Dr Vicky Kapogianni

Email:
v.kapogianni@reading.ac.uk
Phone:
+44 (0)118 378 5882
Job title:
Lecturer in EU and International Law

Responsibilities:

Programme Director for LLB (Law)
Programme Director for LLB with Criminology
Co-Director of PGT Programmes
LLM Module Convenor for International Organisations and Global Governance (LWMIGG)
UG Module Co-convenor for EU Law (LW2EU)

Areas of interest

Dr. Kapogianni is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research addresses critical global legal challenges at the intersection of EU and International Human Rights Law, Refugee Law, the Law of the Sea, Climate Change Law, and Transitional Justice.

Her work is centred on three interrelated themes: climate-induced displacement, maritime sovereignty, and the EU’s migration externalisation paradigm and its impact on human mobility across maritime spaces. These themes are explored through a three-pronged research lens, focusing on distinct yet interconnected aspects of global legal frameworks.

The first lens reimagines legal mechanisms to address the vulnerabilities of coastal and island communities facing rising sea levels and displacement. The second lens parses the metaphysical dimensions of maritime sovereignty, critically analysing issues of authority, consent, and governance in contested waters. The third lens examines the EU’s externalisation strategies, particularly their role in shaping mobility regimes across seascapes. By framing migration externalisation as a form of structural power, her research highlights how deterrence policies with third countries create spaces of legal toxicity intensify vulnerability, and perpetuate systemic harm, while revealing how categoric and situational vulnerabilities narrow state responsibility or amplify structural precarity.

Dr. Kapogianni’s work illustrates how these interconnected mechanisms—legal vulnerability, sovereignty, and migration externalisation—reinforce a rightless and toxic legal scape, compounding structural injustice and perpetuating exclusionary practices that disproportionately affect marginalised communities, particularly those navigating precarious maritime routes.

Vicky has recently been awarded a BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant SRG 2024 Round for her project titled ‘Reconceptualising the Marginalised Nexus between Genocide, the Ocean, and the Existing International Legal Mechanisms: The Case of the Caribbean’. This project explores how a reparatory justice framework, incorporating climate considerations, can provide decolonised nations with equal access to sustainable development opportunities, addressing the historical and ongoing impacts of environmental harm.

She is currently working on her monograph titled ‘Reimagining Refugee Law for the Climate-Stranded: Climate Change, Small Island Developing States, and the International Law of (Im)Mobility’, which is under contract with Brill. In parallel, she is co-editing Genocide and the Ocean: Law, History and Genocidal Realities Beyond Borders and Beneath Waves, an interdisciplinary volume under contract with Routledge. This collection delves into a variety of themes, including (but not limited to) colonialism, warfare, migration, and environmental destruction, shedding light on the often-overlooked intersections of mass violence and maritime spaces.

Postgraduate supervision

Vicky welcomes PhD applications that fall within her above areas of interest.

Teaching

Vicky currently teaches on the following modules on the LLB and LLM programmes:

EU Law (UG) (Module co-convenor)
European Human Rights Law (UG)
Law & Society (UG)
International Organisations & Global Governance (PG Module Convenor)
Human Rights Law, Policy & Practice (PG)
International Migration and Refugee Law (PG)

Research centres and groups

Background

Vicky is a Lecturer in EU and International Law and Programme Director for LLB (Law) and LLB Law with Criminology. Prior to joining the University of Reading, Vicky held positions at University of Kent, Newcastle University, Cardiff Metropolitan University, as well as lectured at a number of institutions overseas. Vicky has taught on a variety of undergraduate and postgraduate law modules such as EU Law, International Human Rights Law, Migration and Refugee Law, International Public Law, International Criminal law, International Relations, among other; In 2021, she received the Newcastle education development award for her project on ‘Beyond Conventional Educational Environments: Videogamising International Law’, where she employed commercial video games to yield higher learning gains and achieve the curriculum’s learning goals and objectives while providing an immersive experience. In 2023, she received the investment in research fund from the University of Kent for her project on ‘Genocide & the Ocean’. The project tackles contemporary global issues that go beyond the terracentric presumptions of genocidal violence and the 'blood & soil’ narratives and explores the hidden maritime dimensions of sea-related violence/group destruction.

She is the recipient of the BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant SRG 2024 Round for her project titled ‘Reconceptualising the Marginalised Nexus between Genocide, the Ocean, and the Existing International Legal Mechanisms: The Case of the Caribbean’.

