Dr Vicky Kapogianni

Vicky Kapogianni portrait
  • 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)

Areas of interest

Dr Kapogianni’s research sits at the intersection of international law and environmental justice. Her work examines how international legal frameworks – in climate governance, the law of the sea, refugee protection, and trade – reproduce colonial structures of power through seemingly neutral doctrinal mechanisms, and how these structures can be contested and reimagined from postcolonial and Global South perspectives. She traces how historical injustices shape contemporary legal architectures and foregrounds the Caribbean and ocean spaces as sites of legal innovation and resistance.

Her monograph, Reimagining Refugee Law for the Climate-Stranded: Climate Change, Small Island Developing States, and the International Law of (Im)Mobility, is under contract with Brill, and she was awarded a University of Reading Research Fellowship in recognition of its significance. The monograph theorises climate (im)mobility and structural displacement, interrogating the limits of existing refugee protection and advancing decolonial legal frameworks for climate-stranded populations through strategic litigation and structural justice.

She has been awarded a BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant (SRG 2024 Round) for her project ‘Reconceptualising the Marginalised Nexus between Genocide, the Ocean, and the Existing International Legal Mechanisms: The Case of the Caribbean,’ which explores how a reparatory justice framework, incorporating climate considerations, can provide decolonised nations with equal access to sustainable development opportunities. This project has informed her co-edited volume, Genocide and the Ocean: Law, History and Genocidal Realities Beyond Borders and Beneath Waves (Routledge, 2026), an interdisciplinary work that breaks new ground by examining the overlooked intersections of mass violence and maritime spaces across themes of colonialism, warfare, migration, and environmental destruction.

Dr. Kapogianni is co-author of ‘China’s Maritime Militias, Human Rights, and the Law of the Sea: Contested Norms in a Shifting International Legal Order,’ winner of the Aldo Leucci and Ortensio Degli Atti Award (4th edition, 2025), recognised by the Award Board for the depth of its legal analysis, methodological rigour, and original contribution to the evolving discourse on the Law of the Sea.

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)
  • International and European Human Rights Law (UG)
  • Environmental and Climate Law (UG, PG)
  • 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 International and Environmental Law and Programme Director for LLB (Law) and LLB Law with Criminology. Prior to joining the University of Reading, she held positions at the University of Kent, Newcastle University, and Cardiff Metropolitan University, as well as at institutions in France, Italy, Greece, and the UAE. She has taught across a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate law modules including EU Law, International Human Rights Law, Migration and Refugee Law, Environmental and Climate Law, and International Public Law. In 2021, she received the Newcastle education development award for her project ‘Beyond Conventional Educational Environments: Videogamising International Law,’ employing commercial video games to achieve higher learning gains and immersive educational experiences

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

  • Senior Research Associate, South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law (SAIFAC), a Centre of the Faculty of Law, University of Johannesburg
  • Member of the UK Environmental Law Association (UKELA)
  • Member of the ICON-S Interest Group on Climate Change and Migration
  • 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

2026

  • Kapogianni, V., and Loefflad E. (2026), ‘Territorial integrity and self‑determination still dominate the Falklands discussion – but oil may change that,’ The Conversation, 27 May 2026, available here.

2025

  • Kapogianni, V., and Loefflad E. (2025), ‘Reparations for Specially Affected States: Genocide-Enabled Dominion and the Caribbean’s Path to Redress’ (Sabin Centre for Climate Change Blog, 7 October 2025). available here.
  • Kapogianni, V., Mutsvara S., and Xanthopoulou E., (2025), ‘Border Externalisation : Pullback and Pushback Practices’, Refugee Law Initiative (RLI), Policy Brief Series on Externalisation, 1st July 2025, available here.
  • Kapogianni, V. (2025), ‘Surging Seas, Climate-Induced Entrapment, and Legal Vacuums: The Dynamics of Pacific (Im)mobility’, SLSA Blog, 1st April 2025, available here.
  • 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.

Selected Conference Papers and Presentations

  • Kapogianni, V., Loefflad, E. (2025), ‘Who is the Neocolonial Goliath? The Interplay of Labour Rights and Indigenous Rights in (Alternatives to) the Legal Geography of Palm Oil Production, Human Rights and the Green Transition: Ensuring Justice for All, Asian Yearbook of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, 28 November 2028.
  • Kapogianni, V., Loefflad E. (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), ‘Climate (Im)mobility: Legal and Policy Pathways to Displacement and Entrapment in the Global Climate Emergency’, Socio & Legal Studies Journal and Southampton Law School, 9 June 2025
  • Kapogianni, V. (2025), ‘Climate (Im)mobility: Legal and Policy Pathways to Displacement and Entrapment in the Global Climate Emergency’, Socio & Legal Studies Journal and Southampton Law School, 9 June 2025
  • 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.

Organised Events

  • Oceanic Echoes: Unveiling the Genocide-Maritime Connection, Sea by Sea, workshop organised at the University of Reading and funded by the BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant, University of Reading, School of Law, 19 September 2025 (co-organiser)
  • 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)

Invited Talks and Lectures

  • ‘The Entrapment Matrix: African Peoples, Climate Change, and the Law of (Im)mobility, Centre for Human Rights (AHRC), Protection of Forcibly Displaced Persons in Africa, 3-7 November 2025, University of Pretoria.
  • 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

Publications

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