Direction and Management - The Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights

Gloria Gaggioli

Director of the Geneva Academy and Associate/SNF Professor at the Law Faculty, University of Geneva

Areas of expertise

International Humanitarian Law / Qualification of Armed Conflict / International Human Rights Law / Counter-terrorism / States of Emergency / Extraterritoriality / Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict / Conduct of Hostilities / Use of Force / European Human Rights Law / Right to Life / Drones / Law Enforcement / Means and Methods of Warfare / Self-Defence / State Succession / Torture

Gloria Gaggioli is the Director of the Geneva Academy since August 2020 and an Associate/ Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) Professor at the Law Faculty of the University of Geneva. She is also member of the board of Geneva Call since August 2019.

Gloria Gaggioli has published widely in various fields of public international law and participates regularly in international conferences, roundtables and expert meetings. She is currently leading a four-year research project funded by the SNF on ‘Preventing and Combating Terrorism and Violent Extremism: Towards a Legal-Empirical Approach’. Her work focuses notably on issues related to the interplay between international humanitarian law and international human rights law, the right to life and the use of force, including the conduct of hostilities, law enforcement and self-defence.

Prior to joining the University of Geneva, she served as Legal Adviser in the legal division of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and is the author of the ICRC report The Use of Force in Armed Conflicts: Interplay between the Conduct of Hostilities and Law Enforcement Paradigms.

Professor Gaggioli also taught at the University of Neuchâtel and worked as Visiting Professor at Lille Catholic University and at the University of Aix-Marseille, as External Lecturer at the University of Copenhagen and as Researcher/Teaching Assistant at the Geneva Academy and University of Geneva. She conducted research as a ‘Distinguished-Scholar-in-Residence‘ at the US Naval War College, Stockton Center for the Studies of International Law.

She wrote her PhD thesis (summa cum laude, Pedone 2013) on ‘The Reciprocal Influence between Human Rights Law and Humanitarian Law in the Light of the Right to Life’.

COUNTER-TERROR PROJECT: A LEGAL EMPIRICAL APPROACH

The ‘Counter-Terror Pro LegEm’ project combines legal analysis with social science research to (1) examine the effectiveness of counterterrorism measures and their effects on human rights and (2) analyse the structure of terrorist networks such as Al Qaeda or the Islamic State and see whether they qualify as ‘organized armed groups’ for the purpose of international humanitarian law.