Gjovalin Macaj is an Assistant Professor in United Nations Studies in Peace and Justice at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University, where he also serves as the main contact point for the Institute’s initiatives related to the United Nations.

More information about Gjovalin Macaj

Gjovalin Macaj is an Assistant Professor in United Nations Studies in Peace and Justice at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University, where he also serves as the main contact point for the Institute’s initiatives related to the United Nations. He holds a DPhil in international human rights law and institutions from the University of Oxford, and a PhD in European foreign policy from Free University of Brussels. His research and teaching focuses on the theory and practice of human rights, ethics, norms, diplomacy, the European Union as well as the United Nations system. 

Prior to joining Leiden University he taught for four years at the University of Oxford, including as Lecturer in Politics at Keble College, Oxford. Additionally, he has held visiting positions and fellowships at the University of Geneva, Sciences Po Paris, The Graduate Institute, and NYU School of Law. 

Gjovalin served as an advisor to the Mission of Albania at the United Nations Security Council (2022-2023), where he covered country situations (e.g. Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq) and thematic issues (e.g. peacekeeping, sanctions, international courts and tribunals). He was also an academic observer at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

His research aims to build a theory that explains the sources and effects of norms in world society, with a concentration on the dialectic between universalism and consistency. He has explored aspects on this dialectic in relation to the rise and development of human rights norms and institutions, and the conduct of European foreign policy. 

Gjovalin teaches courses on peace studies, accountability for atrocity crimes, international relations, and research methodology. Previous courses taught include (at Leiden graduate and undergraduate programmes) Great Debates in Political Science, Ethics in Global Politics, Ethics of War, Global Order in Historical Perspective, Negotiations in the European Union, International Organisation, and (at Oxford’s PPE and MPhil International Relations programmes) Theory and Practice of Politics, Comparative Government, International Relations Theory, International Relations in the Era of Two World Wars, International Relations in the Era of the Cold War, Politics in Europe, The European Union in Crisis, and The Government and Politics of the United States.

Publications

Koops, Joachim and Macaj, Gjovalin (Eds.) (2015), The EU as a Diplomatic Actor, Palgrave Macmillan, 209 p. 

Macaj, Gjovalin and Nicolaidis, Kalypso (2014), ‘Beyond “One Voice”? Global Europe’s Engagement with its Own Diversity’, Journal of European Public Policy, 21(7), p. 1067-1083.

Macaj, Gjovalin and Koops, Joachim (2011), ‘Inconvenient multilateralism: The challenges of the EU at the UN Human Rights Council’. In: Jan Wetzel (ed.) The EU as a Global Player in the Field of Human Rights. London, Routledge p. 71-86.