Coordinating Committee
Zuzanna Godzimirska is Associate Professor in Human Rights and International Institutions at iCourts, Centre of Excellence for International Courts at the Faculty of Law at Copenhagen University. In her research, which is interdisciplinary, empirical and often comparative in nature, she combines insights and methods from international law, international relations and linguistics to study how international courts are legitimated and gain trust among myriad constituents and how they contribute to conceptual evolution and legal change in international law. Her work has appeared in the European Journal of International Law, Nordic Journal of Human Rights, New York University Journal of International Law & Politics, amongst others.
Moshe Hirsch is the Von Hofmannsthal Professor of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Co-director of the International Law Forum at the Hebrew University Law Faculty. A significant part of his publications involves theoretical and interdisciplinary research that draws, inter alia, on sociological literature, social-cognition studies, political economy, and international relations theory. His recent publications include Invitation to the Sociology of International Law (OUP, 2015); International Law's Invisible Frames - Social Cognition and Knowledge Production in International Legal Processes (2021, co-edited with Andrea Bianchi, OUP); Research Handbook on the Sociology of International Law (2018, co-edited with Andrew Lang, Elgar); "Cognitive Sociology, Social Cognition and Coping with Racial Discrimination in International Law", European Journal of International Law (2019); "Social Movements, Reframing Investment Relations, and Enhancing the Application of Human Rights Norms in International Investment Law", Leiden Journal of International Law (2020), ‘The Role of International Tribunals in the Development of Historical Narratives’, Journal of History of International Law (2018); ‘Explaining Compliance and Non-Compliance with ICSID Awards: a Multiple Theoretical Approach’, Journal of International Economic Law (2016), and ‘The Sociological Perspective on International Law’, in Jeffrey L. Dunoff and Mark A. Pollack (eds.), International Legal Theory: Foundations and Frontiers (CUP, 2022, forthcoming).
Ezgi Yildiz is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), and a research affiliate at the Global Governance Center of the Geneva Graduate Institute. Her research is interdisciplinary, at the intersection of International Relations and International Law. Her areas of specialization include global governance, international courts and organizations, human rights, and ocean governance.
Her first monograph, Between Forbearance and Audacity: The European Court of Human Rights and the Norm Against Torture, will be published by Cambridge University Press in May 2023, and her co-edited volume with Nico Krisch, The Many Paths of Change in International Law, is to be published by Oxford University Press. Her other work has appeared in the European Journal of International Law, the German Law Journal, and the Journal of Human Rights Practice, among others. Between 2018 and 2023, she worked as a senior researcher for the Paths of International Law: Stability and Change in the International Legal Order (PATHS) project, financed by the European Research Council.
In 2020-2021, she led the Testing the Focal Point Theory of International Adjudication: An Empirical Analysis of the ICJ’s Impact on Maritime Delimitation project, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Prior to this, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Kennedy School (2017-2019) and a visiting fellow at the Center for European Studies, Harvard University (2017).
Currently, she is serving as a member of the Expert Group for the Implementation of the EU’s Anti-Torture Regulation (Regulation 2019/125) for the European Commission’s Foreign Policy Instruments.
Eva van der Zee is a Junior Professor (Tenure Track) in International Law with a focus on Behavioural Law and Economics at the Institute of Law and Economics at Hamburg University Faculty of Law since 2019. She was previously a postdoctoral researcher at the Strategic Communication Group of Wageningen University where she studied the interrelation between trust and governmental regulation to promote the resilience of agricultural production systems using qualitative research methods. She conducted her PhD research at Wageningen University, New York University, and the European University Institute, where she researched the regulatory space of public and private sustainability standards within international and European legal frameworks (including trade law, human rights law, and competition law) using qualitative and quantitative research methods. She holds two LLM degrees, one in International Trade and Investment Law at the University of Amsterdam and the other in Legal Theory at Utrecht University (cum laude).
Eva’s current research focuses on the role and interrelation of formal and informal legal systems in promoting sustainable development using insights from the social sciences. Her broader research interests include legal theory, political economy, and distributive justice. In her current project, entitled “Law, Planning Theory, and Environmental Assessments”, which is funded by the Ideen und Risikofund of Hamburg University, she studies the role of international, European and national law in environmental assessment processes using quantitative and qualitative research methods, as well as insights from legal theory, planning theory, behavioural economics, and sociology.
Eva has published articles in the Journal of World Trade, World Competition Law and Economic Review, Legal Issues of Economic Integration, and Sustainability, amongst others. In addition, she has advised governmental institutions in The Netherlands and published in Dutch (academic) outlets, such as Markt en Mededinging, on the role of law and policy to promote sustainable development. Furthermore, Eva received funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for a conference in 2021 entitled “Sustainable development and the law: potential and challenges of using behavioural insights” where leading scholars will present data on the potential and challenges of using social sciences insights in law- and policy-making to promote sustainable development.
Tommaso Soave is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Legal Studies. His research focuses on international economic law, international dispute settlement, legal theory, and sociological approaches to global governance. Tommaso's first book, The Everyday Makers of International Law (CUP 2022), explores the socio-professional dynamics of the international legal community and assesses their impact on the rulings of international courts and tribunals. He has also published numerous papers in his areas of research. Tommaso previously worked as a dispute settlement lawyer at the World Trade Organization and as an associate attorney at Sidley Austin LLP. He regularly serves as a consultant for intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations on matters of trade and investment law. In addition to his position at CEU, in 2022-2023 he will hold a visiting professor appointment at the University of Graz. Tommaso has earned degrees from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Harvard Law School, Sciences Po Paris, and the University of Turin, and has been called to the Bar of New York.