IRSD-KHID-RHID

Biography

Giulia Prelz Oltramonti is a research fellow on the Southeastern neighbourhood at the Centre for Security and Defence Studies (CSDS). She is also a member of the REPI (Recherche et études en politique internationale) at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). Before joining the CSDS in February 2025, she was an associate professor in international relations at the European School of Political and Social Sciences (ESPOL), Université Catholique de Lille, and a lecturer at the ULB and the Université catholique de Louvain. She provided expertise to civil society and international organisations as a consultant and has experience in political campaigns and international aid.
Giulia holds a PhD in political sciences from the ULB, where she defended a dissertation in the field of political economies of war (“The exploitation of economic leverage in conflict protraction: modes and aims. The cases of South Ossetia and Abkhazia”). She also has an MA in war studies from Kings College London and a BA in European social and political studies from University College London.
Her research has focused on conflicts in the post-Soviet area and areas of contested sovereignty. She has published on issues related to political economies of conflict in the Caucasus, processes of border and boundary formation in the Eastern neighbourhood, the viability of contested states and secessionist entities’ alternative diplomatic practices. She has also engaged with the interplay of war and international law in the specific context of contested states.

Expertise

Eurasia
Southeastern neighbourhood
Caucasus
Borders and boundaries
Contested states/de facto states
Sovereignty

Publications

Grzybowski, Janis, Giulia Prelz Oltramonti, and Agatha Verdebout, eds.. Contested States in War and Law. Bristol: Bristol University Press, 2025.

Prelz Oltramonti, Giulia, and Gaelle Le Pavic. “Managing Ceasefire Lines in Protracted Secessionist Conflicts: From the Negotiating Table and International Law to Realities on the Ground in the Case of the Abkhazian-Georgian War.” In Contested States in War and Law, edited by Janis Grzybowski, Giulia Prelz Oltramonti, and Agatha Verdebout. Bristol: Bristol University Press, 2025.

Prelz Oltramonti, Giulia. “Practicing and performing sovereignty abroad: alternative diplomacy.” In Variations on Sovereignty: Snapshots of Political Contestation and Transformation from Brexit to the South China Sea, edited by Janis Grzybowski and Hannes Cerny. London: Routledge, 2023.

Prelz Oltramonti, Giulia. “Nagorno-Karabakh: slowly but surely, Baku is weaponising the green movement to cut off the region’s supplies”, The Conversation (March 2023). https://theconversation.com/nagorno-karabakh-slowly-but-surely-baku-is-weaponising-the-green-movement-to-cut-off-the-regions-supplies-200495.

Prelz Oltramonti, Giulia. “When external drivers of regional integration turn into actors of regional disintegration: Interregionalism in the South Caucasus.” In The Unintended Consequences of Interregionalism, edited by Elisa Lopez Lucia Frank Mattheis. London: Routledge, 2021.

Prelz Oltramonti, Giulia. “Viability as a Strategy of Secession: Enshrining De Facto Statehood in Abkhazia and Somaliland.” In Strategies of Secession and Counter-Secession, edited by Ryan D. Griffiths and Diego Muro. Old Heath: ECPR Press, 2020.

Grzybowski, Janis, Giulia Prelz Oltramonti, and Agatha Verdebout. “Fault lines of a war foretold.” Eurozine, 13 November 2020. https://www.eurozine.com/fault-lines-of-a-war-foretold/.

Prelz Oltramonti, Giulia, and Mihnea Tanasescu. “The Criminalisation of Informal Practices in the Danube Delta: how and why.” In Governance Beyond the Law. The Illegal, the Immoral, the Criminal, edited by Alessandra Russo, Abel Polese and Francesco Strazzari. London, NewYork: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

Prelz Oltramonti, Giulia. “Trajectories of illegality and informality in conflict protraction.” Caucasus Survey, 4, 3 (2017).

Prelz Oltramonti, Giulia. “Securing disenfranchisement through violence and isolation: the case of Georgians/Mingrelians in the district of Gali.” Conflict, Security and Development. 16, 3 (2016): 245-262.

Prelz Oltramonti, Giulia. “Southbound Russia: processes of bordering and de-bordering between 1993 and 2013.” Connexe (2016).

Prelz Oltramonti, Giulia. “The political economy of a de facto state: the importance of local stakeholders in the case of Abkhazia.” Caucasus Survey, Vol.3, No.3 (2015): 291–308.

Wasinski, Christophe, et Giulia Prelz Oltramonti. « Vers un bel avenir des conflits armés ? ». Les Grands Dossiers de Diplomatie n° 28 (août 2015) : 76-79.

Melvin, Neil, and Giulia Prelz Oltramonti. Managing Conflict and Integration in the South Caucasus: A Challenge for the European Union, Policy brief (SIPRI-CASCADE), November 2015. https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/files/misc/SIPRI_CASCADE_Policy_Brief_November-2015.pdf.