Stephanie Berry is an Associate Professor in International Human Rights Law at the University of Sussex (2025-), having previously been a Senior Lecturer in International Human Rights Law (2018-2025) and Lecturer in Public Law (Sussex 2013-18). She was also a visiting research fellow at the Human Rights Centre of the University of Ghent in 2019. Steph is Co-Director of the Sussex Centre for Human Rights Research, Convenor of the Human Rights Law Clinic, and Convenor of the LLM in International Human Rights Law. She is also a founding member, member of steering group and incumbent Chair of the Minority Rights Solidarity Network, that brings together minority rights academics and activists.

Steph is a recognised expert in the fields of freedom of religion or belief and minority rights under Council of Europe and UN legal frameworks. She has published in high profile journals such as Legal Studies, Human Rights Law Review and Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights and is regularly invited to present her research at national and international conferences, workshops and research seminars. Steph is currently finalising two, complementary monographs on Islam in the European Court of Human Rights, under contract with Routledge.

On the basis of her expertise, Steph is regularly consulted by barristers, NGOs and UN Special Rapporteurs. Most notably, she acted as a legal advisor for the applicant in the seminal ECtHR case of SAS v France, and has more recently contributed to the development of submissions in the case of Asmeta v France to both the ECtHR and the UN Human Rights Committee. She was consulted by, then UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Ahmed Shaheed in relation to his thematic report on 'Countering Islamophobia/Anti-Muslim Hatred to Eliminate Discrimination and Intolerance Based on Religion or Belief', as well as current UN Special Rapporteur in the field of Cultural Rights, Alexandra Xanthaki on her report on 'Cultural Rights and Migration', and the OSCE Advisory Panel on Freedom of Religion or Belief on 'Interreligious Engagement and Sustainable Peace'. She was also commissioned to write a report for Minority Rights Group International on 'Mainstreaming a Minority Rights-Based Approach to Refugee and Migrant Communities in Europe'.

Steph is able to draw on her international connections in order to provide LLM students on the Human Rights Law Clinic with briefs from, inter alia, Amnesty International, Global Rights Compliance, Minority Rights Group International, OSCE/ODIHR and the UN OHCHR. 

Steph holds a PhD from Brunel University (2013), an LLM in International Human Rights Law from Lund University/Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (2008) and an LLB (Hons) from the University of Manchester (2003). She previously worked as an Associate Tutor at the University of East Anglia (2011-13) and as a Research Assistant and Hourly Paid Lecturer at Brunel University (2008-11).