Christine Kaufmann

Christine Kaufmann is a Professor of International, Constitutional and Administrative law at the University of Zurich Law School in Switzerland. She is President of the University of Zurich Competence Center for Human Rights, an interdisciplinary scientific network with the goal of promoting and coordinating research, teaching and knowledge transfer in the area of human rights.

After completing her doctoral thesis on the Right to Food, Christine Kaufmann served first in the legal department and then as Director of Human Resources at the Swiss Central Bank. At that time, she was a member of the European Free Trade Association expert groups on financial services and free movement of capital and services. She also represented the Swiss Central Bank in the negotiations on the European Economic Area.

As a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan law school, she has researched on the relationship between core labour rights and international financial institutions.

Upon her return and before joining the law faculty in Zurich, Christine Kaufmann was Director of Legal Research at the World Trade Institute (WTI) in Bern, where she is now a senior research fellow and a member of the board. As a member of the faculty, she regularly teaches in the Master of International Law and Economics program at the WTI. She also is a member of the advisory board of the Zurich section of the European Law Students’ Association (ELSA) and participates as judge in the ELSA moot court on WTO law. Since 2004 Christine Kaufmann has been a member of the Bar Association Examination Panel of the Canton (State) of Zurich.

Her main research interests include the linkages between international trade law and human rights, the relationship between the international trade and the international financial system and the implications of globalisation on constitutional law.