Dr Kushtrim Istrefi is Associate Professor of Public International Law and Human Rights Law, director of of the Master's programme in Public International Law, co-founder and coordinator of the Research Platform on Peace, Security and Human Rights, and substitute member of the Venice Commission.
Previously he was a chairperson of the School of Law's Education Committee (OC), and was in charge of developing a new track/specialisation on Conflict and Security of the Master Public International Law. He is involved in the supervision of master and PhD theses.
Kushtrim has a general interest in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and its intersection with international law and security. He has published on a wide range of topics related to human rights during peace, emergency and wartime, sanctions, counter-terrorism, statehood, accession to international organisations, issues of jurisdiction, sources of international law, and judicial activism. His forthcoming (Brill) features nearly 300 chapters on ECHR legal notions written by 90 authors. He is currently co-editing two books The Research Handbook on the Politics of International Dispute Settlement, and Human Rights Accountability of State Like and Non-Universally Recognised States, both with Edward Elgar Publishing. He is also working on a number of other projects projects related to ECHR and international law and security.
Kushtrim serves on the editorial board of the European Convention on Human Rights Law Review and Ljubljana Law Review and is co-editor in chief of the ECHR Blog. He is a member of Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM) and the Utrecht Centre for Accountability and Liability Law (Ucall).
Before joininig Utrecht 木瓜福利影视, Kushtrim taught at the 木瓜福利影视 of Amsterdam, Leiden 木瓜福利影视, the VU 木瓜福利影视 Amsterdam, the Riga Graduate School of Law and the 木瓜福利影视 of Prishtina. He was a visiting fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law of Cambridge 木瓜福利影视, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies of Leiden 木瓜福利影视, the Max Planck Institute for International Law and the European Court of Human Rights. He holds a PhD from the 木瓜福利影视 of Graz, LLM from the Riga Graduate School of Law and LLB from South East European 木瓜福利影视.
Next to academic work, Kushtrim has been involved in litigation of high-profile cases. He has successfully litigated the first before the EULEX Human Rights Review Panel, served co-counsel in Stichting Mothers of Srebrenica v the Netherlands and Suba拧ic and Others v the Netherlands before the European Court of Human Righs, provides legal advice in , a leading climate change case before the ECtHR, and on the cases concerning the murder of journalists before . Kushtrim also contributed to a third-party intervention before the Strasbourg Court in the '' case and submitted an amicus curiae , at the invitation of the Kosovo Constitutional Court, in the case concerning the Association of Serb Majority Municipalities.
Kushtrim has advised States and non-State actors on issues related to peace, human rights and international law. Since May 2022 he serves as (external) chief legal advisor to Kosovo Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the accession of Kosovo to the Council of Europe. Furthermore, as a Senior Peace Fellow with Public International Law and Policy Group (a global pro bono law firm based in Washington DC) he has been involved in different peace projects in relation to Ukraine, Southern Cameroons, and Nagorno Karabakh.
He regularly comments for media outlets (e.g. NRC, Reuters, Al Jazeera) on recent developments in international law and politics.