Professor Veronika Fikfak

Professor of Human Rights and International Law 
Room: 3.02, 31 Tavistock Square
Email: v.fikfak@ucl.ac.uk
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Biography

Veronika Fikfak is a Professor of Human Rights and International Law at University College London, School of Public Policy and a co-Director of the UCL Institute for Human Rights. Veronika leads a team of six researchers on the ERC project Human Rights Nudge, which looks at how states respond to judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. From 2025, she will be in charge of her next ERC project on access to international human rights justice and a UCL Grand Challenges Project on barriers to international climate justice for children. 

Veronika is Secretary General of the European Society of International Law and a managing editor of the American Journal of International Law Unbound. She also serves as a judge ad hoc at the European Court of Human Rights. 

Research

Professor Fikfak’s research interests lie in the fields of international law, human rights, and public law. Her current research focuses on reparations for human rights violations, compliance with international norms, interaction of domestic and international law, and system design. She employs quantitative and qualitative approaches in her work, informed by psychology and behavioural economics. Her work has been funded by the European Research Council, UK’s ESRC Future Research Leaders Grant, the British Academy, Norway’s Research Council, Carlsberg Foundation, and the Humboldt Foundation. She has published articles in European Journal of International Law, American Journal of International Law, and International Journal of Constitutional Law, among others.

Publications

Books

• Fikfak, V. and Hooper, H. (2018). Parliament’s Secret War. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Journal articles

2022

• Fikfak, V. (2022) ‘Establishing Damages for Mass Human Rights Violations’, The Cambridge Law Journal, 81(2), pp. 221–225.
• Fikfak, V. (2022) ‘Democracy and Statehood’, Chicago Journal of International Law, 23, pp.103.
• Fikfak, V. and Izvorova, L. (2022) ‘Language and Persuasion: Human Dignity at the European Court of Human Rights’, Human Rights Law Review, 22(3).
• Ridi, N. and Fikfak, V. (2022) ‘Sanctioning to Change State Behaviour’, Journal of International Dispute Settlement, 13(2), pp. 210–232.
• Fikfak, V., Peat, D. and Van der Zee, E. (2022) ‘Bias in International Law’, German Law Journal, 23(3), pp. 281–297.
• Peat, D., Fikfak, V. and van der Zee, E. (2022) ‘Behavioural Compliance Theory’, Journal of International Dispute Settlement, 13(2), pp. 167–178.
• Fikfak, V. (2022) ‘Against Settlement before the European Court of Human Rights’, International Journal of Constitutional Law, 20(3), pp. 942–975.

2021

• Van der Zee, E., Fikfak, V., and Peat, D. (2021) ‘Introduction to the Symposium on Limitations of the Behavioral Turn in International Law’, American Journal of International Law Unbound, 115, pp. 237–241.
• Fikfak, V. and Kos, U. (2021) ‘Slovenia–An Exemplary Complier With Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights?’, Pravna Praksa: Special Edition, 40(8).

2020

• Fikfak, V. (2020) ‘Non-pecuniary Damages before the European Court of Human Rights: Forget the Victim; It’s All about the State’, Leiden Journal of International Law, 33(2), pp. 335–369.

2019

• Feldman, D. and Fikfak, V. (2019) ‘The Constitutional Impact of National Referendums and the UK’s Secession from the EU’, Journal
  European Review of Public Law, 31(1), pp. 139–172.

2018

• Fikfak, V. (2018) ‘Changing State Behaviour: Damages before the European Court of Human Rights’, European Journal of International Law, 29(4), pp. 1091–1125.

2017

• Fikfak, V. (2017) ‘What Price for Human Rights? Compensating Human Rights Violations – ESRC’, Impact, 2017(9), pp. 6–8.

2016

• Fikfak, V. (2016) ‘Protecting Human Rights in Austerity Claims in the UK’, Hague Journal on the Rule of Law, 8(2), pp. 205–226.

2015

• Kukavica, J. and Fikfak, V. (2015) ‘Strasbourg’s U-Turn on Independence as Part of an Effective Investigation under Article 2’, The Cambridge Law Journal, 74(3), pp. 415–419.

2013

• Fikfak, V. (2013) ‘International Law Before English and Asian Courts: Finding the Judicial Role in the Separation of Powers’, Asian Journal of International Law, 3(2), pp. 271–304. 
• Fikfak, V. (2013) ‘Kadi and the Role of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the International Legal Order’, Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies, 15, pp. 587–617.

2009

• Fikfak, V. and Burnett, B. (2009) ‘Domestic Courts’ Reading of International Norms: A Semiotic Analysis’, International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 22, 437–450.

Book chapters

• Fikfak, V. (Forthcoming) ‘Experimental Jurisprudence in International Law’, in K. P. Tobia (ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Jurisprudence. Cambridge University Press.
• Fikfak, V. (2022) ‘Compliance and Compensation: Money as a Currency of Human Rights’, in R. Murray and D. Long (eds.), Research Handbook on Implementation of Human Rights in Practice. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
• Fikfak, V. (2022) ‘Structural Remedies: Human Rights Law’, in H. Ruiz Fabri (ed.) Max Planck Encyclopaedia International Procedural Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Fikfak, V. (2021) ‘War, International Law and the Rise of Parliament’, in H. P. Aust and T. Kleinlein (eds.) Encounters between Foreign Relations Law and International Law. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 299–316.
• Fikfak, V. (2016) ‘Judicial Strategies and their Impact on the Development of the International Rule of Law’, in M. Kanetake and A. Nollkaemper (eds.) The Rule of Law at the National and International Levels: Contestations and Deference. Oxford: Hart Publishing, pp. 45–66.
• Fikfak, V. (2015) ‘Reinforcing the ICJ’s Central International Role? Domestic Courts’ Enforcement of ICJ Decisions and Opinions’, in M. Andenas and E. Bjorge (eds.) A Farewell to Fragmentation: Reassertion and Convergence in International Law, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 343–368).

Teaching

Professor Fikfak teaches on the ‘Human Rights and World Politics’ module.