Born in Iran and raised in Germany, I am a professor of Islamic law at the Department of European, International and Comparative Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Vienna. Simultaneously, I have been teaching for many years as an associate professor for public international law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Copenhagen, and a visiting professor of international relations at the University of Brest, France. Trained at the Universities of London, Dublin and Harvard, and the Max Planck Institute for International Law in Heidelberg, I worked as a consultant for many years on state-building, legal and administrative reform, especially in Afghanistan. In recent years, I have been a senior fellow at the European University Institute in Florence (Fernand Braudel), the Norwegian Academy of Science (Nordic Civil Wars), Harvard Law School (Islamic Legal Studies Program) and the National University of Singapore (Centre for Asian Legal Studies). I like the Viennese music scene, photography and live with two German shepherds, Yoda and Spock.

Ashwita Ambast is a Legal Counsel at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), where she has worked since being awarded the Yale Law School Fellowship in 2016. The PCA is an independent intergovernmental organization established by treaty in 1899, which facilitates arbitration and other dispute resolution proceedings.

As Legal Counsel, Ashwita has acted as tribunal secretary in over 30 international arbitrations involving various combinations of states, state entities, international organizations and private parties, including arbitration proceedings under investment treaties. She has also assisted the PCA Secretary-General and other appointing authorities with over 35 requests relating to arbitral appointments and challenges under the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules and other procedural rules.

Ashwita holds a Bachelor of Arts and Law with Honours from the National Law School of India University in Bangalore, where she was the chief editor of the Law Review and graduated as a gold-medallist. She obtained an LL.M. degree as a Goldman Scholar from Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the Yale Journal of International Law. She is currently a JSD candidate at Yale Law School.

Margit Ammer is a senior legal researcher at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights. One of her research interests is mobility in the context of climate change from a human rights perspective. She is currently leading the research project 'ClimMobil - Judicial and policy responses to climate change-related mobility in the European Union with a focus on Austria and Sweden' (2019-2022) and implementing the project ‘The Concept of Vulnerability in the Context of Human Rights‘.

After studying law in Graz, Austria, and Bergen, Norway, I worked for UNHCR Brussels on projects concerning integration and child protection. Since 2020, I have been working as a university assistant at the University of Vienna in the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law. I am especially interested in human rights in the multi-level system. In my free time, I volunteer as a legal advisor for asylum-seekers in Austria.

Viktoria Baumgartl works as University Assistant at the Department of European and International Law at the University of Economics and Business in Vienna. In this role, she inter alia thoughts students the foundations of EU-Law and works on her dissertation in this legal area. During her law studies at the University of Vienna, Viktoria Baumgartl did an Erasmus-Semester at the University of Amsterdam and was able to gain experience in various areas of working practice.

I studied law in Vienna and hold an LL.M. which I have earned from the King’s College at the University of London. As a Professor, I am teaching and reseaching Roman Law and Legal Gender Studies at the University of Vienna. In this regard, my main areas of scientific work are Roman private law, methods of Roman law making, legal gender studies with a focus on Roman antiquity, as well as Roman economic and social history. I have worked on certain aspects of Human Rights in the context of anti-discrimination law, particularly with regard to same sex-lifestyles.

Christina Binder holds the Chair for International Law and International Human Rights Law at the Bundeswehr University Munich since April 2017. Before, she was University Professor of International Law at the Department of European, International and Comparative Law at the University of Vienna and Deputy Director of the interdisciplinary Research Centre “Human Rights”. She is member of the ILA Committees on the Implementation of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and on Human Rights in Times of Emergency. Binder is member of the Executive Board and former Vice-President of the European Society of International Law (ESIL), was member of the Executive Board of the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratization (EIUC) (2016-2019) and is member of the Council of the Global Campus for Human Rights and Democratization since 2019.

Moritz Birk is Advocacy and Research Director at Amnesty International Austria. From 2012 to 2019, he was Head of the Department “Human Dignity and Public Security” at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights, leading research projects, consulting and training worldwide on human rights and the prevention of torture and ill-treatment. From 2009 to 2010, he was assistant to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. He holds an LL.M. in International Human Rights Law (Lund University), a German law degree (Humboldt University) and is certified as Systemic Organisational Consultant as well as Coach (ARTOP Institute, Humboldt University). He lectures on human rights at Viadrina University, Danube University Krems, and systemic leadership at New York University.

