Staff profile

Dafni joined Durham Law School as Assistant Professor in 2022. Her research interests lie primarily in comparative family law and human rights, with a particular focus on parenthood and assisted reproduction.

Educational background, experience and leadership

Dafni holds an LLB, LLM and PhD from Aristotle University and an LLM from the University of Cambridge. Before Durham, she was working on her second PhD at the University of Cambridge (Gonville & Caius College, W. M. Tapp Studentship, John Hall Studenthship) where she also taught Family Law as a part-time tutor (supervisions).

In Durham, Dafni teaches primarily on the Law of Family Relationships and on Human Rights modules, particularly on European Human Rights Law. In 2023-2024, she convenved the Law of Family Relationships module. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and has successfully completed the Durham University Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP).

Dafni has also been a visiting professor at the postgraduate programme at Mackenzie University in São Paulo, Brazil (August 2024 - funded by a CAPES/Brazil Ministry of Education grant) and has been invited as a guest lecturer on surrogacy at the postgraduate programme at Universitat Pompeu Fabra - UPF in Barcelona (March 2025).

Research experience and leadership

Dafni has written extensively on topics in family law and human rights, including comparative family law, multiple parenthood, surrogacy and assisted reproduction, LGBT+ families, and non-marital relationships. This is currently the main focus of her research. She has presented her work in numerous conferences, including the SLS, ISFL, CEFL, and LSA annual conferences.

In 2024, Dafni co-edited the Special Issue 'Who is Family Law for? Exploring Legal Approaches to Family Diversity' for the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law (with Dr Alice Margaria – University of Zurich). Dafni is also a founding member of the European Network ‘Family Law in Context – FLIC’, having presented her work at its biannual conferences. She has also previously co-convened a cross-European Reading Group on Gender and Private Law. At Durham, Dafni is a member of the Child of the North Research cluster at Durham, contributing to Child of the North reports.

Dafni has participated in numerous research projects. She is currently an invited UK expert (on English law, with Dr A Brown (University of Glasgow) as Scots law expert) on the ART-Equal multi-phase international comparative parenthood and assisted reproduction project led by NorFam (the Nordic Centre for Comparative and International Family Law at the University of Aalborg). As part of the project, she is participating in the ART-Equal expert workshops and co-authoring with Dr Brown the UK national reports (Phase 1 – ‘The assisted reproduction frameworks’; Phase 2 – ‘Parenthood and assisted reproduction’; Phase 3 - 'The relevance of gender and relationships status') to be included in upcoming edited collections.

In 2024, Dafni received funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) School for Public Health Research (SPHR) to carry out a Transdisciplinary Placement in Public Health with Fuse and Newcastle University, working on the SPHR-funded Supporting Engagement with and Access to Maternity Services (SEAMS) project. SEAMS is a large-scale empirical mixed methods research project aiming to understand barriers that pregnant women and people on low income experience when trying to access maternity care and to identify impactful solutions. The study brings together researchers at Fuse (Newcastle University - and Durham University through Dafni's TDP), PHRESH (University of Warwick), LiLaC (Lancaster University, University of Liverpool), University of Bristol, and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities - OHID (the government unit within the Department of Health and Social Care tasked with leading national efforts to improve public health policy across England). After a successful placement, Dafni is currently working as part of the SEAMS project research team. 

Dafni has been a visiting researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg (Germany), at Harvard University (Fulbright Foundation Visiting Research Student grant), and at the Complutense University of Madrid (Utrecht Network Grant). She has also been an Academic Visitor at the Cambridge Family Law Centre (2022-2023) at the University of Cambridge. Most recently, she held a REWI Land Steiermark Visiting Fellowship at the University of Graz in Austria (October-December 2024). 

Dafni has also written extensively in criminal law, AI, and data protection, having written a monograph on organised crime (2022), co-authored a book on EU criminal law and data protection (2020), co-authored the Greek national reports on AI and criminal justice (2023) and published a well-cited paper on AI and criminal justice (2018) on which she was invited to present her work as an expert at the Council of Europe Thematic Session on Artificial Intelligence in 2018.

Citizenship

At Cambridge, Dafni inter alia served as an Editor for the Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law, and on the Steering Committee of Cambridge Reproduction (2021-2023), the University's leading interdisciplinary research centre that explores the urgent challenges posed by reproduction today. At Cambridge Reproduction, she also co-led its Early Researchers Seminar Series (2020-2022) and served on the Conceptions Fund Committee (2021-2022). She is currently an affiliated member of Cambridge Reproduction.

Since joining Durham, Dafni has served as Co-Director of Gender and Law at Durham (GLAD) for 2023-2024 and is a member of the Durham Law School EDI Committee. She is also the DLS Representative to the Society of Legal Scholars. On the University level, Dafni sits on the ESRC Delivery Steering Group (including the ESRC IAA funding panel) and is a member of the ECR Committee of the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing, Durham’s flagship interdisciplinary Institute tasked with delivering the Health @ Durham Strategy. She is also a Fellow of the Institute of Medical Humanities. 

