement of sentences relating to international crimes.

Benjamin is doctoral candidate and Research Fellow at the Institute for International Peace and Security Law at the University Cologne. His research interests include international peace and security law with a special focus on the ius contra bellum, complicity in international law and general international law.

Raphael is an Advisor to the Executive Director at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF), Adjunct Lecturer at Mannheim Law School and an external PhD candidate at Goethe University Frankfurt.

His current fields of research include international (criminal) courts and tribunals with a special focus on the actorness in international relations, the interplay of pandemics and international law as well as (theoretical) questions pertaining to areas of limited statehood (including the Arctic, Antarctica, or the High Seas).

Muratcan Sabuncu is a PhD student in international law at the universities of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and Basel. He is currently working as a teaching assistant at Moscow State University.

Anna-Julia is a PhD candidate at Humboldt University (Berlin). She
graduated from King’s College, London, Humboldt University, Berlin, and La Sapienza, Rome, and is currently working at the Institute for Media and Information Law at Albert-Ludwigs University Freiburg (GER).

In her research she focusses on international climate change law,
sustainability governance and comparative international law; her PhD project examines the role of domestic courts in international climate
change law.

Sophie Schuberth is a PhD-candidate and researcher at Freie Universität Berlin, working in the Berlin Potsdam Research Group ‘The International Rule of Law- Rise or Decline?’. As part of her PhD project she was a visiting research fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2021/22. She studied law in Berlin (Freie Universität Berlin) and Barcelona (ESADE Law School, Universitat Ramon Llull). Her fields of interest include the law of state responsibility and international humanitarian law. Her current research focuses on the rights and obligations of third states in situations of occupation.

Erik studied law at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is currently working as a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg. His research interests are Comparative European Constitutional Law, in particular European Constitutional Courts, and International Human Rights Law with a focus on the protection of human rights in the cyberspace.

Cathérine is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Academy for European Human Rights Protection (University of Cologne) and an affiliated researcher at the Human Rights Centre (University of Ghent). Her research is often socio-legal in nature and focuses on subjects such as procedural justice, perceived discrimination, Islamophobia as well as #MeToo and ‘Himpathy’. She follows the case law of the ECtHR and regularly contributes to third party interventions to the Court.

Jasmin Wachau is a research fellow and PhD student at the University of Erfurt. She studied international and European law in Dresden, Strasbourg, Graz and Antwerp. Her research interests are comparative constitutional law and international/regional human rights law.

Nesa Zimmermann is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Geneva and Co-director of the Law Clinic for the Rights of Vulnerable Persons. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Geneva, a LL.M. from King’s College, London, and a MLaw from the University of Neuchâtel. Her fields of expertise include human rights law, migration law and constitutional law. Completed in 2020, her Ph.D. analyses particular aspects of vulnerability-reasoning in the caselaw of the ECtHR.

Pearl has been studying law at Friedrich Schiller University Jena
since 2017 and joined Völkerrechtsblog as a student assistant in April
2022.

Daniela has been studying law at Humboldt University Berlin since 2018 and joined Völkerrechtsblog as a student assistant in July 2020.