About.

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Dr. Stefanie Lemke is a socio-legal scholar and a lawyer by training, focussing on human rights and rule of law. In a career spanning almost two decades, she has worked - globally and across sectors - with governments, leading research groups, prominent NGOs, commercial law firms and international aid agencies such as the German Ministry for International Development, Oxford University, the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights, the US law firm Shearman & Sterling LLP and the United Nations in the Balkans, Caucasus, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Western Europe and Southeast Asia.  

Stefanie completed a PhD on access to justice at Oxford, London and Cologne Universities and was trained as a civil judge, a public prosecutor and a human rights lawyer in Germany, litigating high-profile cases before UN human rights treaty bodies and the International Criminal Court. Currently, she holds several research, advisory and supervisory roles. She is the Founder of the RULE OF LAW INITIATIVE, a human rights platform promoting people-centred justice and creating community and networking opportunities for women. She is affiliated with the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland and Leeds University's Legal Profession Research Group. She serves on the board of Lodz University's Eastern Block Censorship Research Group and is elected for a 4-term to the Research Committee on Sociology of Law, the world's leading organisation for everyone working on law and society.

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​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​A recognized expert in her field, Stefanie regularly works as a team lead, a policy adviser and a trainer for the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the EU. Currently, she is team leader with UNDP to conduct a regional study of access to justice of forcibly displaced populations in Europe, acts as the European Commission's National Expert for Germany, advises the Council of Europe's Office in Ukraine on integrity and powers of prosecutors, and is appointed to several EU expert committees promoting civic space, gender equality and digitalisation. She was commissioned to draft Europe's first guidelines on legal aid, which were adopted by the Council of Europe's 46 member states in 2021.

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Stefanie's work has led to more than 60 invited talks such as by Harvard University, and the publication of over 70 papers, columns and books with major publishing houses. ​​