Biography
Julia Emtseva is an international lawyer from Kyrgyzstan. She holds a PhD from the Free University of Berlin, an LLM from the University of Notre Dame Law School, an MA from the Global Campus of Human Rights, and an LLB from the American University of Central Asia. Before joining the EUI, from 2019 to 2024, Julia was a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. Before starting her PhD, Julia clerked at different courts in Kyrgyzstan, including the Constitutional Chamber, and worked at organizations like the American Bar Association, the Ukrainian National Committee of the Red Cross, and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights. She is also a visiting lecturer at the Riga Graduate Law School and the Catholic University of Lille.
Julia’s PhD project focused on the role of private actors in transitional justice processes, especially on how philanthropic foundations, NGOs, and companies get engaged in criminal trials, truth-seeking, and reparation programmes. The project looked at this phenomenon from the international legal perspective and explored issues like the attribution of responsibility to private actors, privatization of public functions, and the UN regulations of cooperation with the private sector.
Her work has been published in outlets like AJIL Unbound, the German Law Journal, and the Michigan Journal of International Law.
As a Max Weber Fellow, Julia will work on her project on anarchism and transitional justice.