Alumni
Rustam Atadjanov
Rustam B. Atadjanov, LLB, LLM, PhD (born in Nukus, Uzbekistan) received his undergraduate degree in law from the Karakalpak State University named after Berdakh back in 2003. Having acquired a practical legal experience as an Assistant Lawyer in the Bar Association of the Republic of Karakalpakstan and Senior Legal Consultant in the Juridical Help and Advice Center, he subsequently graduated from the University of Connecticut School of Law with an LLM degree in International Human Rights Law in 2006. Prior to joining the University of Hamburg Faculty of Law's doctoral programme in 2014, Rustam worked as a Programme Responsible for National Implementation of International Humanitarian Law and further on as Legal Adviser in the Regional Delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Central Asia for several years. Rustam's background combines both academic and practical experience, with the main focus on international legal topics. His research interests include foremost the substantive and procedural issues pertaining to Public International Law, International Criminal Law, International Humanitarian Law, Constitutional Law, Theory of State and Law, and others. Besides, he speaks several languages (Uzbek, Kazakh, Russian, English, French and basic German and Ukrainian) and publishes in a number of academic journals on a wide range of topics in the sphere of international law. Previously, Rustam taught the foreign language course "An Introduction to International Criminal Law" as a Lecturer in Law at the University of Hamburg's Faculty of Law. He presently holds the position of Assistant Professor of Public and International Law at the KIMEP University School of Law, Almaty, Kazakhstan, where he teaches Theory of State and Law, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Public International Law, Law of International Treaties and other Public Law-related courses.
PhD thesis: “Humanity” as Humanness: a Constituent Element of International Law Applicable to Crimes against Humanity (defended 6 June 2018, earned "magna cum laude"), supervisors: Prof. Dr. iur. Florian Jessberger, Prof. Dr. iur. Rainer Keller and Prof. Dr. Nora Markard. Rustam's doctoral research deals with the concept of "humanity" as it pertains to crimes against humanity. His thesis' analysis considers this particular concept in its different aspects starting from its historical development and role in international law, to contemporary state in international criminal law, and to its place in various doctrinal theories of crimes against humanity. That analysis plays a key role in reviewing the exact nature of "humanity" as acquiring its own standing of a fully valid legal interest within the meaning of the Rechtsgut theory ("protection of legal good"). His manuscript has been published with the T.M.C. Asser Press and Springer in June 2019 as a monograph titled "Humanness as a Protected Legal Interest of Crimes against Humanity: Conceptual and Normative Aspects", under the International Criminal Justice Series (vol. 22).
Aydin Atilgan
Aydin Atilgan received his undergraduate degree in Law from Ankara University (2004) and MA degree from Marmara University EU Institute in Istanbul, Turkey (2008). He practiced law for a few years, and participated in several projects as legal adviser, author and translator. He has been a Ph.D. candidate in Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy Graduate School of Law since November 2012. He was a guest fellow at the University of Bremen as a DAAD fellow in 2011-2012 and at the University of Macerata in the summer of 2013. He took part in various short term trainings, conferences, summer courses and seminars regarding his study fields.
Global Constitutionalism: A Socio-legal Perspective
His dissertation is titled “Global Constitutionalism: A Socio-legal Perspective”. He deals with global constitutionalist theories, which approach a number of developments towards cooperation and unity in global domain by interpreting them as indicators of a constitutionalisation process. He examines these theories by a socio-legal perspective where he draws on theories of classical scholars of this field.
Noby Thomas Cyriac
Born in 1990 in Kerala, India. Noby Thomas Cyriac completed his B.A.LL.B.(Hons.) degree with specialization in Business Laws in 2014 from the Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Patiala. He enrolled himself as an advocate in the same year and joined Joseph & Kuriyan Advocates where he started his litigation practice in Kerala (2014-16). His practices areas were civil, corporate litigation and arbitration. In 2016, he received the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding – Dr. Angela Merkel Scholarship. Pursuant to this Award, he was selected for the LL.M. program in “European and European Legal Studies” at the Europa Kolleg Hamburg, University of Hamburg (2016-17). Meanwhile in his first year in Germany he was associated with the Competition Law team of Baker Mckenzie in Dusseldorf. His Master Thesis focus was on "The Role of Big Data in the EU Commission's Control of Mergers: The Facebook/WhatsApp Case and Beyond".
