Professor Veronika Bílková Elected Member of the UN Human Rights Committee

The Faculty of Law of Charles University is delighted to announce that Professor Veronika Bílková from the Department of International Law has been elected a member of the UN Human Rights Committee, which oversees the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 173 states parties.

Professor Bílková is one of the most internationally recognized Czech experts in international law. She studied law, political science, and French in Prague, and completed study and research stays at the University of Cambridge, Northumbria University, Columbia Law School, Université Paris II-Panthéon-Assas, and the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg. For more than twenty-five years, she has been engaged in research, teaching, and expert practice in the fields of international law, international humanitarian law, and human rights.

She is a member and vice-chair of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (the Venice Commission) of the Council of Europe, and Secretary-General of the European Society of International Law. In 2022, she was selected as one of three experts for the mission of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) established under the so-called Moscow Mechanism, tasked with documenting violations of international humanitarian law and human rights during Russia's aggression against Ukraine. The mission's report became one of the first independent records of the situation in Ukraine and served as a basis for further international investigations.

Election to the UN Human Rights Committee is a significant recognition of Professor Bílková's expertise and many years of work, as well as evidence that Czech legal scholarship can hold its own at the highest international level. The Faculty of Law, Charles University, is proud to count Professor Bílková among its academic staff and wishes her great success in her new four-year mandate.