Research Lab at University College London
We are an interdisciplinary team of scholars and practitioners studying international human rights courts and tribunals — who gets heard, what remedies follow, and whether states change their behaviour.
Led by Professor Veronika Fikfak, Professor of Human Rights and International Law at University College London.
1 million
Claims and judgments analysed
4
International and regional human rights systems
~100
States under study
50+
Publications by our team
This ERC-funded project looks at how victims access international human rights courts and treaty bodies. We study inequality in access to understand which groups obtain protection and which fall through the cracks.
Read more →This ERC-funded project studies execution of human rights judgments across the Council of Europe. We look at past cases of human rights violations to understand when judicial decisions lead to a change in states' behaviour.
Read more →A large share of claims never reaches a substantive hearing. Admissibility criteria filter out precisely the claimants the system says it protects.
Compliance is not only a bilateral matter between a court and a state. Governments observe how their peers respond to adverse judgments and calibrate accordingly.
Damages alone rarely produce reform. The design of the remedy — individual, general, or community-wide — predicts whether a violation recurs.
11 September 2026
Veronika Fikfak gives the morning keynote at the Third Annual International Conference on Just Transitions to a Net Zero World, drawing on HRNUDGE research and 25,000+ European Court of Human Rights judgments.
5 September 2026
A new piece in the Journal of International Dispute Settlement shows how simulation can explain state responses to European Court of Human Rights judgments.
September 2026
New members have joined our UKRI/ERC Access to Justice / Break the Bias project. Check out our Team page!
28 August 2026
The independent report on contraceptive practices in Kalaallit Nunaat draws extensively on our submission on consent, ill-treatment and remedies.
10 August 2026
Recent interviews and lectures on access to justice, the pushback against the Strasbourg Court and the future of the Convention system.
Katharina Luckner, Adarsh Prabhakaran, Veronika Fikfak and Niccolò Ridi
Journal of International Dispute Settlement • 2026, Vol. 17(3)
Veronika Fikfak
Völkerrechtsblog • 29 July 2026
Veronika Fikfak, Izabela Skoczeń and Benedikt Pirker
Human Rights Law Review • 2026, Vol. 26(3)
Veronika Fikfak and Mikael Rask Madsen
Verfassungsblog • 15 May 2026
Veronika Fikfak, Ula Aleksandra Kos and Edward Pérez
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs • 11 February 2026
