Tsvetelina van Benthem

Tsvetelina is a DPhil candidate in public international law at Merton College. Her DPhil, supervised by Professor Dapo Akande, focuses on the regulation of accidents and mistakes under the law of armed conflict and international criminal law. She is the first recipient of the James Upcher Memorial Scholarship, established by Fietta LLP and the Oxford University Law Faculty.

Tsvetelina holds law degrees from Sofia University 'St Kliment Ohridski' (LL.M) and the University of Oxford (MJur, Dist; MPhil). She was a Merton Lawyers’ Scholar during her MJur and was awarded the Planethood Foundation Prize for best paper in International Criminal Law and a Merton College prize for her overall performance in the exams.

She leads the Public International Law course for the Diplomatic Studies Programme at the Oxford Department for Continuing Education. Tsvetelina was a Graduate Teaching Assistant in Public International Law at the Law Faculty (2019-2020), a tutor in Public International Law at the Stanford in Oxford Program (2017; 2019-2020) and a teacher of Public International Law at the Foundations of Diplomacy Programme (2020; 2021). Tsvetelina organises and teaches on the annual Sofia Summer School on Human Rights, and is the President of the Centre for International Law 'Erga Omnes', Bulgaria.

Tsvetelina is a Research Officer at the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC), working on the Oxford Process on International Law Protections in Cyberspace.

She co-convenes Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR), and was the Chief Editor of the OTJR Group in 2018 and 2019. In 2020, Tsvetelina co-convened the Public International Law Discussion Group.

In 2019, Tsvetelina interned at the Policy Branch of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (New York) with the generous support of the Global Justice Internship Fund.