Since November 2017, Noby Thomas Cyriac is a Ph.D. student of Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy Graduate School of Law. As an Ambsl researcher he is working on the topic of Abuse of Dominance by Big Data dominant firms in the realm of EU competition law jurisprudence.
Rawan Diab
Rawan Diab (was born in Latakia, Syria in 1990), after graduation from high school 2007, She held an undergraduate degree from the faculty of law at Tishreen University in latakia in 2012. Then received a scholarship from the University of Algiers where she obtained her Master’s degree in public law (department of Environment and Urbanization) in 2015. After that she joined the Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy Gratuate School of Law in November 2016, and is currently working on her doctoral thesis at the University of Hamburg, (Faculty of law, Prof. Dr. Jochen Bung, Professorship for criminal law and legal philosophy).
Her Doctoral thesis focuses on the right to immigrate in international law, there is only a right to leave, not a right to enter the state of asylum. Philosophically, there are different positions on this. In addition to some issues related to this topic such as open borders and universal citizenship.
Thiago A. Fauvrelle
Research Interests:
Monetary & fiscal policy framework; Business cycles; Institutional economics; Contract law & economics; International law & finance;
Thesis Title:
Law & Economics analysis of the international sovereign bond market
Academic Background:
2014-2015: LL.M. European Master in Law and Economics (Erasmus University of Rotterdam & University of Hamburg);
Master in Business, Law and Economics (Aix-Marseille University);
2009-2013: Bachelor of Economics with first class honors (Federal University of Paraíba);
2009-2014: Bachelor of Laws with first class honors (University Center of João Pessoa);
Summer courses in Boston University (2013) and Perpignan University (2011)
Work Experience:
2015-2015: Consultant for the European Commission;
2014-2014: Associate lawyer (Advocacia Carlos Aquino & Associados);
2012-2013: Undergraduate teaching assistant in Tax Law (University Center of João Pessoa);
2010-2013: Junior researcher on Economic Development, Monetary and Fiscal policy (Brazilian National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development)
Barbara Germann
barbara.germann"AT"uni-hamburg.de
Englisch-bilinguales Abitur 2008 in Düsseldorf; Volontariat bei Sorya e.V. in Kambodscha (2008/2009); Studium der Rechtswissenschaften an der Westfälischen Wilhelms Universität zu Münster (2009-2014); Fachspezifische Fremdsprachenausbildung für Juristen (FFA) im Bereich common law (2009-2011); Studienaufenthalt in Frankreich an der Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne (2011); erste juristische Staatsprüfung (Oktober 2014); seit 2015 Stipendiatin, Scholar und wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin der Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy Graduate School of Law; Promotionsstudentin im Bereich des öffentlichen Rechts.
Julia Harten
Julia Harten is a member and scholarship holder of the Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy Graduate School of Law since 2018. She works as a research and teaching assistant in the team of Prof. Reinhard Bork at the Chair for Civil Procedure Law and General Procedural Law. Her current focus area is international insolvency law. She holds an LL.M. degree in Corporate Law from the University of Edinburgh, for which she received the T.B. Smith Prize for the Most Distinguished Scholar graduating from the LLM or MSc postgraduate degrees.
Julia’s academic education started in Hamburg, where she studied law with a focus on private international law and comparative law. As part of her studies, she spent one academic year at the Université Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne in France. She received a scholarship of the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes) and gained her first research experience as a student assistant in a research group at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg.
Xenofon Kontargyris, LL.M.
Xenofon Kontargyris was born in Doumbia, Halkidiki, Greece in 1984. He entered the Aristotle’s University Law Faculty (Thessaloniki) in 2002 and obtained his LLB in 2007. He then moved on to pursue an LLM in International & EU Law at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (2008). He has worked as a legal assistant for NATO’s Greek Combat Unit and as a Communications & Training officer for the European Commission.
As an academic, he has focused on intellectual property and competition law, with his dissertation in the context of his LLM being an analysis of the ‘Microsoft vs. the European Commission’ case before the CJEU. He then focused on effective regulation of different aspects of the internet, having contributed in conferences as an author on issues such as, the different approaches the EU and the US take on cloud technologies (EUTIC 2013, Waterford, Ireland), the evolution of Facebook’s privacy rules (e-Democracy 2013, Athens, Greece) and the ‘right to be forgotten’ (IFIP 2015, Edinburgh, UK).
