Helena Placentino

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Helena Placentino is an LL.M. candidate at Harvard Law School from Belgium. She has conducted research for the HLS Program on International Law and Armed Conflict (HLS PILAC) since September 2022. Helena is currently researching the constitutive elements of public international law in contemporary legal theory in connection with issues related to the purported privatization of the law of armed conflict.

Helena is a submissions editor for the Harvard Human Rights Journal and an online submissions editor for the Harvard International Law Journal. She is also an active member of the Harvard Women's Law Association in the International Policy section. Prior to attending HLS, Helena worked for the Belgian Embassy in Washington, D.C.; for the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of the OHCHR in Geneva; and for the Sanctions Unit of the European Commission. Helena received a Master's degree in Public and International Law from the Université Libre de Bruxelles in 2020, as well as a Specialized Master's degree in European Law from the Institute of European Studies ULB in 2021. During her law studies in Belgium, Helena was a clinical student at her university's Equality Law Clinic, interned at several law firms, and studied abroad in Beijing, China.

This biography was last updated in October 2022.