Fair Trial, Mediation & Hybrid Civil Justice
How does the institutional integration of mediation reshape the contemporary meaning and operation of the right to a fair trial under Article 6 ECHR?
Explore the project ↗Socio-legal researcher · human rights · civil justice
Viktoriia
Olexandra
Hamaiunova
Researching how legal and quasi-legal procedures preserve — or lose — fairness, voice, contestability and effective remedy.
My work brings together comparative doctrinal analysis, empirical socio-legal research and institutional design.
01 / Research programme
One programme,
four connected strands.
Procedural Vitality & Institutional Design
When formally compliant procedures become ritualised, what keeps voice, professional judgement, contestability and remedy substantively alive?
Explore the project ↗AI, Bureaucratisation & Human Oversight
How can AI-supported intake, classification, summarisation and review strengthen rather than thin out rights-compatible procedure?
Explore the project ↗Inclusive Dialogic Feedback in Higher Education
A parallel strand on scalable assessment, inclusion, feedback literacy and the structural conditions of meaningful educational dialogue.
Explore the project ↗02 / Portfolio
Selected projects
Projects are the organising unit of this site. Each one connects its question, method, outputs, talks and possible next collaborations.
Rights-Compatible Procedural Vitality
Examines how mediation, grievance and integrity procedures can retain visible safeguards while losing their practical capacity to sustain meaningful voice, contestability, effective remedy and institutional learning.
Mediation as Court and Court as Mediation
Develops an institution-centred comparative framework for analysing adjudication, mediation and hybrid procedural designs, drawing on ECtHR jurisprudence, legal-cultural analysis and elite interviews with ECtHR judges.
Human-Rights Limits in Mandatory Mediation
Defines rights-compatible guardrails for mandatory and court-connected mediation without hollowing out autonomy, access to court, procedural fairness or protection of vulnerable parties.
Inclusive Dialogic Feedback
Develops an Inclusive Dialogic Feedback Model that combines dialogic practice, ethical depth and institutional scalability in mass postgraduate education.
Collaborative Research
Co-authored research spanning civil justice, mediation, technology security, sustainability and environmental mediation.
03 / Outputs
Read, watch,
and follow the work.
A curated public catalogue. Use the filters to move from the research programme to the material itself.
Journal article · 2026
From Custom to Court: The Evolution of Mediation in European Legal Systems
Conflict Resolution Quarterly.
Publisher / DOI ↗Journal article · 2026
The Genie of Autonomy: Steering Mandatory Mediation within Human-Rights Limits
The International Journal of Human Rights, 30(4), 767–786.
Publisher / DOI ↗Journal article · 2023
Influence of Implicit and Visible Legal Cultures on Modernisation of Judicial Systems in European Countries
Athens Journal of Law.
Open PDF ↗Journal article · 2025
Balancing Justice: Mandatory Mediation and Human Rights Principles in Evolving Legal Landscapes
Mediation Theory and Practice, 9(1), 71–88.
Publisher page ↗Interview · 2025
Recalibrating Autonomy: Human Rights and the Design of Court-Connected Mediation
Faculti interview with Viktoriia Hamaiunova.
Watch / DOI ↗Preprint · 2024 / in press
The Singapore Convention: Five Years On
With Bryan Clark. In The Place of Mediation within the Modern Civil Justice System.
SSRN preprint ↗Policy paper · 2024
Future Resilience of the European Technology Security
With Miguel De Vera, Réka Koleszár and Giada Pasquettaz. ECPS Policy Papers.
Open paper / DOI ↗Research presentation · 2026
Procedural Vitality in Justice and Grievance Systems
Oxford AI Build Club, AI Exploration Week, University of Oxford, 10 July 2026.
Enquire about the work ↗Manuscript under review · 2026
Scaling Dialogic Feedback Inclusively
Rethinking scalable assessment through inclusive design, feedback literacy and counter-design.
Project context ↗Book chapter · under review following abstract acceptance
Linguistic Risks of Bureaucracy in Family Mediation and Guardrails for AI Use
Research on procedural language, family mediation and rights-compatible AI guardrails.
Project context ↗Article in development
Procedural Ritualisation and the Divergence between Institutional Design and Function
A conceptual contribution to the procedural vitality framework.
Project context ↗Article in development
AI-Supported Grievance and Compliance Processes
Source contact, contestability, professional judgement and human oversight.
Project context ↗Book chapter · under review following abstract acceptance
Four Faces of Civil Procedure
A comparative account of institutional structures and functional approaches.
Project context ↗Article in development
Studying Implicit Legal Culture through Elite Judicial Interviews
A socio-legal method for analysing fair trial under Article 6 ECHR.
Project context ↗Article in development
A Seven-Criteria Framework for Comparing Adjudication, Mediation and Hybrid Civil Justice
An institution-centred comparative framework for procedural design.
Project context ↗Article in development
Can Mediation Be a Mode of Exercising the Right to a Fair Trial?
Revisiting the relationship between mediation, access to court and Article 6 ECHR.
Project context ↗Accepted subject to final language corrections · 2026
Confidentiality v Public Hearing under Article 6 ECHR
Mediation’s impact on the fair-trial paradigm.
Project context ↗Article under review · 2026
Hybrid Courts and Judicial Boundary Work
Settlement pressure and the governable periphery of adjudication.
Project context ↗Book project · in development
Ritualisation, Hybrid Justice and AI-Supported Procedural Governance
A longer-form project connecting the procedural vitality and AI strands.
Project context ↗04 / Profile & CV
Research across
different settings.
The institutional record is here for context — not as the centre of the portfolio.
Viktoriia Olexandra Hamaiunova is a socio-legal international law and human rights scholar specialising in mediation, civil justice systems, legal culture and the right to a fair trial. Her work combines comparative doctrinal analysis with empirical socio-legal methods, including elite interviews with ECtHR judges.
Her research has developed across academic, judicial and policy-facing settings including the University of Oxford, the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law, the European Court of Human Rights and Newcastle University.
2026—Research Officer
Oxford Institute of Technology and Justice, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford.
2025PhD Fellow
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security, and Law, Freiburg.
2024—2025Researcher in Higher Education EDI Practice and Policy
Newcastle University.
Jan 2022–Apr 2026PhD research
Newcastle University — mediation, Article 6 ECHR and hybrid civil justice.
Education & recognition
PhD research in law and socio-legal studies · Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) · comparative, doctrinal and qualitative research.
Methods & tools
Doctrinal and comparative analysis · elite interviews · mixed-methods research · SPSS · Stata · NVivo / MAXQDA · Zotero · accessible web publishing.
Languages
English (C2) · Ukrainian (C2) · Russian (native) · French (B1) · Spanish (A2) · Italian (A2) · Japanese (A1).
05 / Collaboration
Open to work that
makes procedure matter.
I welcome enquiries concerning collaborative research, publications, workshops, invited talks and projects relating to civil justice, mediation, procedural fairness, grievance systems and AI-supported legal processes.
Joint academic publicationsGrant and fellowship applicationsEmpirical & comparative studiesAI and justice projectsInstitutional diagnosticsResearch-led professional training
06 / Contact
Let’s connect
around the work.
For collaborative research, talks, publications, workshops or project enquiries:
Viktoriia.O.Hamaiunova@protonmail.com