Ivo Gruev

Biography

Ivo’s research, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Merton College, focuses on the rights-protecting function of judicial review in post-authoritarian societies. His project looks at how newly created constitutional courts protect human rights, focusing on individual access to constitutional adjudication. In particular, he is studying the intricacies of the Bulgarian Constitutional Court against the background of the drafting of the 1991 (post-communist) Bulgarian Constitution in its historical and regional context. 

Ivo is the Convenor of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) network and former Chairperson of Oxford Pro Bono Publico (OPBP). He was the inaugural President of the Grand Union Scholars Association. He holds a law degree from the Humboldt University of Berlin and a Diploma in Legal Studies from Oxford with specialisation in European Union law, public international law, and jurisprudence. In 2015, he completed the Magister Juris at Balliol College Oxford, focusing on comparative equality law, international criminal law, and legal anthropology.

Ivo is teaching on the Stanford University Bing Overseas Studies Program and on the Washington International Studies Council in Oxford, and he is a senior tutor on the Oxford Scholastica Academy summer school. 

He has worked for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in New York, as a legal consultant to the German Parliament, as an academic assistant at the Humboldt University, and has clerked for the International Criminal Court.