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Biography
PhD (Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge)
LL.M. (University College London)
Diplom-Jurist (University of Bayreuth)
Stefan is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Faculty of Law. His primary research interests are in public law, human rights, digitilisation, and constitutional law. Born in Bangkok and raised in six countries on four contintents, Stefan completed his first degree in law at the University of Bayreuth (2011). After brief stints working for a commercial law firm and for the Research Services of the German Bundestag, Stefan earned an LL.M. from University College London (2013). Inspired to pursue a career in academia, he completed his doctoral work at the University of Cambridge (2018) shortly before joining the Bonavero Institute as the Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Civil and Political Rights. He is currently the academic coordinator of the Bonavero-UNESCO Joint MOOC on Freedom of Expression.
You can follow Stefan on twitter and discover his papers on ResearchGate.
Research
Stefan's research agenda is still evolving and specialising. In his PhD dissertation he argues for the recognition of a comprehensive framework that addresses the relationship between human rights and environmental harm: the environmental minimum. The argument is based on a unique and comprehensive dataset of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, along with other regional human rights courts. He is contracted to develop a revised version into a monograph (Cambridge University Press, expected June 2021). Stefan has consulted on legal challenges against breaches of air quality and emission targets in Europe, and the harmful effects of air pollution to humans more generally, notably in the United Kingdom under the Human Rights Act 1998.
Stefan is the academic lead for the research project Freedom of expression on social media. The core research question is whether the environment of social media requires the law to revisit some of the principles and assumptions underlying conventional offline approaches to freedom of expression. This relates chiefly to the scope for legitimate suppression of hate speech as well as the limits that free expression imposes on the contractual autonomy of social media platforms with their users. Stefan has given interviews to media outlets on questions of free expression and social media, including the BBC World Service and contributed to the on-going internal policy debates of social media platforms, notably on Facebook's Oversight Board Charter.
Beyond human rights, Stefan is generally interested in public and constitutional law, particularly as it operates in the United Kingdom, Germany and the European Union. He spearheaded research at the Bonavero on the Prorogation of Parliament and has appeared on BBC News television and various radio outlets outlets to offer legal commentary on the proceedings before the UK Supreme Court. He writes and blogs frequently on legal developments, often drawing comparisons between legal systems and reflecting on deepening European integration.
Teaching
Stefan teaches on the Human Rights Law course, which is offered as an option on the FHS and the BCL course Constiutional Principles of the EU. The content of the lectures and seminars continues to evolve with recent legal developments, most notably the constitutional shifts due to Brexit.
Publications
Selected publications
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S Theil, 'Unconstitutional prorogation of Parliament' [2020] Public Law 529 Argues, contrary to the constitutional convention, that the monarch is empowered in certain situations to reject ministerial advice to prorogue Parliament. Reviews evidence for the convention on prorogation, including statutory powers and ministerial advice, and considers the constitutional implications. Examines criticisms of R. (on the application of Miller) v Prime Minister (SC), and potential remedies open to the monarch for executive abuses.S Theil, 'Excavating Landmarks—Empirical Contributions to Doctrinal Analysis' (2019) Journal of Environmental Law The idea of landmark cases is ubiquitous in legal scholarship and adjudication. Both scholars who rely on ‘landmark’ cases and those who avoid the label often focus too much attention on a small sample of individual cases when researching legal doctrine. This risks missing important cases and pieces of the doctrinal picture. The article proposes an updated methodology that returns ‘to the basics’ of doctrinal scholarship, but with an empirical twist enabled through modern database technology. The approach is exemplified through the case study of López Ostra v Spain, a well-known environmental human rights decision under the European Convention on Human Rights. Based on a comprehensive data set of all environmental decisions, the article argues that the ‘landmark’ status of López Ostra is less empirically and doctrinally clear than conventionally accepted in legal scholarship.S Theil, 'Germany' in Liora Lazarus, Christos Kypraios, Danilo B. Garrido Alves (ed), A Preliminary Human Rights Assessment of Legislative and Regulatory Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic across 27 Jurisdictions, Bonavero Report 7/2020 (Bonavero Institute of Human Rights 2020) This is the second extended version of a report published in May 2020 by the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights which included an analysis of Covid 19 limitation measures in 11 jurisdictions. This second updated report now includes reference to 27 jurisdictions from a wider range of legal cultures and regions covering developments up until September 2020. It also now includes an in-depth analysis of international law standards and practice.
Chapter (4)
Journal Article (7)
Internet Publication (13)
Review (2)
Case Note (2)
Report (2)
Research programmes
- Bonavero Institute-UNESCO MOOC on Freedom of Expression
- Environment and Human Rights
- Human Rights Law
- Human Rights in the Digital World
Centres
Research projects
Research Interests
Human Rights; Public Law; Constiutional Law; Environmental law, European Union Law; International Law; German Law