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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

I have studied the Law and philosophy at the University of Vienna. Currently I am writing my PhD-thesis 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 at the Department of Legal Philosophy.

I have a PhD in social anthropology with a focus in organisational and higher education studies and 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 theses. In the last years I have been in charge of applying for external research funding for academic institutions.

Lisa Rösler started as a research and teaching associate at the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of Vienna in 2018. Further, she is a research assistant of the Austrian Center for Law Enforcement Sciences (ALES). She also works on her doctoral thesis, which examines the use of alternative sanctions in the field of Austrian drug prohibition law and propose necessary adaptions of law and enforcement.

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".

Dr. 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 Assistent 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), were 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.

Born in 1976 in Graz, Austria. Studied Law (Graz) and Conflict Resolution (Bradford, UK). Further education in non-profit management, organisational development and coaching. More than 15 years work experience in human rights, development and global policy-making with (inter)national non-profits in Geneva, New York, India and Austria. Section director of Amnesty International Austria (co-leadership model & part time) since May 2016.

Sebastian Schwamberger studied at the University of Vienna. Since 2016, he has been a research assistant at the Department of Civil Law, first as a prae-doc and since 2019 as a post-doc assistant and ELI consultant for “The ALI-ELI Principles for a Data Economy” which is a project jointly conducted by the American Law Institute and the European Law Institute. Sebastian Schwamberger is author of several publications in civil law, civil procedure law, data protection law and criminal law and is currently focusing his research on data access rights in his habilitation thesis.  

Andrea Sihn-Weber has more than 25 years of management experience in the financial sector and has been dealing with the various fields of action of corporate sustainability for two decades. Since 2012 she has headed Group ESG & Sustainability Management at Raiffeisen Bank International. In addition, she acts as the Managing Director of the Raiffeisen Sustainability Initiative. She passes on her comprehensive expertise in lectures and talks and is active as an editor of management books - such as most recently "CSR and Climate Change" or "CSR and Inclusion".

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.

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.

Dr. Christof Tschohl is the scientific director and shareholder of the Research Institute - Digital Human Rights Center. After 5 years at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Human Rights and a post doc position at the University of Vienna he started his own business in 2012. He is a board member of the data protection NGO "noyb" and member of the fundamental rights expert group of the Austrian Judges' Association. He is also board member of the Austrian Computer Society (OCG) and co-leader of the OCG Forum Privacy.

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.

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/