Angelika Nussberger


Angelika Helene Anna Nußberger is a German professor of law and scholar of slavic studies, and has been the judge in respect of Germany at the European Court of Human Rights from 1 January 2011 to 31 December 2019; from 2017 to 2019 she is the Court’s Vice-President. She had previously been Vice-Rector of the University of Cologne and Director of its Institute of Eastern European Law and Comparative Law.

Early life

Nußberger was born in Munich and studied slavic languages as well as German and French literature at the University of Munich from 1982 to 1987 and Law from 1984 to 1989 at the same university. She passed the first state exam in Munich in 1989 and the second state exam in Heidelberg in 1993. In the same year, she was awarded a doctorate by the University of Würzburg for a dissertation on Soviet constitutional law during the transition period.

Career

From 1993 to 2001, Nußberger worked at the Max Planck Society Institute for International and Comparative Social Law, including a period as visiting researcher at Harvard University from 1994 to 1995. From 2001 to 2002, she worked as a legal adviser at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.
In 2002, Nußberger achieved her habilitation, the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve in Germany, with a thesis on public international law. In October 2002, she was appointed Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Cologne and as Director of the Institute of Eastern European Law. In 2009, she was elected Vice-Rector of the university with the newly created position of Vize-Rector for Academic Careers, Diversity and International Affairs. She has been a member of the International Labour Organization's Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations from 2004 to 2010, and a deputy member of the Council of Europe's Venice Commission from 2006 to 2010. In 2010, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by Tbilisi State University in Georgia and the Schader Award in 2015.
On 22 June 2010, Nußberger was elected by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe judge on behalf of Germany at the European Court of Human Rights, succeeding Renate Jaeger, previously judge of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany.
Nußberger has been elected as Vice-President of the Court in February 2017.
In February 2020, she was appointed by the ECtHR to succeed to Giovanni Grasso as international judge to the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Research

Nußberger's research interests focus on German and European fundamental rights and International Human Rights in addition to Comparative Constitutional Law and the impact of International Law on the legal development in Central- and Eastern Europe.

Other activities

Monograph