Call for applications – PhD Scholarship to research values in the areas of war and security, climate change, or migration and forced displacement, Application Deadline- 31 January 2026
The Centre for Fundamental Rights at the Hertie School, is seeking applications for a fully funded PhD position, as part of the research project COLLISIONS led by Violeta Moreno Lax, Professor of International Law at the Hertie School and the Director of the School’s Centre for Fundamental Rights.
The successful candidate will be enrolled in the Doctoral Programme in Governance at the Hertie School. The fellowship is available from 1 September 2026.
About the PhD Position
The PhD candidate is expected to carry out research examining the complex dynamics between competing values (as defined above) in one of the following areas:
(1) war and security, (2) climate change, or (3) migration and forced displacement.
Projects looking at the judicial reasoning of human rights courts and treaty bodies, and/or at contestation processes between different actors advancing different positions on the basis of different values or different understandings of the values at hand and the norms they substantiate, and/or looking at the ways in which value conflicts are addressed in law, policy and/or practice are particularly welcome.
The disciplinary perspective may be law, norms research (especially in IR), law and politics, or law and governance. All methodological approaches, including socio-legal, criticaltheoretical, philosophical, empirical, including ethnographic and anthropological, as well as doctrinal are welcome.
The successful candidate will conduct this PhD research under the supervision of Violeta Moreno-Lax, Professor of International Law and Director of the Centre for Fundamental rights at the Hertie School, and other supervisors under the structured scheme of the PhD programme at the Hertie School.
Qualifications
We invite PhD candidates with exceptionally strong academic track records at undergraduate and master’s level (or equivalent) in law, politics or cognate disciplines, with a strong demonstrated interest in research of human rights theories, law, policy, and/or institutions.
The deadline for applications is 31 January 2026 11:59 pm CET. The reference letters must be submitted no later than 15 February 2026.
For Information about the required application documents see here.
For more information about Doctoral Programmes at Hertie School see here.
Apply using this link.
For more details, refer here
