Milena Costas

Milena Costas is a Research Fellow at the Geneva Academy.

She is a human rights expert and law-practitioner. Since 2019 she is a member (independent expert) of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Advisory Committee. She is currently the rapporteur of the study on ‘the impact, opportunities and challenges of neurotechnology with regard to the promotion and protection of all human rights’ which will be submitted to the Human Rights Council in September 2024.

Holding a PhD in public international law from the University Complutense of Madrid, she is specialized in human rights and international humanitarian law. She has carried out research, and taught in several universities and academic institutions in Spain, Italy and Switzerland. In the period 2013-2015 she carried out research at the Geneva Academy in the framework of two projects related to the right to protest and autonomous weapons systems under international law.

Milena has worked as adviser at the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and also has provided technical support to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and the International Labour Organization. She regularly collaborates as legal adviser with the Spanish Red Cross and teaches Human Rights Protection in the Master’s Programmes of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, the Autonomous University of Madrid and the University of Sassari.