As a senior consultant for value-based campaigns, Bernhard Csengel collaborates with civil society organisations, companies, and social startups to effectively reach their target audience and achieve a common impact.

Bernhard Csengel holds a Master's degree in Political Communication and has been trained in Cultural and Social Anthropology. His expertise lies in climate justice and human rights, which he applies to his work within the Austrian and European civil society. He has led campaigns and mobilisation strategies for organisations such as Amnesty International, Friends of the Earth, and Global 2000.

With over 14 years of experience in NGOs and civil society organisations, Bernhard Csengel is skilled in transforming complex content into impactful campaigns. He is dedicated to developing sound analyses and political communication strategies to ensure that impact remains the focus of his work.

Birgit Daiber is an Associate Professor at the Seoul National University School of Law. She completed her First and Second Legal State Exam in Munich, Germany, and holds a Master Degree in European Law from Saarland University, Germany, and a Doctorate in Law from Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich. Her main areas of research interest are German Constitutional Law, EU Law, the European Convention on Human Rights and Constitutional History. In her research she profits from the practical insight she could gain at the German Federal Constitutional Court, the Court of Justice of the European Union, the German Federal Parliament, the Parliament of Bavaria and the European Department of the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. Additionally, she benefits from research stays at the European Court of Human Rights, the Institute for the History of Modern Times and Contemporary History of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University Paris Nanterre.

Isabel studied Comparative and European Law at the University of Bremen. She then pursued a Master’s degree in International and European Trade and Investment Law in Lyon, France. Besides doing a traineeship at the European Court of Justice, Isabel has also gathered experience working for an international law firm in Luxembourg. Currently, she is working as a University Assistant at the Department of European Law while writing her dissertation.

Sarah Emler is a journalist working for the Austria Public Broadcaster (ORF). Before that, she worked for Reuters News Agency and several radio stations and newspapers in various countries. She also teaches media law and mobile reporting. She is an expert in North- and South American politics and in fact-checking and verifying social media content. In addition to her film and media studies, she also majored in journalism and took additional educational training in Human Rights.

I studied law at the University of Cologne, Germany, focusing on human rights, public international law, EU law and constitutional law, as well as on legal philosophy and theories on statehood. After successfully participating in the Telders International Law Moot Court Competition, I became a Moot Court coach myself. I graduated in 2004, served afterwards for the European Commission, Brussels, and for the Permanent Mission of Germany to the United Nations, New York. In 2009, I finalized my Ph.D. thesis analyzing the conception of supranationality of the European Union. My habilitation thesis (2017) examines the impact of globalization on the conceptions of statehood and sovereignty. Human rights-related aspects played an important role in both qualification works. As a visiting scholar or associated professor, I taught human rights at various universities, i.a. in the US, Russia, Turkey, South Africa and Germany. Furthermore, I have tried to utilize my expertise and skills to support Amnesty International, as well as to contribute to the work of the United Nations Association of Germany, being a board member of the federal branch for two periods and as a co-founder and long-term president of the branch in North-Rhine-Westphalia.
In April 2019, I was appointed Professor of Fundamental and Human Rights at the University of Vienna (Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law) and Scientific Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights. In early 2020, I started conceptualizing the new Human Rights master program which successfully started in 2021.

After studies of law, political science and European Union studies in Vienna, Austria, Santa Clara, United States, and Nice, France, I worked for the federal government as well as the government of Lower Austria, at Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Fundamental and Human Rights and the Institute of Law of BOKU Vienna. I am currently a university assistant at the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law, University of Vienna, as well as a parliamentary assistant of an Austrian MP.

I hold a master’s degree in International Economics from the University of Innsbruck and International Development Studies from the University of Amsterdam. I spent parts of my high-school and university studies in Australia, Spain, Chile, China and Mexico. Prior to joining the ICRC, I was part of an NGO in Israel/Palestine, did a traineeship at the Austrian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and worked for different private and public institutions. In 2015, I started my career in the ICRC as a detention delegate in the Democratic Republic of Congo, followed by a mission as a field delegate in South Sudan, head of office in Myanmar and protection team leader in Iraq. Currently, I am based in Tartus/Syria, as head of sub-delegation.