Academic qualifications

PhD (Paris II, Panthéon-Assas University/Columbia University, NY)

LLM (Paris Dauphine University)

LLM (Paris IV-Sorbonne University)

LLM (Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle University)

LLB (Paris II, Panthéon-Assas University)

BA (Hons) (Paris IV-Sorbonne University)

Professional bodies/affiliations

Member of the European Society of International Law (ESIL)
Member of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS)
Member of the Research Affiliate Network at the Refugee Law Initiative (RLI)
Member of the International Law Association (UK Branch)
Member of the Society of Legal Scholars
Fellow, Higher Education Academy (FHEA)

Selected publications

2025

Kapogianni, V. (2025), ‘Challenging Border Externalisation: Evidentiary Bias and Procedural Violations in M.A. and Z. R. v. Cyprus’, Statewatch, 11 February 2025, available here.

2024

Kapogianni, V. (2024), The Making of Constitutional Democracy: From Creation to Application of Law (Law and Practical Reason) by Paolo Sandro, Book Review, Public Law, (P.L. 2024, April), 384-387.

2023

Kapogianni, V. (2023), The Figure of The Witness in International Criminal Tribunals: Memory, Atrocities and Transitional Justice by Benjamin Thorne, Book Review, Journal of International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict 3-4 (Dec. 2023), 215-219.

2022

Kapogianni, V. (2022) ‘Response to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Call for Evidence in respect of the recently published British Bill of Rights. Available here.
Kapogianni, V. Arif W. (2022) Response to the Call for Input/Special Procedures ‘Thematic Report to the UN General Assembly on the Right to Self-Determination’. Submission available here.
Kapogianni, V. (2022) ‘Response by the Human Rights and Social Justice Forum to the Human Rights Act Reform: A Modern Bill of Rights Open Consultation’. Available here.

2021

Kapogianni, V. (2021) ‘The Multi-Nodal approach of European Peacebuilding’, Agency for Peacebuilding, (26th July 2021) available here.

2020

Voicu A.V., Kapogianni V., Stanescu R., Voicu B.I. (2020). The Importance of Knowing and Operationalising the Effectiveness-Efficiency-Legality Imperatives in Sports Management and Human Rights, International Sports Law Review – PANDEKTIS, 13 (1-2), pp. 155-166

2013

Kapogianni, V. (2013). European Union: From the Article 165 TFEU to Reality, Lex Sportiva Journal, 1 (2), pp. 205-211.

2012

Kapogianni, V. (2012). Redefining the National-European Perception, Digital Legal Library,Theory & Practice of Administrative Law Journal, 4 (5), pp. 461-463, in Greek)
Kapogianni, V. (2012). Emerging Regions of Self-determination, Regional Science Inquiry Journal, 3 (1), pp. 107-113, (in Greek)

2011

Kapogianni, V. (2011), Frontiers and Territories: the evolution of the notion of Frontiers and Territories via the process of Partition, Paris, Monograph, Atelier National de Reproduction de These, Université Paris II, Panthéon-Assas.
Kapogianni, V. (2011). ‘Postmodern transmutation of the European Union’, Antifono, Journal of Sciences, Philosophy, Arts & Theology, available here.

