Vanessa Simone Ruegger
Full Professor at the Faculty of Law
Member of the Management Committee
Presentation
Vanessa Rüegger is a full professor of public law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Geneva. She is a qualified lawyer and FSA mediator. Before joining the University of Geneva, she was head of the Digital Transformation Law Sector at the State Chancellery of the Canton of Zurich, where she and a team led technological innovation and legislation projects as well as the creation of an interdepartmental legal expertise center aimed at adapting public law to the challenges of digitalization.
Her research focuses on constitutional law, human rights and digital transformation, with a focus on the conditions that foster individual development and democratic stability in the face of technological challenges. She leads various research projects on issues such as the impact of artificial intelligence on human rights, digital integrity and democratic stability, as well as cooperation between the Confederation, cantons and municipalities to strengthen digital sovereignty and the digital public service. From the fall semester of 2025, she will offer a course on legal issues in the digital transformation of the public sector at the University of Geneva.
Vanessa Rüegger is an elected member of the Board of the Swiss National Museum, as well as of various expert committees in cultural and academic institutions. She was a Privatdozentin at the Faculty of Law of the University of Basel, where she taught the course in constitutional theory as well as various courses in public law and philosophy of law. She holds a doctorate in law from the University of Fribourg (2013) and a habilitation from the University of Basel (2020) with Venia Legendi in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law and international human rights protection. Her habilitation thesis on artistic freedom was published in 2020 by Helbing Lichtenhahn and Nomos.
Vanessa Rüegger has been a visiting scholar at renowned institutions such as the Cardozo School of Law (Fulbright Scholar), the NYU School of Law (Bernstein Human Rights Fellow), the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg, the Institute of Comparative Law (van Calker Scholar), and the University of London (SNSF Scholar).
She is a member of the Steering Committee of the Digital Law Center and contributes to the Center's activities particularly from the perspective of public law and human rights.