Julia EMTSEVA

Julia Emtseva is Assistant Professor of Law at HEC Paris. She teaches courses on EU Governance, Law and Social Change, and Company Law.

Her research mainly explores the role of private actors in international law and the broader implications of the privatization of public functions in global governance. She is particularly interested in how transnational corporations, philanthropic foundations, and NGOs operate within international legal regimes and how their growing influence reconfigures traditional notions of accountability, authority, and public interest. Julia’s work is similarly situated within critical and interdisciplinary approaches to international law, engaging with questions of epistemic injustice and the structural inequalities embedded in legal regimes. She examines the intersections of international labour law, social justice, and radical democratic theories, asking how international law might be reimagined to advance more inclusive and socially transformative outcomes.

Julia was previously a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute and a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg. She is also a co-founder of the European Society of International Law Interest Group on Critical Approaches to International Law.

Julia’s scholarly work is complemented by active collaborations with civil society organizations working on human rights and the rule of law. Before entering academia, Julia worked in a range of legal and policy roles across international and national institutions. She held positions at the American Bar Association in Bishkek, the Ukrainian National Committee of the Red Cross in Kyiv, and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin.

She held visiting fellowships at several academic institutions, including the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University, the Minerva Center for Human Rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Sciences Po Law School. She has also taught at the Riga Graduate School of Law, the Catholic University of Lille and the American University of Central Asia.

Julia’s academic work has been published in leading journals such as AJIL Unbound, the German Law Journal, and the Michigan Journal of International Law. She also regularly contributes to legal blogs, including EJIL:Talk!, Verfassungsblog, Voelkerrechtsblog, and Opinio Juris.

She has been contributing to academic service as a reviewer for EJIL, Heidelberg Journal of International Law, the International Journal of Transitional Justice, and as a grant proposal reviewer for the Fondazione Cariplo. Julia has also served as Assistant Editor of the European Journal of International Law. 

Julia holds a Ph.D. in Law from the Free University of Berlin, an LL.M. from the University of Notre Dame Law School, an M.A. in Human Rights and Democratization from the Global Campus Caucasus Program, and an LL.B. from the American University of Central Asia.