Nina-Maria Hafner-Thomic has been a research and teaching assistant at the University of Vienna since 2019. Her Ph.D. project focuses on the impact of personalized pricing on consumers and how to deal with this aspect of digitalization from a legal point of view. Her main research areas include general private law, consumer law and data protection law.

Vera Haider started as a research and teaching assistant in the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of Vienna in 2019. She is currently working on her doctoral thesis, which examines the exclusion of judges and other participants in criminal proceedings due to prejudice or bias.

As a prison social worker and a member to the Austrian national preventive mechanism of the Ombudsman Board I am advocating for the rights of imprisoned persons, especially of persons in a situation of vulnerability. My former research position at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights leading an EU project on prison standards was an ideal complement to my practical experience. Among other positions, I have worked with mentally ill offenders in a half-way house, counselled patients of a psychiatric hospital for four years and did development work in the field of HIV/AIDS in Malawi. My Master’s degree in Human Rights and Democratisation and Bachelor’s degree in Social Work build the foundation for this work.

I am a professor of public law and legal philosophy at Vienna University. My main research areas are political philosophy, comparative constitutionalism and human rights from an intercultural and interreligious perspective. I have taught at universities in Senegal, the USA, Slovakia, France, Ethiopia, and Bhutan, and I have conducted dialogue conferences with Iran and Indonesia on human rights.

Jakob Hirtenlehner studied law at the Law Faculty of the University of Vienna and at the University of Utrecht. Since October 2019, he has been employed as a research and teaching assistant at the Department of Civil Law at the University of Vienna. Apart from his Ph.D. project on the implications of the digitalization for consumer contract law, he is also working on a project with the aim of mitigating the risk of discrimination in the development and use of Artificial Intelligence applications.

President, German Association of International Law; Treasurer, International Law Association; Former President (1998-2004, 2008-2012) of the Advisory Committee on the Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities; Former Member of Executive and Management Board of EU Fundamental Rights Agency, representing the Council of Europe (2015-2020); Former Member of the Advisory Councill on Public International Law, German MoFA (2001-2020); Main Research Interests: International Human Rights Law (incl. Refugee La and National Minorities); International Humanitarian Law; Institutional EU Law

Elisabeth Holzleithner, a Professor of Legal Philosophy and Legal Gender Studies, is Head of the Department of Legal Philosophy and speaker of the interdisciplinary Research Platform GAIN – Gender: Ambivalent In_Visibilities at the University of Vienna. Among others, she serves as Vice Dean of Studies at the Faculty of Law and is Chief Financial Officer of the Advanced Research School in Law and Jurisprudence (ARS Iuris). In 2017, she received the Gabriele Possanner State Award for Scientific Achievements in Gender Studies. Her main research areas are legal and political philosophy, legal gender and queer studies, and law, literature and (popular) culture. For a list of publications, visit her site at the university https://ufind.univie.ac.at/en/person.html?id=2116 and follow the link to u:cris.

Claudia Hüttner has long-standing expertise, on the one hand, in empirical research and training in the field of human rights, good governance and development cooperation and, on the other hand, in project design, -management, -implementation and financial management. Additionally, she is well experienced in theoretical and practice-oriented implementation and reflection of the EU integration process, capacity building, institution building, the cooperation with project partners in public administration of the new EU member states, candidate countries and EU institutions.
Claudia Hüttner holds a degree in Political Science and African Studies from the University of Vienna and has been working at the BIM as Researcher and Senior Project Manager until 2020.

I have studied law and Political Science at the Universität Wien and the Universidad de Alcalá, followed by a postgraduate degree in Public International Law at the Universiteit van Amsterdam. My PhD thesis was supervised by Professor Manfred Nowak and dealt with the interplay of regime change and humanitarian interventions.

I am currently teaching international law-related courses at the Universität Wien, Andrassy Universität Budapest, Webster Private University Vienna, and Sigmund Freud Privatuniversität.

