Aphrodite Papachristodoulou

About/Bio

Dr Aphrodite Papachristodoulou is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, School of Law, University of Galway. Her current, independent research project is entitled ‘AI Technologies in Maritime Border Management: The Panopticon of Migration’. She also teaches courses in Human Rights Law at the University of Galway. Dr Papachristodoulou holds a PhD in Law from University College Dublin (awarded without corrections). She also holds a Master of Laws in Maritime Law from University College London and an LLB from University of Southampton. Dr Papachristodoulou is also a licensed lawyer, having been called to the Cyprus Bar in 2016. Her principal research interests include the extraterritorial application of human rights treaties, maritime migration, border studies as well as philosophical and ethical underpinnings of AI technologies. Her work had appeared in various peer-reviewed journals, including her most recent paper in 2022 ‘The recognition of a right to be rescued at sea in international law’ in the Leiden Journal of International Law.

Recently Published

Halfway Through 2023: A Year of Unparalleled, Avoidable Migrant Tragedies at Sea

In April 2023, I wrote about the Crotone migrant shipwreck which occurred on February 26, 2023, and ‘shocked’ the European Union (EU). Approximately 94 lives were lost, several others are still missing, and 86 survived. The incident was yet another paradigm of the delayed/non-assistance saga that has been unfolding in the Mediterranean Sea region at the…

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The Crotone Migrant Shipwreck: A Cat-and-Mouse Blame Game and the Role of Technologies at External Borders

There are myriad ways States could exercise effective remote control over the rights of persons, including detrimental rescue instructions, as well as policy and operational arrangements that can hinder human rights protection. On 26 February 2023, a migrant shipwreck off the Italian coast of Crotone, yet again ‘shocked’ the European Union (EU). Indeed, it has been quite a…

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