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Helen Duffy

Associate Fellow, Rule of Law Responses to Terrorism

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Helen Duffy is Professor of International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the University of Leiden and runs ‘Human Rights in Practice (HRiP),’ an international law practice specializing in strategic litigation and advice. Her practice and academic work focus on counter-terrorism, human rights and rule of law, as well as other intersecting challenges such as the climate crisis, judicial independence, torture, impunity, non-state actor responsibility and protection of human rights defenders. She has brought or supported ground-breaking cases in the European, African, Interamerican and UN human rights systems and in diverse national jurisdictions. Before setting up HRiP in 2011, Helen held various posts in civil society (Legal Director/INTERIGHTS; Counsel/Human Rights Watch; Legal Director/Centro para Accion Legal en Derechos Humanos Guatemala), the Prosecutor’s Office of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and in government (UK Government legal service and Lord Justice Scott’s Iraq Inquiry).

Prof. Duffy has a PHD (Leiden), LLM (University College London) and LLB Hons (Glasgow). She is on the board of several NGOs. Professor of International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Leiden since 2015, she and is also currently honorary/visiting professor at the universities of Glasgow, Oxford, Melbourne, American and Paris Sciences Po. Her books include “The ‘War on Terror’ and the Framework of International law (CUP, 2nd ed. 2015), ‘Strategic Human Rights Litigation: Understanding and Maximising Impact’ (Hart, 2018) and Law Applicable to Armed Conflict (with Bohrer and Dill, CUP 2020).