Misha Plagis
Assistant Professor
- Name
- Dr. M.A. Plagis
- Telephone
- +31 71 527 2727
- m.a.plagis@law.leidenuniv.nl
- ORCID iD
- 0000-0002-9564-5236
Misha Plagis is an Assistant Professor of Public International Law at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies at Leiden University. Her research focusses on human rights law, with a specific focus on human rights law in Africa, regional and continental courts and tribunals, and African perspectives on international law.
Profile
Education and Career
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. She also holds an LL.M. in Globalisation and Law with a focus on human rights from Maastricht University (2012).
Misha was previously a post-doctoral researcher at the Asser Institute, University of Amsterdam.
In recent years, she has 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).
Prior to academia, Misha worked with a number of NGOs in India, South Africa, and the UK. In addition to her current academic activities, she is also the Associate Editor of The ACtHPR Monitor blog, which provides news, comment, and debate on the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
Research Areas and Interests
Misha is particularly interested in the ongoing dynamics around the developments of human rights and their interpretation by Africa’s international and regional courts and tribunals. Some of her most recent work focus on the drafting history of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the remedies regime of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Court), and the interpretations of international law by domestic courts. She has also contributed to the Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Procedural Law on jurisdiction and admissibility at the African Court 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.
Educational Activities
At Leiden, Misha teaches Public International Law to first and third year Bachelor law students. She also teaches Principles of International Law at Leiden University College.
Assistant Professor
- Faculteit Rechtsgeleerdheid
- Instituut voor Publiekrecht
- Grotius Centre for Intern Legal Studies
- De Silva N. & Plagis M.A. (2023), NGOs, international courts, and state backlash against human rights accountability: evidence from NGO mobilization against Tanzania at the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, Law and Society Review 57(1): 36-60.
- Plagis M.A. (2023), A longer African history: re-politicising the right to development. In: Koagne Zouapet A. (Ed.), Sixty years after independence, Africa and international law: views from a generation = Soixante ans apres les independances, l’Afrique et le droit international: Regards d’une generation. Pretoria: Pretoria University Law Press. 169-196.
- Holtz J.I. & Plagis M.A. (2023), Mauritius’s engagement with climate change in international law: current developments and additional outlooks. Mauritius: Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Mauritius, E-newsletter / Mauritius Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions 2023(131): 7-11.
- Plagis M.A. (2021), Jurisdiction and Admissibility: African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACtHPR). In: Ruiz Fabri H. (Ed.), Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Procedural Law [MPEiPro]. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Duval A. & Plagis M.A. (4 October 2021), Delocalized Justice: The Delocalization of Corporate Accountability for Human Rights Violations Originating in Africa. AfronomicsLaw (African International Economic Law Network). [blog entry].
- Plagis M.A. (2020), The makings of remedies: the (R)evolution of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights' remedies regime in fair trial cases, African Journal of International and Comparative Law 28(Supplement): 45-71.
- Plagis M.A. & Riemer L. (2020), From context to content of human rights: the drafting history of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the enigma of Article 7, Journal of the History of International Law 23(4): 556-589.
- Nyarko M.G. & Plagis M.A. (2020), Supporting the Mandate of the African Court. African Human Rights Policy Papers no. 2. Pretoria: Pretoria University Law Press (PULP).
- Plagis M.A. & Windridge O. (27 November 2020), The Mauritius Oil Spill: Using Africa’s ‘judicial environmentalism’ as an avenue for redress?. EJIL:Talk! (European Journal of International Law). [blog entry].
- De Silva N. & Plagis M.A. (19 May 2020), A Court in Crisis: African States’ Increasing Resistance to Africa’s Human Rights Court. Opinio Juris. [blog entry].
- Plagis M.A. (4 February 2020), Regional courts and their sources: The practice of the African Court and the ‘others’. The ACtHPR Monitor. [blog entry].
- Plagis M.A. & Banens A. 15 May 2020, The Incredible Shrinking Court. Asymmetrical Haircuts - your international justice podcast 24 [podcast].
- Koagne Zouapet A. & Plagis M.A. (2019), Braamfontein encroaching?: An internationalist reading of the South African Constitutional Court judgment on the SADC Tribunal, South African Journal on Human Rights 35(4): 378-403.
- Plagis M.A. (22 December 2018), Alex Thomas and Mohamed Abubakari: The Legacy of Requests for Interpretation on Remedies. The ACtHPR Monitor. [blog entry].
- Associate Editor