Staff profile

Dr Eleni Frantziou joined Durham Law School in 2018. She was previously a Lecturer in Law and the University of Westminster and a Teaching Fellow at University College London (UCL). She has held visiting positions at Yale University (2015), LUISS Guido Carli University (2022), and the New Zealand Centre for Human Rights, Policy and Practice at the University of Auckland (2024). At Durham, Dr Frantziou co-directs the Durham European Law Institute and was previously a co-director of the Human Rights and Public Law Centre. 

Dr Frantziou's research focuses on the application of human rights in legal disputes between private parties ('horizontal effect') in Europe and comparatively. She is the author of an award-winning monograph entitled The Horizontal Effect of Fundamental Rights in the European Union: A Constitutional Analysis (OUP 2019, joint UACES Prize 2020) and serves as the current Academic Editor of the Rights and Freedoms volume of Halsbury's Laws of England (forthcoming 2025). She has also published widely in peer-reviewed journals and edited collections concerning the horizontal effect of human rights, the interpretation and application of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, and the relationship between EU and UK law following Brexit, with a particular focus on the continued application of fundamental rights under the EU/UK Withdrawal Agreement and Windsor Framework. Dr Frantziou takes a broader interest in the concept of private life within the law and in the implications of constitutional entrenchment of rights. 

Dr Frantziou's research has been cited extensively, including by Advocates General at the Court of Justice of the European Union, in EU institutional reports, by national human rights bodies, and by national courts, such as the German Constitutional Court. She has provided expert training to judges and policy-makers under the auspices of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency and the European Judicial Training Network, as well as for the Northern Ireland Equality and Human Rights Commissions (ECNI and NIHRC). 

Dr Frantziou teaches in the fields of public law and human rights on the undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes. She currently convenes the compulsory undergraduate module 'The Individual and the State' and the LLM module 'Horizontal Human Rights'. 

Dr Frantziou is currently supervising PhD projects on EU artificial intelligence law (Ziyu Miao) and the concept of data protection (Sultan Ebrar Atalan). She welcomes approaches for supervision from prospective doctoral students in her areas of expertise.* 

Dr Frantziou holds degrees from King’s College London (LLB), the College of Europe, Bruges (LLM), and UCL (PhD).

 

*Please note that Dr Frantziou will be on leave for part of the 2025-26 academic year. 

Research Interests

• UK Constitutional Law, EU Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory, Global Constitutionalism, Human Rights Law, Workplace Politics, Horizontal Effect, Privacy

• UK Constitutional Law
• EU Constitutional Law
• Global Constitutionalism
• Human Rights Law
• Horizontal Effect
• Privacy

Authored book

• Frantziou, E. (2019). The Horizontal Effect of Fundamental Rights in the European Union: A Constitutional Analysis. Oxford University Press

Book review

• Frantziou, E. (2019). The UK Constitution After Miller: Brexit and Beyond. Edited by Mark Elliott, Jack Williams, and Alison L. Young. Haywards Heath : Hart, 2018. 9781509916405. Common Market Law Review, 56(4), 1143-1145
• Frantziou, E. (2018). General Principles of EU Law: European and Comparative Perspectives. European law review, 43(3), 470-473

Chapter in book

• Mantouvalou, V., & Frantziou, E. (in press). Article 15. In S. Peers, T. Hervey, J. Kenner, & A. Ward (Eds.), The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights: A Commentary. (2nd). Hart/Beck
• Frantziou, E. (2022). Farrell. In G. Butler, & A. Lazowski (Eds.), Shaping EU Law the British Way: UK Advocates General at the Court of Justice of the European Union. Hart Publishing
• Frantziou, E. (2022). Constitutional impact of withdrawal on the protection of fundamental rights. In A. Cygan, & A. Lazowski (Eds.), Research Handbook on Legal Aspects of Brexit. Edward Elgar Publishing
• Frantziou, E. (2021). The European Union's Special Procedural Rights Before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). In H. Ruiz Fabri (Ed.), Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Procedural Law. OUP

