Dr Tsvetelina van Benthem

Dr Tsvetelina van Benthem is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Reading School of Law and Programme Director of Reading’s Global Law Programmes. She teaches on a range of international law modules, including Foundations of International Law and Contemporary Issues in International Law, and convenes two courses on the intersection of legal regulation and technologies – International Law & Technology (LWMCS) and Technology & Law (LW3TL). Tsvetelina is also a lecturer in international law at the University of Oxford, where she teaches Public International Law for the Diplomatic Studies Programme and International Law and Armed Conflict for the BCL/MJur. 

Tsvetelina is a generalist international lawyer who specialises in international humanitarian law, international human rights law, international criminal law and the application of international law to technologies. She has published widely in these areas, including in the European Journal of International Law and the International Review of the Red Cross. Her DPhil completed at the University of Oxford focused on the regulation of targeting mistakes and weapons malfunctions under international humanitarian law and international criminal law. Her work on unintended engagements in armed conflict, including through military uses of AI, has been published widely and was cited by the UK House of Lords in their 2023 report on AI in Weapon Systems. Tsvetelina is currently working on the protection of minds through international law, including from indoctrination and conflict-related trauma, and on the ways in which states disagree on the application of international law to cyberspace, military uses of AI and outer space.

Tsvetelina is one of the organisers of the Oxford Process on International Law Protections in Cyberspace, an expert in the Sino-European Working Group on the Application of International Law in Cyberspace and a member of the Red Team working on the Manual on International Law Applicable to Artificial Intelligence in Warfare.

Tsvetelina is also a senior legal adviser for The Reckoning Project, working on violations of international law committed during the conflict in Ukraine. In this capacity, she routinely engages with government officials, domestic courts, the International Criminal Court, UN Special Procedures and Commissions of Inquiry, among others.

Tsvetelina obtained her first degree in law from Sofia University “St Kliment Ohridski” in Bulgaria. She went on to complete the MJur, MPhil and DPhil at the University of Oxford.