Stefanos Arvanitakis is a PhD Candidate at King's College London, funded by a full studentship by the Dickson Poon School of Law.

Stefanos's focus is on human rights law and public international law, and his project concerns conflicts of rights and positive State obligations vis-a-vis individual rights holders. He is passionate about the intersection between human rights and several sociopolitical phenomena, including the environment, emerging technologies, health and migration.

Stefanos holds an LLM summa cum laude in International Law from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, and a First Class Honours LLB degree in Politics, Philosophy and Law from King's College London. He is a Junior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance and Dispute Resolution (CIGAD) of King's College, has conducted research as part of the King's Undergraduate Research Fellowship on inter-State disputes before human rights treaty bodies, and has assisted the King's Human Rights and Environment Clinic in drafting an amicus curiae brief in support of the absolute prohibition of torture and torture-tainted evidence in pre-trial proceedings.

Alongside his academic career, Stefanos has gained professional experience in international organizations including the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and the International Organization for Migration.

PhD Thesis

Stefanos's research is provisionally titled: "Personal Autonomy, Consent, and Refusal vis-à-vis the State’s Duty to Protect the Right to Life: Towards a New Human Rights Paradigm?"

The research proposes to investigate how the principles personal autonomy, consent, and refusal intersect with the State's duty to protect the right to life. To address this overarching question, the research will analyse the ethical and legal challenges that arise in navigating the balancing of these rights and obligations, and the extent to which the right to autonomy might prevail over positive State duties.

Supervisors

Dr Rosana Garciandia

Professor Satvinder Juss

Dr Elise Woodard

Research Interests

• Public International Law
• International Human Rights Law
• Migration and Refugee Law
• Jurisprudence