As an AMBSL researcher Xenofon works on the topic of Cloud Computing Regulation, conducting a comparative study between EU and US law with the aim of building a set of regulatory principles that should serve as a basis for efficient regulation of cloud computing and its applications across different jurisdictions.
Xenofon is a qualified lawyer and member of the Thessaloniki Bar since September 2009.
Mika Kremer
Svenja Langenhagen
svenja.langenhagen"AT"gmail.com
Svenja Langenhagen grew up in Munich (Bavaria) and moved to Hamburg in 2012 in order to study law at the University of Hamburg. Svenja Langenhagen spent one semester participating in the 22nd Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot Court (an international competition between teams of over 350 universities worldwide) as a team member (2014/2015). Afterwards, in course of her further university studies, she specialized i.a. in private international law and in international procedural law.
While passing her first state exam, Svenja Langenhagen worked in a law firm (insolvency law) and coached the Vis Moot Team of the University of Hamburg for the 26th Willem C. Vis Moot Court (2018/2019). Concerning the Vis Moot she is now a vice chair of the ‘Vis Moot Court Alumni Universität Hamburg e.V.’ and again a mentor for the this season’s coaches.
Since June 2019 Svenja Langenhagen is working as a Research Associate for Prof. Dr. Peter Mankowski at the University of Hamburg in the field of private international law and international procedural law. Simultaneously, she started with her PhD thesis in the field of “Human Rights and Environmental Protection in International Sales Law” under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Peter Mankowski and Prof. Dr. Mareike Schmidt (LLM, Tsinghua). Since October 2019 Svenja Langenhagen is a member of the Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy Graduate School of Law and holds a scholarship for her PhD.
Serhii Lashyn
serhii.lashyn"AT"uni-hamburg.de
Serhii began his legal education at International Law Faculty of Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University in Ukraine. In recognition of his excellent academic performance and research accomplishments, he was awarded the Academic Scholarship of the President of Ukraine. Having received a bachelor’s diploma with distinction, Serhii went to Central European University where he obtained an LLM degree (also with distinction). After his master’s studies, Serhii worked at a law firm. In 2017, as one of the winners of a global essay competition, Serhii gave a speech at the podium of United Nations General Assembly Hall in New York on one of the Sustainable Development Goals. Since 2016, Serhii is a Young European Ambassador within EU OPEN Neighbourhood Programme.
At Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy Graduate School of Law, Serhii is writing a doctoral dissertation in the field of EU law. Specifically, his research project investigates the autonomisation of EU citizenship.
Kalika Mehta
kalika.mehta"AT"geneva-academy.ch
Kalika Mehta has been a PhD Candidate at the Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy Graduate School of Law since November 2018. She holds an LL.M. cum laude from Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, Geneva (2015-16) and BA.LL.B (Hons.) from Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab (2010-15). She is qualified to practice law in India.
Before joining the program, she briefly worked on the transitional justice issues in Myanmar followed by a Traineeship at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin. At ECCHR, she primarily assisted on the situation of War Crimes in Iraq by the UK Forces between 2003 - 2008 before the International Criminal Court. In 2018, she taught undergraduate students at Jindal Global Law School, Sonepat, India.
Her research interests include International Criminal Law, Strategic Litigation, and Transitional Justice.
Abhishek Mishra
Abhishek has five years of academic experience in India as Assistant Professor, prior to joining AMBSL, University of Hamburg; he was associated with WBNUJS, Kolkata. WB, India. and two years of international and national law firms experience. He has published articles in various journals such as Year Book on Indian Society of International Law. He also has a book to his credit on Capital Market: Legal Regime in India published in India. He is presently researching on the topic of “Extrajudicial Killings: Normative study to determine the impact on State and Democracy in changing World Order.” The central thrust of his thesis is comparative study of certain States to identify the raison d’etre of extrajudicial killings in those states. The study analyses the relationship between right to life under international law and municipal law.
Erion Murati
erion.murati"AT"studium.uni-hamburg.de
Born in 1994 in Librazhd, Albania. He achieved his LL.M (single-cycle, five years) in criminal law at University of Udine in Italy with 110 up to 110 in February 2018. Joined the Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy Graduated School of Law in July 2018. His Ph.D topic is focused in the EU regulatory challenges arising from online transport platforms. In specific, subject of his studies is a new transport paradigm named ‘Mobility-as-a-Service’ (MaaS). Since March 2020 he is a Lecturer of the foreign language course ‘EU GDPR and Online Platforms’ at Uni-Hamburg, Law Faculty. His mother language is Albanian, he also speaks Italian, English and German.