Beyond Durham, Dafni is currently the Co-Convenor of the Family Law subject section of the Society of Legal Scholars. She is also a member of Fuse, the Centre for Translational Research in Public Health across six Universities in the North East and North Cumbria (Durham, Cumbria, Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland and Teesside). She has acted as a peer reviewer for the European Commission (ERC Starting Grant), for leading peer review journals (Modern Law Review; Oxford Journal of Legal Studies; Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law; International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family; Journal of Child and Family Studies), and for leading law publishers (OUP; Hart).

Outside the UK, Dafni has a strong international profile, maintaining links with universities and research groups abroad. Inter alia, she has co-convened the family law panels at the 2023 Annual Conferene of th Law and Society Association (LSA) in Puerto Rico and has chaired a session in the 2nd International Surrogacy Forum in Copenhagen, Denmark (2023).

Dafni welcomes approaches for supervision from prospective doctoral candidates in family law and human rights.

Research interests

Family Law

Assisted Reproduction

Comparative Law

Criminal Law

Book review

• Lima, D. (2021). Book Review: International Survey of Family Law 2020. International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family, 35(1), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1093/lawfam/ebab013
• Lima, D. (2015). Book Review: Perpetrators and Accessories in International Criminal Law: Individual Modes of Responsibility for Collective Crimes. Cambridge Law Journal, 74(1), 163-166. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0008197315000021

Chapter in book

• Lima, D. (2024). Three Models for Regulating Multiple Parenthood. In K. Duden, & D. Wiedemann (Eds.), Changing Families, Changing Family Law in Europe (95-111). Intersentia
• Papadopoulou, L., & Lima, D. (2022). EU citizenship, free movement and clashing identities in the context of same-sex families. In H. (. Gaudin (Ed.), Le droit européen, source de droits, source du droit: Mélanges en l'honneur de Vassilios Skouris (445-463). Mare & Martin
• Lima, D. (2019). Criminalising Organised Crime on the EU Level: Understanding Crime through a Financial Aim Perspective?. In J. Ouwerkerk, J. Altena, J. Öberg, & M. S. (eds) (Eds.), The Future of EU Criminal Justice Policy and Practice (161-180). Brill Academic Publishers
• Lima, D. (2019). The Concept of Parenthood in the Case Law of the European Court of Human Rights. In K. Boele-Woelki, & D. (. Martiny (Eds.), Plurality and Diversity of Family Relations in Europe (103-117). Intersentia. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781780689111
• Lima, D. (2019). The Evolution of the European Court of Human Rights Case Law on the Right to Family Life through its Milestone Judgments on Same-Sex Couples (2010-2018). In C. Rogerson, M. Antokolskaia, J. Miles, P. Parkinson, & M. (. Vonk (Eds.), Family Law and Family Realities (89-103). Eleven
• Lima, D. (2017). Registered Partnerships in Greece and Cyprus. In J. Scherpe, & A. (. Hayward (Eds.), The Future of Registered Partnerships (301-346). Intersentia. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781780686325.015

Journal Article

• Lima, D. (2024). Legal parenthood in surrogacy: shifting the focus to the surrogate’s negative intention. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 46(2), 245-266. https://doi.org/10.1080/09649069.2024.2344935
• Lima, D., & Papadopoulou, L. (2023). The circulation of public documents under EU Regulation 2016/1191: Its application in Greece and emerging challenges on the legal recognition of same-sex families. Hellenic Review of European Law, International Edition: 2022, 1-26
• Lima, D. (2022). Case Note: Towards Cross-Border Recognition of Same-Sex Parenthood. Cambridge Law Journal, 81(2), 239-242. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0008197322000320
• Giannakoula, A., Lima, D., & Kaiafa-Gbandi, M. (2020). Combating Crime in the Digital Age: a Critical Review of EU Information Systems in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice in the Post-Interoperability Era. Brill research perspectives. Transnational crime, 2(4), 1-97. https://doi.org/10.1163/24680931-12340010
• Lima, D. (2018). Could AI Agents Be Held Criminally Liable? Artificial Intelligence and the Challenges for Criminal Law
• Lima, D. (2016). The legal status of registered partnerships in Greece and Cyprus. International Family Law Journal, 319-324

Monograph

• Lima, D. (2022). Organised Crime: A doctrinal and philosophy of law analysis [in Greek]. Nomiki Vivliothiki

Report

• Alghrani, A., Ali, N., Allen, K., Bennett, H., Benger, L., Betts, J., Bradley, S., Bond, C., van den Bree, M., Brooks, R., Chawner, S., Colbert, E., Copley, C., Daniel, J., Davies, C., Eddy, L., Elshehaly, M., Groen, M., Hartley, C., Henderson, L., …Waterman, A. (2024). An evidence-based plan for addressing the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) assessment and support crisis. Child of the North and the Centre for Young Lives
• Todd, L., Pini, S., Mathai, M., Wood, M., & et al. (2024). A country that works for all children and young people: An evidence-based plan for building the foundations of a new "Sure Start" in and around education settings. Child of the North and Centre for Young Lives
• Lima, D. (2016). Death and legal family formats in Greece. [No known commissioning body]
• Lima, D. (2016). Income, troubles and legal family formats in Greece. [No known commissioning body]
• Lima, D. (2016). Migration and legal family formats in Greece. [No known commissioning body]