Stephan Sonnenberg

Stephan Sonnenberg is a Senior Affiliated Supervisor with the University Network for Human Rights. He is currently an Associate Professor and Director of the Human Dignity Clinic as well as the Difficult Conversations Clinic at Seoul National University School of Law. Stephan previously taught at Harvard and Stanford Law Schools, as well as at Bhutan’s only law school, the Jigme Singye Wangchuck School of Law, where he served as Associate Dean of Experiential and Clinical Legal Education. Stephan’s academic and clinical work focuses on the intersections between human rights, development, and dispute resolution.

He has worked on human rights issues in upwards of 20 countries and a variety of contexts. Much of his current work focuses on human rights issues of particular concern to the Korean Peninsula, including issues related to human rights and emerging technologies, corporate responsibility and accountability (ESG), the rights of persons who resettled from North to South Korea, and various unsettled transitional justice issues arising from Korea’s turbulent and tragic 20 th century history. He is also working on issues related to involuntary migration and climate change, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. Stephan holds a JD from Harvard Law School, a MA in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School, and a BA from Brown University.

He speaks German, French and Russian, and is currently struggling (mightily) to add halfway passable Korean to that list.