Franziska Niehaus
franziska.niehaus"AT"uni-hamburg.de
Franziska Niehaus studied law at the University of Hamburg, completing her first State exam in 2018. Subsequently, she started to work as a research and teaching assistant in the team of Prof. Dr. Stefan Oeter at the Institute for International Affairs at the University of Hamburg. In this position, she organised the German National Rounds of the ‚Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition‘ of 2019 as the National Administrator.
Already during her studies, her main focus was on international law and in 2016, she participated in the Jessup Moot Court Competition herself. Furthermore, she functioned as chairwoman of the board of the HanseMUN e.V., which organises Model United Nations Sessions and Conferences at the University of Hamburg. During her studies, she held a scholarship at the ‚Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung‘.
Since November 2019, Franziska is a member of the Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy Graduate School of Law and holds a scholarship for her PhD in international law. Her research focuses on UN peacekeeping missions and their mandates to protect civilians.
Marie Johanna Raben
Marie Raben has been an AMBSL scholar since october 2018. Her field of research is energy law. At the same time she works as a research fellow for the University of Hamburg. After her studies in Hamburg and Strasbourg (URS) she successfully completed her German Referendariat in Hamburg. During her Referendariat she worked amongst others for the administrative court, the administration of city parliament and for a medium-sized law firm.
Tomas Restrepo Rodriguez
tomas.restrepo"AT"uexternado.edu.co
Tomás is a Colombian attorney and academic interested in private law, international law, environmental law, and energy law. He holds an MBL in International Energy Law from the TU Berlin and the Berlin Institute for Energy and Regulatory Law, as well as an LLM in Banking and Finance from Queen Mary, University of London. He is researcher and teacher at the Civil Law Department and the Mines and Energy Department of the Universidad Externado de Colombia. He has published scientific articles in Colombia and in Germany. He is currently working on his dissertation, which explores intersections between international investment arbitration and climate change law.
Plarent Ruka, MLB, LLM (Hamburg)
Plarent received his law degree from the University of Tirana, Faculty of Law in 2003. He is also a graduate of the European Center for Security Studies “George C. Marshall” (2007) and the Albanian School of Political Studies (2009). He holds a Master of Law and Business Degree from the Joachim Herz program of the Bucerius Law School/WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management (2010) and a Master Degree in European and European Legal Studies from Europa-Kolleg-Hamburg, University of Hamburg (2011). Plarent has worked for more than six years in various public institutions in Albania, at executive and political levels, such as the City’s Attorney Office at the Municipality of Tirana, Central Elections Commission, Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Health. He has also practiced law in a leading Albanian law firm. Plarent has also been lecturing Public Law and Legislative Techniques for one academic year at a private university in Albania. Plarent’s main areas of interest and practice are European Union Law, International Public Law (with a particular interest in WTO Law), Public and Administrative Law, Business Law, etc. In addition to his mother tongue, Albanian, Plarent speaks English, German and Italian.
The International Legal Responsibility of the European Union in the Context of the World Trade Organization: A Focus on Matters of Incompetence
Plarent enrolled in the Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy Graduate School of Law in April 2012 and currently continues his research on the doctoral project: “The International Legal Responsibility of the European Union in the Context of the World Trade Organization: A Focus on Matters of Incompetence”. The topic addresses the implications that the blurred distribution of powers in the European Union (EU) polity can have for the international responsibility in mixed agreements, which is assumed to be jointly distributed among Member States. In his study, Plarent aims to elaborate the way the international legal responsibility arising out of the EU membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) is distributed among the EU Member States, particularly in those cases where the EU defends before the WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism matters that are part of its Member States’ competences. By identifying the relevance of principles and legal institutions in addressing this research question and by taking into consideration the evolving and the unstable nature of the distribution of powers in the EU, it might be possible to provide an alternative view to the joint responsibility regime.
Jan-Robert Schmidt
jan-robert.schmidt"AT"uni-hamburg.de
Jan-Robert Schmidt was born in Cologne, Germany, in 1990. After passing his university entrance exam, he studied law at the universities of Cologne, Hamburg and Lisbon. Mr. Schmidt passed his first state examination in March 2015. Since then he has been working as a research and teaching assistant at Professor Repgen’s Chair for German Legal History, Private Law History, and Civil Law at the University of Hamburg. Mr. Schmidt has been a fellow of the Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy Graduate School of Law since November 2015. He is particularly interested in 20th century German legal history with a particular emphasis on the development of family law and children’s rights
Ülkü Sezgi Sözen, LL.M.
