Manfred Nowak is co-founder and director of the Vienna Master. Manfred is a world-renowned professor of international law and human rights, who taught at many prestigious universities, such as the University of Vienna, Stanford University, Utrecht University, Lund University, Graduate Institute of Geneva, University of Auckland and Washington College of Law.

Manfred is Secretary General of the Global Campus of Human Rights, which unites 100 universities across all world regions working on and teaching human rights. He is co-founder of one of the biggest human rights research institutes in Europe, the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights.

Manfred was one of the judges of the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina between March 1996 and December 2003. From 2004 to 2010 Manfred was appointed to United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, where he undertook 18 field missions around the world, including countries like China, Paraguay, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea amongst others. Recently, Manfred was selected by the United Nations as Independent Expert leading the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty, which he presented in New York and Geneva in autumn 2019. Manfred is a holder of many prestigious human rights awards, such as Otto Hahn Peace Medal and the UNESCO Price for the Teaching of Human Rights.

On a personal note, Manfred is inspired by the interplay of human rights and arts and has thus followed his passion and co-edited the book Imagine Human Rights – Artists celebrate the Universal Declaration, contrasting the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with a multitude of international artworks.