Nora holds a degree in law from the University of Vienna and a Master degree in Human Rights and Democratisation from the European Inter-University Centre in Venice. Currently, she works as a researcher and project manager at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights (LBI-GMR) in Vienna. Her research focuses on the prevention of torture and ill-treatment, concrete on strengthening procedural rights in the criminal justice system and the rights of persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities who are deprived of liberty. 

Julia Kienast is a postdoctoral researcher at the Aarhus University in Denmark. Her research focus lies with international and European human rights, particularly in connection with refugee law. Previously, she has worked as a researcher and policy advisor in human rights in various capacities. She completed her LL.M. at the University of Michigan and wrote her PhD thesis at the University of Vienna on mass migration governance and the use of “crisis tools” in Austria. For her Postdoc she continues to focus on the human rights implications of crisis policies in the area of asylum and takes part in the ASILE project as well as in the TemPro project.

Matthias Klonner studied law at the Law Faculty of the University of Vienna and business administration at the Vienna University of Business and Economics. He has been a research and teaching assistant at the University of Vienna since 2021. His main research areas include general private law, consumer law and data protection law. His Ph.D. focuses on unfair commercial practices law, specifically on consumer protection and enforcement of consumer rights.

Ambassador Christina Kokkinakis is the Austrian Representative to the Political and Security Committee (PSC) of the European Union since August 2019. She served as Director for CFSP at the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and international affairs. From 2012 until 2016, she was heading the Human Rights Section at the EU Delegation to the UN in Geneva. She joined the Austrian MFA in 1995 and served as Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva (2005-2009) and as Deputy Ambassador to the Czech Republic (2001-2003). Christina Kokkinakis holds a master´s degree in History and French from the University of Vienna and a postgraduate degree in international relations from the Vienna Diplomatic Academy.

Until recently, Moriz Kopetzki worked as University Assistant at the Department of European Law. In this role, he taught students about the foundations of European Law and worked on his dissertation, among other things. His research focuses primarily on the protection of fundamental rights in the EU as well as the relationship between national and EU law. During his law studies at the University of Vienna, Moriz Kopetzki spent time at universities in Lyon and London and gained experience in various areas of working practice. In November 2022, he will join the Constitutional Service of the Federal Chancellery.

Markus Krajewski holds the Chair in Public Law and Public International Law at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (Germany). He is one of the programme directors of the MA in Human Rights and chairperson of the Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Human Rights Erlangen-Nürnberg (CHREN). He also chairs the Board of Trustees of the German Institute for Human Rights and is Secretary-General of the German Branch of the International Law Association.

I am a lawyer interested in international law with a particular focus on human rights law and international investment arbitration. After having finished my Ph.D. on the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture, I was seconded to the foreign ministry where I served as a legal expert in the team of the Austrian Special Envoy for Holocaust Restitution and as delegate to the UN Preparatory Committee for an International Criminal Court. I was nominated by the Austrian government for the election of the Austrian judge to the European Court of Human Rights election in 2007. My habilitation theses focuses on property protection in international law.
In addition, I was a short-term expert in an EU Twinning Project and was nominated by the Austrian government for the election of the Austrian judge to the European Court on Human Rights election in 2007. I am a legal expert in various investment arbitrations and human rights cases and a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (since 2014) as well as a member of the Panel of Conciliators maintained by the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, alternate member of the Court of Conciliation and Arbitrations within the OSCE (since 2013); member of the Arbitrations panel for the Protocol on Cultural Cooperation to the Free Trade Agreement between the European Union and its Member States and the Republic of Korea.

Study of Law and Cultural Anthropology at University of Vienna, 1982 Dr. Juris. Since 1981 tenure track career at the Faculty of Law, University of Vienna, 2003  Habilitation, venia legendi for “Anthropology of Law”

PRIMARY RESEARCH INTERESTS:

The philosophy of rights of Indigenous Peoples; New Latin American Constitutionalism; Legal Pluralism; the fundamental human right of religious freedom and the protection of traditional indigenous religions, Sustainable development and indigenous Peoples.

PROFESSIONAL AND SCHOLARLY ACTIVITIES:

Research and legal consultancy work in international projects, supporting indigenous land rights registration, the development of indigenous jurisdiction and political autonomy, the protection of indigenous sacred sites and sacred landscapes, and drafting of indigenous legislation in several Latin American and Arctic countries.

