Marion Sandner joined Hasselt University as a PhD researcher in January 2022. She pursues her doctoral studies jointly at Hasselt University and the University of Antwerp, within the framework of the iBOF Research Project Future-proofing Human Rights: Developing Thicker Forms of Accountability.
Under the supervision of prof. Stijn Smet, and prof. Wouter Vandenhole at the University of Antwerp, Marion will investigate approaches taken by judicial and political bodies to balancing economic, social and cultural rights during crisis situations.
Before starting her doctoral research, Marion had been working in human rights practice for nearly ten years. Most recently, Marion held the position of Programme Officer on Economic and Social Rights at the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network. She previously led the treaty monitoring work on children's rights and economic, social and cultural rights at Britain's Equality and Human Rights Commission, worked as human rights advisor at the German development agency GIZ and as research associate at the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi), and worked as a Carlo Schmid Fellow in the Regional Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in the Pacific.
Marion studied international human rights law (LL.M.) at the National University of Ireland, Galway (Irish Centre for Human Rights) and international relations (B.A.), specialising in public international law, at TU Dresden and Université d'Abomey-Calavi (UNESCO Chair of Human Rights and Democratisation). She has complemented her academic studies with the participation in summer schools on, amongst others, economic, social and cultural rights and distributive justice (European University Institute, 2018) and on minority rights (Middlesex University, 2012).
Marion is particularly interested in economic, social and cultural rights, distributive justice, the relationship between human rights law and development, and Third World approaches to international law.