Uelkue.Sezgi.Soezen"AT"uni-hamburg.de
In 2012 bachelor’s degree at the Faculty of Law of Istanbul Kültür University and University of Leipzig with a state scholarship.In 2011 research assistant at the Chair of International Law and European Law at the University of Leipzig. In 2013 LL.M. at Europa-Kolleg Hamburg, Hamburg University with a grant from the Schulze-Fielitz Foundation.
Since November 2013 member of the Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy Graduate School of Law (AMBSL). Since 2017 coordinator of the AMBSL. Currently Postdoc at the University of Hamburg. PhD Thesis: Die Assoziierung zur EU und Migrationspolitiken unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der mediterranen Drittstaaten, Baden-Baden 2021.
Antonia Sommerfeld
Studium der Rechtswissenschaft in Hamburg und Aix-en-Provence (Frankreich); 2017–2021 Wissenschaftliche Assistentin am Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht in Hamburg; Forschungsaufenthalt an der University of Cambridge (Vereinigtes Königreich), Wolfson College; Lehraufträge an der Universität Hamburg und der China University of Political Science and Law, Peking (China); 2016–2020 Mitglied der Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy Graduate School of Law (AMBSL), Universität Hamburg; seit 2020 Juristischer Vorbereitungsdienst am Hanseatischen Oberlandesgericht Hamburg.
Dissertation: „AGB-Reform und Rechtsflucht, Bedeutung der Rechtsflucht für die AGB-Reformdebatte im unternehmerischen Rechtsverkehr“ (summa cum laude), Mohr Siebeck 2021 (StudIPR); Betreuung durch Prof. Dr. Peter Mankowski (Universität Hamburg).
Förderung: Promotionsstipendium der FAZIT-Stiftung.
Auszeichnungen: Förderpreis der Esche Schümann Commichau Stiftung; Werner-von-Melle-Preis 2021 (Hamburgische Wissenschaftliche Stiftung).
Christian Steger
Christian Steger (28) studied at the University of Hamburg with a focus on International Private and Procedural Law. During several internships – amongst them international law firms – he gained first experiences in the fields of litigation, international arbitration and corporate M&A. He finished with his first Staatsexamen in 2012. During his studies he participated in the 16th and coached during the 17th and 20th Willem C. Vis Moot and is president of the Vis Moot Alumni Association at the University of Hamburg. Starting his doctoral thesis in autumn 2012, he was accepted to join the Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy Graduate School of Law. Besides, he is working as a research assistant at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg.
The Preclusive Effects on Grounds to Refuse Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards
The doctoral thesis focuses on preclusive effect in recognition and enforcement proceedings. The research will cover the question, whether specific grounds for refusal of recognition and enforcement under the New York Convention on Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards of 1958 can be precluded in cases where the respondent (debtor) did not use any setting aside proceedings. The dissertation will also evaluate different European legal systems and will close with suggestions on how to continue the harmonization in this sector.
Victor Ventura, LL.M.
victor.ventura"AT"studium.uni-hamburg.de
Partner at Humberto Bezerra Law Firm LLP, in the North-East of Brazil. Environmental and Energy Law Attorney. Former Head of Legal Office at the state-level Superintendence for Environmental Management of Paraíba, Brazil. Juris Doctor from Hamburg, summa cum laude, with a dissertation on "Environmental Jurisdiction in the Law of the Sea: the Brazilian Blue Amazon", published with Springer. LL.M. in International Human Rights Law from the Federal University of Paraiba, Brazil, in 2013. Former Lecturer of Public International Law in Brazil and in Germany, at the Law Faculty of the University of Hamburg. Special Rapporteur to the International Conference on Maritime Affairs and the Law of the Sea, in 2016, on invitation by the Germany-Japanese Center in Berlin. Fluency in English, German, Spanish, and Portuguese, both written and spoken, and advanced skills in French. Founding Member of the Brazilian Institute for the Law of the Sea (BILOS); Member of the Centre for Political and Strategic Studies of the Brazilian Navy (CEPE – MB) and Member of the State Environmental Council of Paraíba, Brazil (COPAM). Brazilian Specialist before the IUCN. Published extensively on the Law of the Sea, Environmental Law, Marine Governance and Human Rights. Licensed attorney before the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB).