Dr. Rumyana van Ark (née Grozdanova) is a Senior Researcher in International Law at the T.M.C. Asser Institute of the University of Amsterdam where she coordinates all international law and counter-terrorism related research and project activities. She is also a senior member and coordinator of the Implementing Team on a range of GCTF Initiatives including the US and Norway led Initiative on Racially and Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism (REMVE), the US and UK led Initiative on Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems and New, Emerging, and Disruptive Technologies and the US and UNOCT led Initiative on Border Security Management (BSM). In 2021, she was part of the consortium team of experts within the European Commission funded Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) as well as part of the team evaluating the operation of EU Directive 2017/541 on Combatting Terrorism. Between 2021 and 2023, she was a member of the Advisory Board of the PREPARE Project (https://prepare-project.eu/).

Her first peer-reviewed works were published in 2013. Since then, her work has been published in various academic and professional journals, as part of edited book collections and within governmental reports. Her co-authored book on ‘Children’s Rights, ‘Foreign Fighters’ and Counter-Terrorism: Children of Nowhere’ has just been published within the Elgar Studies in Human Rights collection in September 2024.

She has supervised a number of LLM dissertations within the University of Amsterdam's Law School ICL/TCL LLM stream. She is currently supervising a PhD research project entitled "Accountability through the Back Door? Analysing Contemporary Unilateral Sanctioning Practices from the Perspective of International Criminal Justice".

Twitter: @DrRumyanavanArk

Background

Between September 2014 and April 2018, Rumyana was a Lecturer (the UK equivalent of an Assistant Professor) in the University of Liverpool Law School where she taught and coordinated two research-led Year 3 undergraduate courses (Security, Conflict and the Law and Introduction to the Law of the ECHR) and a core LLM module on International Peace and Security. She also coordinated all the Year 3 undergraduate dissertation modules. During the 2015/2016 academic year, she was nominated for the LawCareers.Net Lecturer of the Year Award. During her PhD studies in Durham Law School, Rumyana was a Tutor in European Constitutional Law. She is also holds a Certificate in Professional Studies in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education.

Research Interests

Her general research interests include international and European human rights, terrorism, counter-terrorism and the rule of law, states of emergency, international law and legal theory. She is particularly interested in the impact of domestic and international counter-terrorism measures and national security policies on the individual, the rule of law and state accountability. More specifically, her research explores how the relationship between the individual (terror suspect) and the state is altered following acts of terrorism and the broader societal and legal implications. Her first peer-reviewed works were published in 2013. Since then, her work has been published in various academic and professional journals, as part of edited book collections and within governmental reports. She is currently examining how children are affected, directly and indirectly, by immigration and counter-terrorism measures imposed on their parents. She is also researching how the increasing digitilisation/cyberfication of counter-terrorism policies and practices is changing the perceptions of personality.