Dr. Chiara Altafin leads various research activities and projects, with a primary focus on strengthening research, education, training, network-building, and advocacy for children's rights.
Chiara co-leads the ‘AI4HR’ research project (2024-29) aimed to create a ‘AI for Human Rights Toolkit’ designed with, and for, young people, specifically targeting today’s pioneer generation—individuals aged 15 and above who are the first to experience at a youthful age, AI becoming integrated into various aspects of everyday life, including education and the workplace.
Chiara is the Lead Editor of GC Human Rights Preparedness Blog and Co-Editor-in-Chief of GCHRJ. Previously she was managing editor of GCHRJ 6.1-6.2 (2022) and editor of the Special Issue on children’s rights in GCHRJ 4.1 (2020). She has led the GC Policy Observatory 2024 edition on the digitalisation of education systems and its impact on human rights, and the 2026 edition on academic freedom.
Between 2015 and 2024, Chiara worked as an EMA Fellow, lecturing on topics related to human rights, international and European law, and conducting academic skills, legal research methods, and thesis proposal workshops. She coordinated EMA research contributions to GC Global Classrooms 2021 and 2020. She continutes to coordinate and teach in the EMA Children’s Rights Cluster since 2020 and to support the mainstreaming of children’s rights in the EMA programme.
Since 2025 Chiara represents as alternate member the GC at the Frontex Consultative Forum on Fundamental Rights, which closely cooperates with key European institutions, international and civil society organisations advising the European Border and Coast Guard Agency on Fundamental Rights.
As part of her cooperation with other departments of the GC, Chiara has been chief trainer of trainers and visiting lecturer for the course ‘European Standards and Institutional Practices of Family and Child’s Rights Protection’ at Moldova State University; lecturer and trainer at the Venice School for Human Rights Defenders; and contributed to GC MOOCs on ‘Children Deprived of Liberty’ and ‘Child Participation and the Right to a Sustainable Environment’.
She led the UN Global Study component of ACRiSL project (2020-2023), focusing on children’s rights affected by migration-related detention. She also led a project aimed at enacting the Global Study recommendations in the European context, engaging with ENOC as well as national and regional ombudspersons in Italy. In 2018-2019 she was lead researcher on the situation of ‘children living in prisons with their primary caregivers’ for the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty, and the main author of the related chapter. In 2016-2017 she was senior researcher on FP7 FRAME project.
Chiara holds a Ph.D in International Law from the European University Institute (EUI), an LL.M in Comparative, European and International Law from the EUI, a Master’s in Rule of Law, Democracy and Human Rights from LUISS University, and graduated cum laude at the Law Department of Roma Tre University. She was a visiting research scholar at the Center for International and Comparative Law of the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor. Chiara’s research interests include economic, social and cultural rights in times of crisis, including in contexts of armed conflict and occupation, children’s rights, new technologies, business and human rights, social justice, environmental and climate justice, and governance.
Between 2007 and 2021, Chiara worked as lecturer and research and teaching assistant in International Law, International Organization and Human Rights, Human Rights and International Protection, International Protection of Cultural Heritage, and International Criminal Law at LUISS University, where she also was a member of the Research Team on FP7 PRIV-WAR project. She conducted research and editorial activities for the Istituto Affari Internazionali. She worked as a trainee lawyer at Avvocatura Generale dello Stato in Rome (2005-2007) and has been admitted to the Italian Bar.