Biography

As a career diplomat, Iakovos Iakovidis has served in the Embassy of Greece in Beijing and at the Permanent Missions of Greece to the European Union and to the United Nations. While in Brussels, from 2005 to 2009, he was responsible for following European parliament proceedings and interacting with European MEP’s on a variety of European and international issues at a critical moment for the European inter-institutional balance, before the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty.
In New York, Iakovos was a Third Committee delegate, from 2011 to 2014, dealing mainly with human and cultural rights. Among other activities, he initiated, along with UNESCO and a handful of member-states and a group of NGOs, the debate on the safety of journalists in the General Assembly, which led to the adoption of UNGA Resolution  68/163, the first of its kind. In parallel, he negotiated, on behalf of the European Union as well, multiple Resolutions on women’s rights, human trafficking, corruption and the restitution of cultural property to countries of origin.
A lawyer by training, Iakovos has a genuine interest in human rights against an international backdrop.
His PhD research at the University of Athens focuses on the interaction between jus cogens norms and the rules of jurisdictional immunities of states and state officials, mainly through the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. Simultaneously, he has researched EU negotiation techniques in multilateral fora, especially in the UN human rights context.
During the fellowship, he plans to explore whether there is an hierarchy between international norms, namely whether peremptory norms of international law can be implemented when in conflict with immunity rules.