Frank Reza Links currently teaches French and Spanish at a Gymnasium in Germany. He also trains teachers in the field of gender and diversity for the district government. And as a freelance trainer, he organizes workshops for individuals, companies and non-profit organizations in the areas of diversity and inter-culturalism. He is also a systemic coach and works with individuals on change management processes. After studying at the Universities of Saarland and Complutense in Madrid, he completed a doctorate at the University of Bonn in the field of Ibero-Romance literature and cultural studies. He publishes his research and interest areas of Romance cultural studies, gender studies and didactics of French and Spanish as foreign languages. He lectures on topics of intercultural competence and anti-discrimination work in the educational context.

Karin Lukas is a senior researcher and head of programme lines at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights. She is also a member and current President of the European Committee of Social Rights of the Council of Europe. She has been a consultant for various national and international organisations, such as the UN Development Programme and the Austrian Ministry for Foreign Affairs. She has done research as well as project-related activities in the field of human rights, in particular women’s rights, development cooperation and business since 2001. She currently works on business and development cooperation issues, and economic, social and cultural rights in Europe.

For 20 years I have been working at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights and still feel a strong motivation making my contribution to improving the lives of disadvantaged people. My research focus is on the intersection of gender and disability as well as grounds of discrimination and violence. From my point of view, it is important to research together with marginalised persons as they are experts of their lives and thus, can significantly provide new insights and knowledge. 

After my Ph.D. in the area of European Union law, the research focus of my post-doctoral thesis (habilitation) became public international law where I analyzed the calculation of compensation and damages by international courts and tribunals (2007). This led me to international investment law and research on the practice of international investment tribunals (2009, 2017). Other research interests include international space law, the law of the Sea and other areas beyond national jurisdiction as well as human rights and Islamic law.

For information see ad personam - mazal.at

Florian Meixner studied History and History of Science in Graz (Austria) and Calgary (Canada). After several years in the academic and cultural sector, he joined the Austrian Commission for UNESCO in 2018, where he responsible for matters of World Heritage, Protection of Cultural Property and Documentary Heritage. In this capacity, Florian Meixner is member of national and interorganizational boards in the field of heritage protection.

After professorships in Heidelberg, Dresden and Graz, Franz Merli has been a professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law at the University of Vienna since 2015. His research focuses on the interaction between national and supranational constitutional and administrative law, democracy and the rule of law, and the further development of general administrative law.

Giuliana Monina works at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights, where she heads the Programme Line “Human Dignity and Public Security”. She joined in 2016 and has since focused on several research projects on the topics of torture and ill-treatment, the rights of persons deprived of liberty, as well as the work of oversight mechanisms.

She has published especially in the field of torture and ill-treatment and is, amongst others, author and co-editor of the “The United Nations Convention Against Torture and its Optional Protocol: A Commentary” (2^nd edn, OUP 2019).

Before joining the Institute, Giuliana Monina was a practicing lawyer in Italy and worked with several human rights organization, including the EU Fundamental Rights Agency. 

Habilitation in 2009; from 2010 until 2020 professor for Public Law at the University of Linz; from 2015 until 2019 dean of the law faculty; since 2020 professor for Public Law and Public International Law at Vienna University of Economics and Business. Main research topics: national, European and international protection of human rights; public law; member of the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee (2021-2018); substitute member of the Venice Commission (since 2015), substitute member of the Management Board of the Fundamental Rights Agency.

Christian Piska works at the University of Vienna and the Danube University Krems as an expert in public law as well as economic, environmental and European law. Numerous institutions use his expertise on current legal issues. As a technology fan, he has always been challenged by the question of the legal framework and regulatory approaches for new technologies. Together with Hon.-Prof. Dr. Schmelz he is the founder and head of the cooperation platform ThinkTank TechnologyLegal. building the future, which deals with the legal implications of disruptive technologies. His other recent activities can be found at staatsrecht.univie.ac.at/team/piska-christian/.

Since 2019 I am member of the Council of Europe Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA) which is responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Convention on Action against Trafficking in its Parties. I hold a PhD in law from the University of Vienna and co-edited the first legal commentary on the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking.

