Grégor Puppinck is the Director General of the ECLJ.

A French jurist, he holds a PhD in law and graduated from the law faculties of Strasbourg and Paris Panthéon-Assas, as well as from the Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationals. He is the author of a thesis entitled “The Author of the Bioethical Norm”, defended in 2009 with highest honors unanimously awarded by the jury. This thesis analyzes the evolution of the relationships between legal, ethical, and scientific rationalities through the development processes of norms.

He lectures at numerous universities and teaches at the Catholic Institute of Paris and ICES, having previously taught at the law faculties of Mulhouse and Strasbourg.

As Director of the ECLJ, Grégor Puppinck has been involved in over 80 cases before the European Court of Human Rights, significantly contributing to the Court’s jurisprudence on freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, Church autonomy, and respect for human life. He also regularly intervenes at the European Parliament and the United Nations Human Rights Council, particularly with mechanisms for the protection of human rights. He also has an extensive experience of the United Nations mechanisms.

Since 2000, he has represented the Holy See in expert committees of the Council of Europe, notably within the Steering Committee for Human Rights (CDDH), the Committee of Experts on Court Reform, the Committee of Experts on Discrimination based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, the International Commission on Civil Status, the Drafting Group on issues relating to judges of the European Court of Human Rights, and the Steering Committee on Anti-Discrimination, Diversity and Inclusion (CDADI).

Between 2020 and 2024, he led the European Court to revise its Rules to strengthen procedural guarantees regarding independence and impartiality after publishing two reports on relations between judges and NGOs.

From 2016 to 2019, he was appointed by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to the OSCE Panel of Experts on Freedom of Conscience and Religion, an entity mandated to advise participating States on improving their practices and legislation in this area.

In 2014, he chaired the European Citizens’ Initiative "One of Us," a movement bringing together numerous associations across Europe and gathering over two million signatures in support of respect for prenatal human life. He supported this initiative before the European Commission and the European Parliament, and later defended the effectiveness of this mechanism before the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

He is the author of numerous academic articles, as well as several reports and books published in various languages. Notably, he has published Les droits de l'homme dénaturé (Le Cerf, 2018), Conscientious Objection and Human Rights (Brill, 2016), Law and Abortion of Abortion in Europe (LEH, 2016), and The Family, Human Rights, and Eternal Life (L’homme nouveau, 2015).

He frequently appears in the media.

He received the Christian Humanism Prize in 2016 for The Family, Human Rights, and Eternal Life, as well as the Anton Neuwirth Prize for the Defense of Life in 2014. In 2011, he was made a Knight in the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (Cavaliere della Repubblica) for services rendered in the Lautsi v. Italy case, concerning the presence of crucifixes in Italian schools. In 2014, he was made Commander in the Order of St. Gregory the Great by the Pope for services rendered to the Catholic Church.