Dr Misha Plagis LL.M.

Summary

Misha Plagis is a postdoctoral researcher with the Advancing Public Interests in International and European Law research strand at the Asser Institute. Her research focusses on human rights law in Africa, regional and continental dispute resolution mechanisms, and African international law in general.

Research interests

Misha’s most recent works focus on the history of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the work of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the interpretations of international law by domestic courts in Africa. Some of her current projects include resistance to human rights adjudication in Africa, and the inclusion of environmental rights and the right to development in the African human rights system.

Background

Before joining Asser, Misha obtained her Ph.D. (summa cum laude) from Freie Universität Berlin (2018), as part of the Human Rights Under Pressure interdisciplinary research training group. In recent years, she has also been a visiting scholar at the Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre for Excellence for International Courts (iCourts) at the University of Copenhagen (2019), the Centre for Law and Society at the University of Cape Town (2019), and the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law (2018). Misha also holds an LL.M. in Globalisation and Law with a focus on human rights, from Maastricht University (2012). Prior to academia, Misha worked with a number of NGOs in India, South Africa, and the UK. She is also part of the Doing Business Right Blog team, and is currently the Associate Editor of The ACtHPR Monitor blog, which provides news, comment, and debate on the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Twitter: @MPlagis

Selected Peer-Reviewed Publications

• ‘Braamfontein encroaching? An internationalist reading of the South African Constitutional Court judgement on the SADC Tribunal’ (2020) 35 South African Journal on Human Rights 4 pp 378-403 (with Apollin Koagne Zouapet)

• ‘The Makings of Remedies: The (r)evolution of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights’ remedies in fair trial cases’ (2020) 28 African Journal of International and Comparative Law (issue supplement) pp 45-71

• (forthcoming) ‘From Context to Content of Human Rights: The drafting history of the African Charter of Human and Peoples' Rights and the enigma of article 7’, Journal of the History of International Law (with Lena Riemer)

Selected Blog Posts

• ‘The Mauritius Oil Spill: Using Africa’s ‘judicial environmentalism’ as an avenue for redress?’,  EJIL:Talk!, 27 November 2020 (with Oliver Windridge)
   
• ‘A Court in Crisis: African States’ Increasing Resistance to Africa’s Human Rights Court’, Opinio Juris, 19 May 2020 (with Nicole De Silva)
   
• ‘Regional courts and their sources: The practice of the African Court and the ‘others’’, The ACtHPR Monitor, 4 February 2020

Policy Papers

• ‘Supporting the Mandate of the African Court’, African Human Rights Policy Paper 2, Pretoria University Law Press, November 2020 (with Michael Gyan Nyarko)

Media

• ‘The Incredible Shrinking Court with Misha Plagis and Alice Banens’, Asymmetrical Haircuts – your international justice podcast, 15 May 2020