Jan Pospisil is Research Director at the Austrian Study Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution (ASPR) and an Associated Professor in Political Science at the University of Vienna. His work focuses on peace processes and political settlements, donor politics in peacebuilding, resilience, and South Sudanese and Sudanese politics. He is the author of ‘Peace in Political Unsettlement’, published by Palgrave Macmillan, and his most recent monograph on South Sudan as a fragment state has just been published in German by transcript.

Katharina Pötz graduated from University of Graz and China University of Political Science and Law. Since June 2021, she has been a research and teaching assistant at the University of Vienna focusing on general private law, consumer law and data protection law. In her previous studies, she specialized in civil law matters in conjunction with Human Rights.

Shyami Puvimanasinghe works at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva. She was previously a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, and served non-governmental organizations in Gaborone, Botswana. Shyami is a lawyer and holds an LL.B. from Colombo University, an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, and a Ph.D. in Development Studies from the Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University, The Netherlands. She has published widely on issues of sustainable development and global justice.

I completed my studies of law and political science at the University of Vienna, the Université de Franche-Comté (Besançon, France) and the University of Washington (Seattle, USA) with a focus on Comparative Politics and European Law. After my studies, I gained practical experience working in the field of consumer protection rights and later on started working as a university assistant at the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law in 2018. Working at the university, I enjoyed coaching our university’s team at the European Law Moot Court and collaborating on different comparative constitutional study courses.

I am a psychologist and psychotherapist working since 2006 on the intersection of psychology and human rights: I researched the psychological impact of political violence and a following truth commission process in Peru and served for nine years as a human rights monitor for the Austrian Ombudsman Board. Since 2011 I am working in the psychological rehabilitation of survivors of war and torture.

I have studied law and philosophy at the University of Vienna. Currently, I am writing my Ph.D. in legal philosophy about the process of European integration, its foundation in international law and its philosophical implications. I am employed at the University of Vienna as an assistant in the Department of Legal Philosophy.

Adel-Naim Reyhani completed his doctoral studies at the University of Vienna with a dissertation on ‘The Rightlessness of Refugees in Libya’. Before joining the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights as a researcher in 2017, he worked in the field of asylum and migration law for the Austrian Asylum Court, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) as well as the Diakonie Refugee Service. His research focuses on questions related to access to asylum in the European Union from the perspective of international refugee law as well as legal philosophy.

I have a Ph.D. in social anthropology with a focus on organizational and higher education studies. I have been teaching at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Vienna, among other things supporting students in finishing their Master’s theses. In the last years, I have been in charge of applying for external research funding for academic institutions.

Lisa Rösler was a research and teaching associate at the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of Vienna. Further, she was a research assistant at the Austrian Center for Law Enforcement Sciences (ALES). With her doctoral thesis, she examined the use of alternative sanctions in the field of Austrian drug prohibition law and proposed necessary adaptions of law and enforcement. Currently, she is working at the Federal Ministry of the Interior.

Ines Rössl studied law in Vienna and Dijon. After having worked in a law firm where she specialized in refugee law, she returned to the academic field, initially to the Department of Legal Gender Studies at the University of Linz and then back to the University of Vienna: Since 2017 she is part of Prof. Elisabeth Holzleithner's team at the Department of Legal Philosophy. She is also part of the editorial team of the law journal "juridikum. zeitschrift für kritik - recht - gesellschaft".

Nora Salem completed both legal state exams in Germany in 2012 and holds a Ph.D. in Law from Friedrich-Schiller University in Jena. She has conducted most of her research as Visiting Scholar in New York and worked in various capacities for the UN Secretariat (2013-16). Since then, Nora has served as International Relations Advisor to the Minister of Tourism of Egypt as well as Assistant Professor for Public International Law, first at the American and then at the German University in Cairo, where she holds lectures on Introduction to Egyptian and Sharia Law, Public International Law in the Middle East, Collective Security Measures within the UN system, as well as Egypt and the Women’s Rights Convention. In her research, she focuses on Human Rights Law in Muslim majority States and has recently published a book on The Impact of the UN Women’s Rights Convention on Egypt’s domestic legislation (Brill), where she assessed Egypt’s Personal Status Law; Criminal Law; Labor Law; Nationality Law; Anti-Human Trafficking Law and Egypt’s 2014 Constitution, in light of gender discriminative provisions.

