My (Nicki's) Introduction

As I said, there probably will be an introduction of the contributors to this blog before we really start posting and we decided to let everyone introduce himself, with an emphasis on his interest in international law.
My interest in international law started with my participation in the Philip C. Jessup Moot Court Competition in the year 2001, it was consolidated through my further studies in law at the University of Kiel, and further concentrated on international human rights and especially international humanitarian law. Next to the foundations of international law and said subjects which are also addressed by this blog, a more recent field of interest of mine is the history of international law, again with an emphasis on the history of humanitarian law. I am browsing through Steven C. Neff’s “War and the Law of Nations” at the moment.
After passing the German First State Examination in July 2004 I am now, like Björn and Tobias, a research fellow at the Walther-Schuecking-Institute for International Law at the University of Kiel, where I am able to do some research in my fields of interest (Additionally I have to teach European Law to small groups, to coach the 2006 Jessup Team etc.). I wrote, for example, an article on “Outsourcing War – Private Military Companies and International Humanitarian Law” (GYIL 47 (2004), 502), and co-authored an article by article “Commentary on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” (in: Das Deutsche Bundesrecht, Baden-Baden 2005, written in German, co-authored with Prof. Dr Dr Rainer Hofmann). My doctoral thesis, which I hope to finish this July, concentrates on the problem or possibility of individual claims for violations of international humanitarian law, especially according to the German law of state torts.
My plans after finishing the doctoral thesis are to do an LL.M. in the UK and I think I will see how I could proceed from there.
Finally, I think I have to say where I “stand” concerning my approach to/philosophy of international law. I think it would be best described as realistic internationalism, what this means you will certainly see in the hopefully interesting discussions at this blog.