Journal Article

• Deb, A., Frantziou, E., & Lock, T. (2024). The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights in Northern Ireland under the Windsor Framework. Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, 75(3), 488-521. https://doi.org/10.53386/nilq.v75i3.1118
• Frantziou, E. (2023). Human Rights as an Example of Cooperative Federalism? A Chronology of the Use of the Preliminary Reference Procedure in Human Rights Cases between 1957 and 2023. European Journal of Legal Studies, 15(CJEU Special Issue), 189-220. https://doi.org/10.2924/EJLS.2023CJEU.007
• Frantziou, E., & Craig, S. (2022). Understanding the Implications of Article 2 of the Northern Ireland Protocol in the Context of EU Case Law Developments. Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, 73(S2), 65-88. https://doi.org/10.53386/nilq.v73is2.1059
• Frantziou, E. (2022). Was Brexit a Form of Secession?. Global Policy, 13(S2), 69-78. https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.13062
• Frantziou, E. (2021). The Horizontal Effect of Human Rights after Brexit: A Matter of Renewed Constitutional Significance. European Human Rights Law Review, 2021(4), 365-388
• Frantziou, E. (2020). The Horizontal Effect of the Charter: Towards an Understanding of Horizontality as a Structural Constitutional Principle?. The Cambridge yearbook of European legal studies, 22, 208-232. https://doi.org/10.1017/cel.2020.7
• Frantziou, E. (2019). (Most of) the Charter of Fundamental Rights is Horizontally Applicable: ECJ 6 November 2018, Joined Cases C-569/16 and C-570/16, Bauer et al. European Constitutional Law Review, 15(2), 306-323. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1574019619000166
• Frantziou, E. (2019). The Binding Charter Ten Years On: More Than A Mere Entreaty?. Yearbook of European Law, 38, 73-73. https://doi.org/10.1093/yel/yez009
• Frantziou, E. (2019). Constitutional Reasoning in the European Union and the Charter of Fundamental Rights: In Search of Public Justification. European Public Law, 25(2), 183-203. https://doi.org/10.54648/euro2019013
• Eeckhout, P., & Frantziou, E. (2017). Brexit and Article 50 TEU: a constitutionalist reading. Common Market Law Review, 54(3), 695-733
• Frantziou, E. (2015). The Horizontal Effect of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights: Rediscovering the Reasons for Horizontality. European Law Journal: Review of European Law in Context, 21(5), 657-679. https://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.12137
• Frantziou, E. (2014). Further Developments in the Right to be Forgotten: The European Court of Justice's Judgment in Case C-131/12, Google Spain, SL, Google Inc v Agencia Espanola de Proteccion de Datos. Human Rights Law Review, 14(4), 761-777. https://doi.org/10.1093/hrlr/ngu033
• Frantziou, E. (2014). Case C-176/12 Association de Médiation Sociale: Some Reflections on the Horizontal Effect of the Charter and the Reach of Fundamental Employment Rights in the European Union. European Constitutional Law Review, 10(02), 332-348. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1574019614001205

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

• Frantziou, E. Paid Annual Leave and Collective Agreements after the TSN Judgment (C-609/17 and C-610/17)
• Frantziou, E. (online). ‘Mangold Recast? The ECJ’s Flirtation with Drittwirkung in Egenberger’
• Frantziou, E. (online). The right to privacy while working from home (‘WFH’): why employee monitoring infringes Art 8 ECHR
• Frantziou, E. (2019). Administrative Formalities and Collective Disenfranchisement: the Situation of EU citizens in the UK #DeniedAvote during the European Parliament Elections 2019
• Frantziou, E. (2019). Joined Cases C-569/16 and C-570/16 Bauer et al: (Most of) the Charter of Fundamental Rights Is Horizontally Applicable
• Frantziou, E. (2018). Farewell to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights? The Withdrawal Act and the Danger of Losing Fundamentals
• Frantziou, E., & Łazowski, A. (2017). Brexit Transitional Period: The Solution Is Article 50

Report

• Frantziou, E., Lock, T., & Deb, A. (2024). The Interaction between the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and General Principles with the Windsor Framework. Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission
• Frantziou, E., Horne, A., Rooney, J., Deb, A., Craig, S., & Murray, C. (2022). European Union Developments in Equality and Human Rights: The Impact of Brexit on the Divergence of Rights and Best Practice on the Island of Ireland. Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission
• Douglas, B., Fenwick, H., Frantziou, E., Kagiaros, D., O'Loughlin, E., Masterman, R., & Pillay, A. (2021). Evidence to the Independent Human Rights Act Review, Human Rights Centre, Durham Law School. [No known commissioning body]