I am a professor of International Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) and a visiting/guest lecturer at numerous foreign universities and institutions. Currently, I serve as a member of the UN Human Rights Committee (2019-2022), its Vice-Chair (2021-2022) and Special Rapporteur on the Follow-up procedure on Concluding Observations (2021-2022), and as an arbitrator and a member of the Bureau of the OSCE Court of Conciliation and Arbitration (2019-2025). Among other professional affiliations, I am a President of the Slovene Branch and a member of the Executive Council of the International Law Association (ILA), a lifelong member of the European Society of International Law, a member of the UNODC Anti-Corruption Academic (ACAD) Initiative and the European Centre for Responsibility to Protect. I am also as an independent expert, a member of the National Inter-ministerial Commission for Human Rights and of the Inter-governmental working group on International Humanitarian Law.

I completed legal studies at the University of Vienna in 1993, and, finally, earned my doctorate in 2017 (on child rights standards concerning domestic violence against children).

Staff member of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute since 1995, main areas of work: human rights of children (since 1997), trafficking in human beings (since 2006); author of legal commentaries on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (2006) and on the CoE Anti-Trafficking Convention (2020); I was one of the lead researchers for the UN Global Study on Children deprived of Liberty (2019). Lecturer on human rights, civic education, child rights, human trafficking at Vienna University (since 2002).

Member of the Council of Europe’s Expert Group on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA), 2011-2018 (Vice-President 2013/14); Member of the Expert Commission on Best Interests of the Child in Asylum Proceedings in Austria (2021), of the Child Rights Advisory Board of Austria (since 2012), of the Board of the Austrian National Coalition for the Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (ongoing).

After general law studies in Vienna, work experience in cultural organizations and a master’s program in international human and women’s rights, I worked as an Assistant Lawyer at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg from 2009 to 2013. At the ECtHR, I dealt with complaints against Austria under the ECHR, drafted decisions and assisted with two Grand Chamber cases. In 2014, I was appointed an administrative judge at the Federal Administrative Court in Vienna, where I decide on complaints in data protection proceedings as well as complaints regarding applications for international protection.

I completed my law studies at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz. My major field of study was criminal law. Prior to my LL.M. studies in Human Rights at the University of Vienna, I worked at a Law Office in the Criminal Law Department. Currently, I am working as a University Assistant at the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law at the University of Vienna, focusing on constitutional law, international and European human rights protection, as well as the relationship between digitalization, artificial intelligence, and human rights. During my doctoral research, I seek to address the human rights challenges resulting from hate speech on content sharing and social media platforms, as well as from its regulation, by analyzing current legislative developments in Austria and the legislation and jurisprudence of the CJEU and the ECHR. As the scientific coordinator of the Human Rights Master, I am also responsible for the planning the contents of the program and the organization of all extracurricular events. 

Philipp consults non-governmental organizations on how to change things for the better. He is also an observer of the police and the right to peaceful assembly. As a human rights expert he has been sent to advisory boards of national and regional authorities. He lives in Vienna and tried to learn Vietnamese.

Konstantina Stavrou is University Assistant (pre-doc) at the University of Vienna and doctoral fellow of the Austrian Academy of Sciences focusing on the use of user-generated evidence in international criminal proceedings. In 2022, her PhD research received an award for outstanding PhD research by the Heinrich Graf Hardegg’sche Foundation as well as a fellowship for highly qualified doctoral candidates by the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Since 2020 she is a researcher in the program Human Rights and International Criminal Law at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights, researching on the topics of international criminal proceedings before domestic courts, UN-mandated mechanisms for the investigation of core international crimes and procedural rights. In addition, she is researching on topics in the field of human trafficking, such as child trafficking and compensation of trafficking victims.

Konstantina has graduated with an LL.M in Public International Law, specialising in Human Rights, from the University of Utrecht and has participated in a number of Moot Courts. Her master thesis, examining the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, has been awarded the best master thesis award for 2017-2019 by the Hellenic Society for International Law and International Relations.

