Viktoriia Hamaiunova is a socio-legal international law and human rights scholar whose work connects mediation, civil justice, legal culture and institutional design. She studies how procedures support meaningful participation, professional judgement and effective remedy, and what evidence allows institutions to assess whether those functions operate in practice.
Her current research develops Procedural Vitality, a rights-based diagnostic methodology for complaint, appeal, grievance, mediation-linked and hybrid redress procedures. It distinguishes procedural function from the records used to demonstrate it: a completed form, closed case or signed settlement may be relevant evidence without establishing that every substantive procedural purpose has been achieved. The methodology remains in development; an initial published-case desk pilot has provided limited, provisional validation.
Her doctoral research in Law at Newcastle University (2022–2026) examines the right to a fair trial under Article 6 ECHR as mediation becomes integrated into civil justice systems. The project combines doctrinal analysis of European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence, comparative socio-legal research and semi-structured interviews with ECtHR judges. Legal culture, autonomy, confidentiality and the changing roles of courts and mediators recur across this work.
As a Research Officer at the Oxford Institute of Technology and Justice, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford (February–July 2026), she contributed to comparative research and policy-facing work on technology, justice and human rights. Her work included digital-evidence research, cross-jurisdictional review for the AI Justice Atlas and research briefings supporting expert engagement on deepfakes and content provenance. She previously held a PhD Fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law and completed a traineeship at the European Court of Human Rights.
Her published work addresses mandatory mediation, fair-trial guarantees, confidentiality, legal culture and the history of European mediation. It includes articles in the Nordic Journal of Human Rights, The International Journal of Human Rights, Conflict Resolution Quarterly, Mediation Theory and Practice and the Athens Journal of Law, together with collaborative book chapters and policy research. The publications section links published works and lists submitted manuscripts by title and submission status.
A related research strand examines evaluative governance, feedback and scalable assessment in higher education: how institutions allocate evaluative work, authority, information and exposure, and when feedback records provide sufficient evidence of educational function. Her wider research experience includes mixed-methods equality, diversity and inclusion research at Newcastle University and a project on gender equality in International Court of Justice nominations at City, University of London.
Viktoriia is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). Her teaching and curriculum work spans human rights, mediation, international commercial dispute resolution, legal methods and human resources management. She has served as Visiting Lecturer and Module Convenor in Human Rights Law at the University of Roehampton and taught at Newcastle University. Her teaching uses simulations, case clinics, problem-based learning and structured, inclusive feedback.
Her academic service includes membership of the Imperial College Research Ethics Committee as a lay member, the European Society of International Law Early-Career Network Coordinating Committee, and co-editorship of the Policy and Practice section of Mediation Theory and Practice. She also contributes to journal reviewing and mentoring in international law.
She holds an MA in International Law and Human Rights from the University of Tartu and a law degree with honours from Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University. Earlier legal practice in the United Kingdom, Estonia and Ukraine informs her interest in the relationship between formal rules and institutional practice.