Katharine Fortin is an Associate Professor in public international law and human rights at Utrecht University's Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM). The focus of her research is the legal framework which applies to  armed conflicts, with a particular focus on intersections between international humanitarian law and international human rights law and armed non State actors. Her book The Accountability of Armed Groups under Human Rights Law, published by the OUP in August 2017 with a foreword by Andrew Clapham, won the Lieber Prize in 2018. She has published widely on issues pertaining to armed groups, civilian protection, compliance and public international law. 

Katharine teaches human rights law, public international law and international humanitarian law at masters and bachelors level, as well as coaches students for the Frits Kalshoven competitions in international humanitarian law. She is one of the co-ordinators of the Conflict and Security track of the Public International Law LLMs at Utrecht University. 

In 2019, Katharine took part in the Westerdijk Programme designed to provide mentorship and support to talented female lecturers at Utrecht University. In July 2019, she was awarded an NWO Veni grant (250,000 euros) to carry out a research project - Dangerous Liaisons: civilian agency, armed groups and international law. She also works with Mohammad Kanfash on a related NWO Hestia project, which looks at the role of local intermediaries on the return of the State in Sýria.  She is one of the co-investigators on the Beyond Compliance Consortium: Building Evidence on Promoting Restraint by Armed Actors project that is funded by UK Development. She is one of the hosts of the Beyond Compliance: In Conversation podcast together with Florian Weigand, Co Director of the Centre on Armed Groups. 

Katharine has a LLM (summa cum laude) and PhD (cum laude) at the University of Utrecht. She is a qualified solicitor in the UK and previously worked at Norton Rose Fulbright, the Council of Churches of Sierra Leone, the International Criminal Court and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. She is the Editor in Chief of the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights and founder and editor of the Armed Groups and International Law blog. She has been a member of the Utrecht Young Academy since 2022, a platform to exchange critical perspectives on academic, policy and society in Utrecht and beyond. She is also one of the co-founders of the Institutions for Open Societies and Utrecht Centre for Global Challenges Contesting Governance platform.