David Garciandía Igal

David Garciandía Igal obtained a DPhil (PhD) in Law from the University of Oxford in July 2025, receiving the highest grade (thesis admitted with no corrections). He has taught EU law at Hertford College, Somerville College and Oriel College, where he continues to teach. Previously, he has also taught EU law at SOAS University in London.

His doctoral research, funded by the Government of Navarre, examined the diffusion of human rights law from the EU to the People's Republic of China. Under the supervision of Ngoc Son Bui and Iyiola Solanke, his thesis unveiled the EU's imprint on human rights law in China, building a theory that explains how and why this process of influence is taking place in a legal system as seemingly closed as China's and in an area as sensitive as human rights.

David holds an MPhil in Politics and International Studies from the University of Cambridge (Ramón Areces scholarship) and a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) and a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from the Public University of Navarre, where he received the Extraordinary Prize for the top GPA of the Law Faculty. He spent six months at Shijiazhuang Tiedao University (China) as part of his six-year joint undergraduate programme, and his final law dissertation on freedom of religion in China won the 2020 Jaime Brunet University Student Prize for the Promotion of Human Rights.

His main research interests cover EU law, comparative law, international law and international relations, with human rights as an underlying theme. He has several publications on these topics, including a book with Brazilian Judge Aloisio C. dos Santos Jr. on the corporate duty of reasonable accommodation of religious beliefs in the workplace.

He is a DPhil associate at the Oxford China Centre, a founder and former president of the Oxford Spanish Society and a former convenor of the Oxford EU Law Discussion Group. Additionally, he has been the research assistant to the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, and has worked for the Permanent Mission of Spain to the United Nations in Vienna and for different private companies (Siemens Gamesa) and law firms (Garrigues).