Eva Pils currently holds the Alexander von Humboldt Chair in Human Rights Law at FAU. She is also a member and part of the collegiate directorship team of the FAU Centre for Human Rights Erlangen Nuremberg.

Eva studied law, philosophy and sinology in Heidelberg, London and Beijing and holds a PhD in law from University College London. Before joining FAU in 2024, Eva held tenured positions at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law (2007-2024) and at King’s College London(2014-2024), where she was appointed Professor of Law in 2018. Her scholarship addresses autocratic conceptions and practices of governance, legal and political resistance, transnational repression, and modes of complicity with autocratic wrongs.

She has previously worked on human rights defence in China in a variety of contexts, including criminal justice, land and housing rights, freedom of expression and association, and wider issues of access to justice.Within the framework of her AvH professorship, she will be directing projects to investigate the impacts of global autocratisation on the protection and defence of human rights, as well as human rights’ role in democratic resilience and resistance, drawing on the methodologies and insights of diverse academic disciplines and legal-political settings.

Eva is an affiliate of the Lau China Institute, King's College London. For more information: https://www.mr1.rw.fau.de/person/prof-dr-eva-pils/