Lecturers 2025
Alessandro Drigo graduated in Law from the University of Florence with a thesis on Artificial Intelligence and Tort Law. He currently serves as a Research Assistant at the Chair of Civil Law and Legal Philosophy at Justus Liebig University Giessen, while also collaborating with the Chair of Private Law at Università Bicocca di Milano. He is simultaneously pursuing a PhD at the University of Lucerne, focusing on the legal standing of future individuals.
Alessandro has presented his research at prominent academic conferences, including IVR 2024, the Fünfter Kongress der deutschsprachigen Rechtssoziologie (2023), and the Digitization, Artificial Intelligence, and Law conference (2019). His scholarly output includes multiple contributions to edited volumes and peer-reviewed journals. Most notably, his latest article, "Future Generations in Climate Litigation: Early Whispers of an Intergenerational Law?" , was published in the 2024 edition of the German Law Journal .
Ayşe-Martina Böhringer is an assistant professor at the chair of Public Law and International Law (Prof. Dr. Thilo Marauhn)/Franz von Liszt Institute for International and Comparative Law, Justus Liebig University Giessen. Her current research interests relate to German constitutional law, the sociology of law and public international law, with a special focus on human rights law, environmental law, international institutional law, the law of armed conflict and the sociology of public international law.
Benoit Mayer is Professor of Climate Law at the School of Law at the University of Reading. He previously worked at the University of Wuhan (2015-2016) and at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2016-2024). He is the Executive Editor-in-Chief of the Chinese Journal of Environmental Law and a member of the UNFCCC Roster of Experts. Professor Mayer holds degrees from the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, McGill University, and the National University of Singapore.
Prof. Mayer’s research explores various aspects of international and comparative climate law. His research has explored the climate-migration nexus, interpreted the obligations of states relating to the mitigation of climate change, and explored the role of national environmental assessment tools in global efforts to mitigate climate change. His research has featured in the American Journal of International Law , the European Journal of International Law , and International and Comparative Law Quarterly , and in monographs published with Cambridge and Oxford University Press.
Edwin Egede is a Professor of International Law and International Relations at Cardiff University's School of Law and Politics. He also serves as an Adjunct Professor at Nelson Mandela University's Department of Public Law in South Africa. Furthermore, he is a Fellow of Higher Education (FHEA) and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society(FRGS). He is also Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales (FLSW), the National Academy for Arts and Sciences of Wales.
He has also worked as a consultant for international organisations such as the United Nations, the International Seabed Authority and the African Union, and is currently a member of the Legal and Technical Commission of the International Seabed Authority. Additionally, he is a member of the Advisory Board of the Brazilian Yearbook of Law of the Sea(BYLOS) and one of the editors of a six-volume book project on The Law of the Sea - Contemporary Norms and Practice in Africa.
He undertakes interdisciplinary teaching and research in the fields of Law of the Sea, Public International Law, Human Rights in Africa, and International Organizations, particularly the United Nations and the African Union. In these fields, he has published widely and given academic and professional presentations at a number of international conferences.
Farnaz Dezfouli Asl is an LL.M graduate from the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights (2019). She holds a Master’s degree in Public International Law from Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran (2018) and a Bachelor’s degree in Law from Guilan University in Rasht (2013). She has several years of experience working for the United Nations, NGOs and the private sector on topics such as private security, business and human rights, the protection of refugees and labour rights in Iran and Geneva. Prior to herwork with the chair, she worked as a Human Rights Associate with the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) in Nouakchott, Mauritania. She conducted training and capacity building activities for the security forces including the military, gendarmerie, police and peacekeeping missions on IHL, IHRL, gender and immigration issues.
At the moment, she works as a research associate on the "Dynamics of Security Project" and is a PhD candidate in Public International Law under the supervision of Dr Professor Marauhn.
Her academic interests include the interplay between IHRL and IHL, the use of force in counter-terrorism operations, and the Implementation of IHL through human rights mechanisms and history and sources of IHL
Jelena Palmenac is an international humanitarian lawyer with over 15 years’ experience in practicing humanitarian and human rights law in international criminal justice systems and humanitarian organisations. She currently serves as Coordinator and International Humanitarian Law/Armed Groups Expert for the UN Security Council Panel of Experts on Libya established pursuant to resolution 1973 (2011). From 2017 to 2021, Jelena also served as an international humanitarian law expert madated to provide legal advice to key humanitarian and diplomatic actors responding to armed conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa region. Her work focused on enhancing the protection of civilians in armed conflicts, including in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Libya.
Prior to her regional mandate, she served for almost 10 years at the Offices of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. There she was responsible for legal analysis of serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law in situations under the Prosecutor’s preliminary examination. During her time at the ICC, she was a member of the working groups on the Prosecutor’s Policy on Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes, and the Policy on Children.
Jelena holds a Ph.D. in law from the Faculty of Law of the University of Geneva. Her book Unravelling Unlawful Confinement in Contemporary Armed Conflicts (Brill, 2021) has won the prestigious 2022 Francis Lieber Prize awarded by the American Society of International Law for an exceptional book in the field of the law of armed conflict.
Johanna Trittenbach is a PhD candidate at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies at Leiden University. She is a member of the Kalshoven-Gieskes Forum on International Humanitarian Law and a supervisor at the Leiden IHL Clinic. Johanna’s expertise lies in the area of disarmament and arms control. Her PhD research focuses on arms transfer controls of conventional weapons under international law. She holds an LLM degree in Public International Law from Leiden University and is a co-founder of the Fenix Foundation.
