George Ulrich
George Ulrich, PhD, is since 2020 the Academic Director of the Venice, Italy-based Global Campus of Human Rights, a unique network of one hundred universities around the world that seeks to advance human rights and democracy education through regional and global cooperation.
He has worked for the Global Campus in a variety of capacities, serving as Programme Director of the European Master’s Degree in Human Rights and Democratisation (EMA) from 2016-2019, as Secretary General of the European Inter-University Center for Human Rights and Democratisation (the predecessor to the Global Campus) from 2003-2009, and as Academic Coordinator of EMA from 2001-2004.
In between these appointments, Ulrich held the position of Rector and Professor of Human Rights at the Riga Graduate School of Law (2009-2016). He obtained his Master and Doctoral degrees in Philosophy from the University of Toronto, Canada, and holds the degree of Cand. Mag. in Social Anthropology and History of Ideas from Aarhus University, Denmark. His research interests include issues related to the history and philosophy of human rights, emerging challenges to human rights including in the field of AI, human rights diplomacy, human rights and development cooperation, health and human rights, and ethics for human rights professionals. A key focus of his teaching is to equip students to effectively engage with expressions of human rights scepticism.