Selected Conference Papers and Presentations

Kapogianni, V. (2025) ‘The Challenge of “Never Again”: Engaging with Protection and Prevention of Genocide 2025, International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS),20-24 October 2025, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Kapogianni, V. (2025), ‘From Genocide-Enabled Domination to Climate-Vulnerability to New Horizons of Responsibility: The Question of Reparations in the Case of the Caribbean’, Climate Change and Reparations, Université de Montréal, 10-11 April 2025.
Kapogianni, V. (2025), ‘Climate Change Induced Migration and the Environmental Refugee Question’, Keynote Speaker, Leicester Centre for European Law and Internationalisation / Institute for Environmental Futures (CELI/IEF) Climate Change, Energy Transition and Sustainability Seminar Talk Series, 22 January 2025.
Kapogianni, V. (2024), ‘Geopolitics of Disappearing Land: The Falepili Treaty as a Catalyst for Customary Law on Statehood’, ICON-S Interest Group on Climate Change and Migration, ‘The Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union Treaty: Balancing Climate Mobility, Sovereignty, and Cultural Preservation, 19 November 2024.
Kapogianni, V. (2024), ‘The Permeability of Rightlessness under the Auspices of the EU: Technological Effects of Power, Regime Interactions at Sea & the Externalisation Paradigm’, Joint Colloquium, ‘The EU as an (Imperfect) Global Actor in Search and Rescue at Sea?- EU (in)Action in Troubled Waters’, ESIL Interest Groups ‘The EU as a Global Actor’ and ‘Migration and Refugee Law’, 7 November 2024.
Kapogianni, V. (2024), ‘Entrapped Mobility: Colonial Residues, Lex in Absentia and Postcolonial Dynamics within the Pacific Neighbourliness’, SLSA workshop on ‘Climate Change & Migration: New Challenges, Legal Responses, and Policy Solutions, 19 June 2024, University of Nottingham.
Kapogianni, V. (2024), workshop on ‘Thinking with the Digital: Interactions, Spaces and Harms’, 7 June 2024, University of Reading.
Kapogianni, V. (2024), ‘Forging Protection for People Displaced in the Context of Climate Change through ‘Escape’ Pacts: The South Pacific Islands Case’, 8th Annual Conference, Refugee Law Initiative, ‘Pacts, Promises and Refugee Protection’, 3-5 June 2024, Senate House, University of London.
Kapogianni,V. & Thorne, B. (2024).‘Colonial Violence Heritages and The De-Voiced: Re-Sculpting Participation’, Victims & Transitional Justice: Participation, Mobilisation, Resistance, Conference organised by Justice Visions, 13-15 March 2024, Ghent University, Belgium.
Kapogianni, V. & Loefflad, E. (2023). Irredentism: A Prospective Triggering Factor Paving the Road to Manifold Forms of Genocide?, Authoritarianism and Genocide: Narratives of Exclusion, 16th Biennal Conference of the International Association of Genocide Studies, 10-14 July 2023, University of Barcelona, Spain.
Kapogianni, V. (2022). When Weapons Speak, the Law does not Fall Silent: Human Rights Obligations and De Facto control in cases of Belligerent Occupation: Normative Complexities and Complementarities, European Society of International Law & International Law Institute of the Tbilisi State University conference: “Emerging Issues of Relationship between International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law” 29-30 September 2022, Tbilisi, Georgia.
Kapogianni, V. (2019). The Modern Era of Olympism via the spectrum of human rights: equality, diversity, and inclusion. In: IX International Scientific Congress Proceedings Sport, People and Health. Saint Petersburg: SPb., p. 4.
Kapogianni, V. (2015). First International Conference on Globalisation and Human Rights Challenges. March 3rd 2015, American University in the Emirates of Dubai, U.A.E
Kapogianni, V. (2015). International Conference on Sports, Dubai, Sports Management & International Sports Law, Round Table Discussion, Dec. 28-29, 2015, Smart Football, Atlantis the Palm, Dubai, U.A.E
Kapogianni, V. (2015). Sports & Lex under the Auspices of an International Rex. In: D.P.Panagiotopoulos, ed., Sports Law 22 Years I.A.S.L Lex Sportiva-Lex Olympica & Sports Jurisdiction Experience-Development & Perspective, 20th IASL Congress Proceedings, 1st ed. Athens: EKEAD, pp. 74-83.
Kapogianni, V. (2014). Video Lecture on the Frontierless International Public Law, within the context of the 20th International Congress of Sports Law – IASL, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, December 11-13, 2014, Athens, Greece, Link

Organised Events

Genocide & the Ocean, workshop organised in collaboration with Kent Law School, University of Kent, 20 March 2024 (co-organiser)
Beyond Conventional Educational Environments : Videogamising International Law, a two days’ workshop organised on 1st and 7th September 2022, Newcastle University (co-organiser)
The 20th Worldwide IASL Congress of Sports Law, organized by the Hellenic Centre of Research on International Sports Law in cooperation with Universities and the International Scientific Centre IASL, 11th-13th December 2014, University of Athens (organiser)

Invited Talks and Lectures

Videogamising Law: A Smorgasbord for Critical Thinking, Centre for Critical Thought, University of Kent, 23 November 2022
Kapogianni, V. (2022). Emerging Normative Asymmetries in the Borders-Refugees Landscape: How the Prioritisation of Borders Protection Dismantles Refugees’ Rights, Newcastle Forum for Human Rights and Social Justice, 22 June 2022
Kapogianni, V. (2021). Human Rights Dynamics in Progress: A Multi-Nodal Joined Up Action to Global Crisis, Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria, International Centre for Human Rights Research, 15 July 2021
Kapogianni, V. (2021). International Human Rights Law: An Effective Shield to Humanitarian Crises? Webinar, Faculty of Law, Parul Institute of Law, 2 June 2021