Dr Katerina-Zoi Varfis, Senior Research Fellow
Natural Resources Law, International Law for Sustainable Development Partnership

Dr Katerina-Zoi Varfis, Ph.D (Thessaloniki), LL.M (Geneva), B.A. (Thessaloniki), works for the Environment Directorate of the Council of the European Union in Brussels. She is a (currently non-practising) lawyer with the Thessaloniki Bar Association, and a Research Associate of the Hellenic Institute of International and Foreign Law in Athens. She is also participating in the teaching of the seminar modules on International Environmental Governance and Legal Theory and Methodology under the Jean Monnet Programme on International Environmental Governance and Sustainable Development at the Panteion University of Athens.

Before taking up her position at the Council of the European Union, she has held positions with the Court of Justice of the European Communities in Luxembourg, the Law Faculty of the University of Geneva and the International Labour Organisation in Geneva. She has been a Visiting Scholar with the Lauterpacht Research Centre for International Law at the University of Cambridge. She has also taught International and European Economic Law and Public International Law for the Thessaloniki branches of the Universities of Sorbonne and Strasbourg, and has collaborated with the Hellenic Open University in creating a pluri-disciplinary manual on Urban Planning. While in Geneva, she collaborated regularly with the International Academy of the Environment, teaching in its annual training courses on Principles and Processes of Sustainable Development, and was a member of the Environment Focal Point of the University of Geneva.

Her fields of expertise include: international and European environmental law, international environmental governance, negotiation of international environmental regimes, law of the Sea with emphasis on Mediterranean issues and marine pollution, and the international regulation of biotechnology. She has lectured widely on her topics of interest and has published a number of related articles. Dr Varfis is a member of the ILA (British Branch), and the ESIL, and a founding member of the Greek Association for International Law. She speaks Greek, English and French fluently, tolerable Spanish and has notions of Danish, German, Russian and Turkish.