Helen Keller (lawyer)

Helen Keller (born June 1, 1964 in Winterthur ) is a Swiss lawyer . She is a full-time judge at the European Court of Human Rights and Professor of International Law at the University of Zurich . From 2006 to 2011 she was a member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee .

Life

After studying law at the University of Zurich, Keller worked as an assistant in the chairs of Alfred Kölz and Heribert Rausch . In the latter , she received her doctorate in 1993 with a dissertation on environmental constitutional law , for which she was awarded the Professor Walther Hug Prize . After an LL.M. - Studies at the College of Europe in Bruges, followed by two research stays financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation at the European Law Research Center at Harvard Law School and at the European University Institute in Florence . During her time as senior assistant at the University of Zurich (1996–2002) she wrote her habilitation thesis ( “Reception of International Law” ) and was the project manager of a multi-volume commentary on the Environmental Protection Act. After a research stay at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law , she was appointed to the University of Lucerne in 2002 , where she is now a permanent visiting professor. Two years later, he was offered the full chair for public law , European and international law in Zurich.

In 2005 Helen Keller was elected by the UN General Assembly to succeed Walter Kälin on the United Nations Human Rights Committee. In 2010 she was re-elected. Since October 2011 she has been a judge at the European Court of Human Rights .

She is a board member of the Swiss section of the International Commission of Jurists .

Helen Keller is married and has two sons. She lives in Strasbourg and Zurich.