León Castellanos-Jankiewicz is Senior Researcher in International Law at the Asser Institute, and supervisor of the International Law Clinic on Access to Justice for Gun Violence at the University of Amsterdam Faculty of Law. His work focuses on the human rights implications of irresponsible arms trade and the history of public and private international law.
Dr. Omar Fassatoui is an UN Human Rights Officer with experience in the field in Tunisia and Mauritania. He is experienced in working on non-discrimination, engaging with the government, parliament and national human rights mechanisms (NMRF, NPM, NHRI), supporting UN treaty bodies work and special procedures visits. He is also a certified trainer in human rights with long experience in capacity building of civil society and human rights defenders.
Before OHCHR, Dr. Omar Fassatoui worked as a lawyer and as a lecturer/Post doc researcher with field research in the MENA region and published articles.
Sabrina Rewald is a Research Associate at the Kalshoven-Gieskes Forum on International Humanitarian Law of Leiden University and a Supervisor of the Leiden International Humanitarian Law Clinic. Sabrina earned her advanced LL.M. in European and International Human Rights Law cum laude from Leiden University. Prior to shifting to international law Sabrina worked in civil litigation and as a solicitor in Ontario, Canada, as well as in reproductive and gender justice advocacy in Washington, D.C. and Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States. Sabrina is a licensed attorney in Michigan, U.S. and Ontario, Canada.
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Sannimari Veini studied law at the University of Turku, Finland, and graduated with an LL.M. degree in 2021. During her studies, Sannimari specialized in public international law and wrote her Master’s thesis with the title “Redrawing the Red Line: Researching Possibilities of International Law to Secure Accountability for the Use of Chemical Weapons in Syria Through Individual Criminal Responsibility”. From May 2022 onwards Sannimari has been working as a research assistant at the Chair of Public Law and International Law and is doing her doctorate under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Thilo Marauhn. Sannimari is also an Associated Researcher at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt and CBWNet project. Sannimari’s main research interests include issues of arms control and disarmament, and the interaction of these fields with other fields of international law, and politics. She is especially focused on chemical weapons and questions surrounding different avenues of accountability for their use. |
| Thilo Marauhn is a German expert on international law. He holds the Chair for Public Law and International Law at the Justus Liebig University Giessen and heads the research group on international law at the Leibniz Institute Hessische Stiftung Friedens- und Konfliktforschung / Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF). Educated at the Universities of Mannheim, Wales (Aberystwyth, U.K.), Bonn and Heidelberg, Professor Marauhn holds a law degree (state exam, equivalent to J.D., Heidelberg), a Postgraduate Diploma in International Law and Relations (Wales), an M.Phil. in International Relations (Wales), and a Dr. iur. utr. (Heidelberg). He earned his venia legendi in public law, international and European law from the University of Frankfurt/Main. Marauhn has been a visiting professor at various universities, including the University of Lapland (Rovaniemi, Finland), the University of Bergen (Norway), the University of Warwick (UK) and the University of Wisconsin – Madison Law School (US). Since 2001, he has held a permanent visiting professorship in Constitutional Theory at the Law Faculty of the University of Lucerne (Switzerland). Since 1995, Marauhn has been a member of Germany’s National IHL (International Humanitarian Law) Committee and its chairman since 2014. From 2008 onwards, Marauhn has been a member of the Advisory Board of the German Foreign Office on the United Nations. In 2011, he was elected as a member of the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC) for the term from 2012 to 2016. Marauhn was re-elected in 2016. In 2015, he was elected First Vice-President and later President (2017) of the Fact-Finding Commission. Since 2005, he has been the academic director of the “International Summer University” of the Justus Liebig University in Giessen. From 2009 onwards, Marauhn has been the co-director of the “US-German Summer School in International and Comparative Law”, currently together with professors Anuj Desai (University of Wisconsin) and Edward Fallone (Marquette University). From 2009 to 2013 and from 2017 until 2019, Marauhn served as an elected member of the Senate of the Justus Liebig University in Giessen. In 2016, he was a visiting scholar in the research group “The International Rule of Law – Rise or Decline?” in Berlin. In 2018, Marauhn was a visiting scholar at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law and at Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge (UK). |
Vaios Koutroulis is a professor of public international law at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). He has given numerous lectures, including in training courses for members of the armed forces, humanitarian aid workers and other professionals, on issues relating to international humanitarian law and international criminal law. He has several publications to his credit on international humanitarian law, international criminal law and jus contra bellum . Vaios Koutroulis is a member of the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission, the only permanent treaty-based body dealing with compliance with the 1949 Geneva Conventions and their First Additional Protocol. As a practitioner, he was a member of Belgium's legal team in the case of Questions Relating to the Obligation to Prosecute or Extradite ( Belgium v. Senegal) in 2012 and counsel for Belgium in the recent (2024) Advisory Proceedings on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, both before the International Court of Justice. He has also consulted the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on international criminal law issues relating to the Ljubljana - The Hague Convention on International Cooperation in the Investigation and Prosecution of Crimes of Genocide, Crimes against Humanity, War Crimes and Other International Crimes. He participated in the negotiation of the Convention, as chairman of one of the three main working groups of the Ljubljana Diplomatic Conference.
Vera Strobel is a research assistant at the Chair for Public Law and Public International Law of Prof. Dr. Thilo Marauhn at Justus Liebig University Giessen and a legal trainee at the regional court Giessen. She has submitted her PhD thesis in July 2024 located in the interdisciplinary research area of strategic litigation, individual rights and international humanitarian law. For her PhD project she received a scholarship by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation. She completed her First Legal State Examination in February 2020 as one of the best graduates of her faculty. During her studies she spent an academic year at the Université de Montpellier in France.