Markus Stemeseder studied law with a focus on international law and human rights law at the University of Vienna and Sciences Po Paris. Prior to his current position, he gained practical experience as a trainee adviser at the Permanent Mission of Austria to the United Nations in New York, at the Commercial Department of the Austrian Embassy in Morocco, and in legal counseling for refugees. His research focuses on public international law, new technologies and human rights law. He is also involved in the work of multiple NGOs.

Karl STÖGER is Professor of Medical Law at the Institute for Constitutional and Administrative Law at the University of Vienna since 2020. Before this, he was Professor of Public Law at the University of Graz. He also worked as an Associate with a Vienna-based law firm for several months and regularly teaches as an invited professor at the University Paris-Dauphine. His main areas of research are medical law (esp. hospital law, professional law, recently increasingly epidemic law and legal issues of AI in medicine) and the law of administrative procedure.

Walter Suntinger has a background in (international) law and systemic change management, with 30 years of experience in human rights research, consulting, training and teaching. His specialty is the practical application of human rights in a variety of contexts: preventing monitoring of places of detention, human rights reform and training in the police and the criminal justice system and consulting activities for business.

Agnes Taibl has over ten years of experience in public sector reform and development cooperation, with specific knowledge of good governance, human rights and the rule of law. She has been deployed by the German GIZ to a project to support democratic reforms in Zimbabwe and a program strengthening local governance and decentralization in South Africa.
In her current function at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights, Agnes has managed numerous EU-funded projects contributing to public sector reform processes in the European Enlargement and Neighbourhood context. She has also implemented several missions and assignments under framework contracts with the Austrian Development Agency and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.

Nina-Maria Thomic has been a research and teaching assistant at the University of Vienna since 2019. Her PhD project focuses on the impact of personalised pricing on consumers and how to deal with this aspect of digitalisation from a legal point of view. Her main research areas include general private law, consumer law and data protection law.

Gabriel Toggenburg works as a lawyer at the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) where he is heading the Sector Human Rights Structures and Mechanisms. He has been working at FRA since 2009 and functions amongst others as the contact point for the agency’s Scientific Committee. Before joining FRA he worked in academia. Gabriel studied law, holds a PhD of the EUI in Florence and is an Honorary Professor for European Union and Human Rights Law at the university at Graz.

I am Professor of European Legal and Constitutional History at Vienna University. I received my Habilitation in Legal History, Philosophy of Law, Theory of Law, and Civil Law from Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. Until 2012, I worked at the Max Planck Institute in Frankfurt and taught at the law faculty. I held further teaching positions at the Universities of Bonn, Hamburg, Konstanz, Lyon, Tübingen, and Vilnius. During my career, my research and teaching was awarded with several prizes and fellowships. I also worked as a free lance journalist, particularly for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

As Head of Group ESG & Sustainability Management, Christine focuses on sustainability reporting, ESG governance, internal and external stakeholder engagement, ESG ratings of the Group, ESG strategy development in the context of the Group's relevant ESG impact topics and compliance with the UNEP FI Principles for Responsible Banking. She coordinates the holistic, crossdivisional ESG approach for the Group and is project owner of the Human Rights Policy implementation.

Andreas R. Ziegler served as a civil servant working for several Swiss Ministries (Foreign Affairs, Trade) and international organizations (EFTA, EU). He has widely published on Swiss, international and European law (including “Swiss LGBT Law, 2^nd edn. 2017) and regularly advises Governments, International Organizations, NGOs and private clients and has represented them before various domestic and international courts and arbitral tribunals. He is a Member of the European Commission of Sexual Orientation Law (ECSOL). He is the President of the Swiss Society of International Law, the Swiss Branch of the International Law Association (ILA) and on the Board of the Swiss and the German Societies of International Law and the European Law Faculties Association - ELFA). More at: http://andreasrziegler.com/

Julia Zöchling studied law at the University of Vienna. During her studies, she completed an Erasmus semester in Lyon and participated in the Straniak Academy for Democracy and Human Rights in Montenegro. After obtaining her law degree, she worked in the Research and Documentation Directorate at the CJEU for over a year, first as a trainee and then as a temporary agent.
Since July 2020, Julia Zöchling has been working as a university assistant (prae doc) in the Department of European, International and Comparative Law. Her research focuses on internal market of the EU and competition law.