Rate My Professor Sylvia Tiryaki

JUDr. Sylvia Tiryaki, PhD., univ. doc., is an associate professor of international law and human rights at the Bratislava International School of Liberal Arts (BISLA), where she has lectured since 2019 on international public law, human rights, international conflicts, international relations, EU politics, and Middle East geopolitics. A political scientist with expertise in these areas, her research interests encompass the Middle East, Turkey, Cyprus, and the Caucasus. Tiryaki completed her studies at the Faculty of Law of Comenius University in Bratislava in 1996, earning a doctor of law degree, and holds a PhD in political theory. She practiced law in Slovakia until 2002. From 2003 to 2018, she was a full faculty member and vice-chair of the Department of International Relations at Istanbul Kultur University, delivering courses on international law, constitutional law, human rights, history of political thought, and conflict resolution. Concurrently, from 2003 to 2008, she served as a senior research fellow and coordinator of Cyprus projects at the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) in Istanbul.

In 2008, Tiryaki co-founded the Global Political Trends Center (GPoT Center) under Istanbul Kultur University, acting as deputy director until 2019. She has authored and co-authored numerous publications, including "The Principle of Non-Refoulement and its Limits in the Context of the Conflicts in Syria and Ukraine" (2024, Balkan Journal of Social Sciences and Research), "From Merit to Might: Rethinking EU Enlargement in Light of Türkiye and Ukraine" (2025, Janus.net), policy briefs on Cyprus such as "Quo vadis Cyprus?" (2005) and "A Forgotten Promise: Ending the Isolation of Turkish Cypriots" (2010), and contributions to edited volumes like "Cyprus: Unity and Difference" and "Managing Intractable Conflicts: Lessons from Moldova and Cyprus" (2013). As president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Slovakia, she co-authored a human rights textbook for secondary schools. Tiryaki holds positions as an associate fellow for the Middle East at GLOBSEC since 2020 and served as an external consultant and analyst on the Middle East and Turkey for the Slovak Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs from 2018 to 2021.