
We are an interdisciplinary team of scholars and practitioners studying international human rights system and especially its courts and tribunals. Our current projects focus on execution and enforcement of human rights judgments, reparations and compensation in international law, and access to international courts and tribunals. We bring together scholars from law, politics, social sciences, psychology, criminology and computer sciences to understand the mechanisms driving the status quo. Our aim is to understand how human rights victims access international justice and when states change their behaviour in response to judgments of international human rights courts. We seek to come up with new solutions and incentives to enable equal access to human rights justice, an efficient and accountable functioning of human rights institutions, and good compliance with human rights judgments.
Automation & Digital Human Rights
This project studies how automation is increasingly being used by international courts and tribunals. We investigate the permissiblity of such use as well as the need for accountability to human rights victims. We also consider how automation impacts existing rights and creates new ones.
Break the Bias
This ERC-funded project looks at how victims access international human rights courts and treaty bodies. We study inequality in access to understand which groups are successful in obtaining human rights protection and which fall through the cracks.
LATEST PUBLICATIONS
Veronika Fikfak and Laurence R. Helfer. 'Automating International Human Rights Adjudication.' (2024) 45.1 Michigan Journal of International Law.
NEWS
September 2025
We are currently setting up our new team for the new UKRI/ERC Break the Bias in Access to Justice project. Stay tuned for news about our new team members!
8 September 2025
Professor Fikfak's inaugural lecture Hope in Human Rights and International Law is now online. You can find it in the channel at the bottom of this page.
13 May 2025
We recently submitted a legal opinion to the Greenlandic Public Inquiry on the human rights implications of the Spiral Campaign. We find that serious human rights violations have taken place and that in addition to individual redress, there is a need for community remedies. The submission can be found here.

Hope in Human Rights and International Law
