Dr Stefania Di Stefano defended summa cum laude her PhD thesis at the Geneva Graduate Institute in 2025, with Professor Andrew Clapham as her thesis director.
Her thesis, “Regulating Freedom of Expression in the Age of Social Media: New Actors as Drivers of Change in International Law” tells the story of how international human rights law emerged as a dominant framework for regulating the exercise of the right to freedom of expression online. Taking as a starting point the emergence of platform law, which elevated social media platforms to the role of new governors of freedom of expression, the study shows how the rise of international human rights law as a central framework for articulating online content moderation issues is the result of the interpretive efforts of actors that international law does not traditionally conceive as primary subjects of the discipline. By examining the practices of UN human rights bodies, corporate entities such as Meta, and independent redress mechanisms such as the Oversight Board, the study illustrates how these actors have become the main drivers for translating the application of human rights law to the exercise of freedom of expression online.
In pointing the spotlight to these practices, the study makes two important contributions. First, it demonstrates how the regulation of freedom of expression as exercised online is, today, a site of “entangled legalities”, where platform law is entangled with domestic regimes and international human rights law. Secondly, it reveals how, by taking ownership of the language of human rights, UN human rights bodies, corporate entities, and independent redress mechanisms have become drivers of change in international law. As these developments originated in paths that are beyond traditional mechanisms for change, the study contributes to a better understanding of how international law changes, and of how different actors can be the drivers of legal change.
The Fondation René Cassin – International Institute of Human Rights is a non-profit organisation based in Strasbourg, France, that defends and promotes human rights worldwide through education and academic research. Its yearly Doctoral Thesis Prize rewards excellence in legal research on human rights.
Upon receiving the Special Mention, Dr Stefania Di Stefano said:
I am very honoured to have received this award and I am grateful to the distinguished Jury of the thesis prize of the René Cassin Foundation for their thoughtful and thorough engagement with my work, and for this important recognition. This prize is particularly meaningful to me precisely in light of the Foundation's work in the promotion of human rights, which also strives to connect academic research with practice. As such, my hope is that my work, which significantly draws from and relies upon the work of human rights bodies, can also contribute and inform their practice.
Since defending her thesis in 2025, Dr Stefania Di Stefano has been a post-doctoral researcher at Cnam, in Paris, for the Research Chair on online content moderation. She is also Research Associate at the UCL Digital Speech Lab and at LISE, Cnam.
