Nina Hüfken has studied law in Bremen, Liverpool and at Humboldt University in Berlin. During her undergraduate studies she received a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation. After graduation she has been an assistant in a law firm and started working as a research assistant at Freie Universität Berlin where she coordinated the team for the 2005/2006 Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition. Since 2006 she has been employed as a research assistant in the project “Standards of Public International Law for Governance in Weak and Failing States” of the Collaborative Research Center “Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood”. Her research interests include independence of the judiciary as a standard of public international law and the role of non-state actors in international law. She is writing her doctoral thesis (PhD) on public law claims of foreign states before national courts from an international law perspective. Since February 2009 she has also been working as a trainee lawyer (Referendarin) in Berlin.