Dr Noelle Higgins is an Associate Professor in the Law Department at Maynooth University, Ireland. Noelle undertook her PhD studies, focusing on the regulation of wars of national liberation, at the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland, Galway. She also completed an MA in Irish language and literature at the same university. She currently teaches and researches in a variety of fields of public international law, including international criminal law, international humanitarian law and international human rights law. Her recent publications focus mainly on the field of cultural rights. She was previously the Vice-Chair of the Ethical, Political, Legal and Philosophical Studies Committee of the Royal Irish Academy in Ireland and a member of the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade - NGO Forum on Human Rights. She currently sits on the Advisory Committee of International Communities Organisation as an expert on the right to self-determination, and on the European Coordinating Committee for Academic Freedom Advocacy of the Scholars at Risk Europe Office. In addition, she is an Academic Friend of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Noelle has worked on a number of EU-funded projects, including under the Horizon 2020 framework and the COST framework.