Jessie Phyffer is a final year PhD student under the NRF SARChI Chair in International Constitutional Law, working under the supervision of Professor Dire Tladi.

Her research focuses on how the term “international community” is used in international law and the legal implications of employing it.

Phyffer completed her BCom Law, LLB (cum laude) and LLM at the University of Pretoria. 

Her LLM mini-dissertation, for which she received a distinction, focused on the intersection between International space law and International environmental law, and asked, “Can the Principle of Sustainable Development be Applied to the Development of the Moon?”.

Phyffer has a keen interest in International environmental law, International space law and is looking forward to further exploring General international law.

She is a recipient of the Anne Peters Max Planck Fellowship Grant and as a result will be doing part of her doctoral research at the Max Planck Insititute for Comparative and Public International Law in Heidelberg in 2024.

• Jessie Phyffer, ‘Degrowth and International Law: Assessing the Compatibility of Degrowth and the Principle of Sustainable Development’ (2022) 37(2) Southern African Public Law.
• Martha M Bradley, Faith Mathibedi, Jessie Phyffer & Felix le Roux, ‘Embracing and Reimagining Technology-Enhanced Learning in Public International Law to Generation Z’ in Charles Maimela (ed) Technological Innovation (4IR) in Law Teaching and Learning: Enhancement or Drawback During Covid-19? (PULP, 2022) 35-57.
• Jessie Phyffer, ‘Armed Conflict, Climate Change and the Preparedness of International Law Through the Lens of Mozambique’ in in Marko Svicevic and Martha M Bradley (eds), Mozambique's Cabo Delgado Conflict: International Humanitarian Law and Regional Security (Routledge, 2024).