This article considers academic freedom through the lens of international human rights law, with a view to identifying the rights and interests which influence its enjoyment both within the university and extramurally. It provides a review of literature from a range of disciplines where commentators have addressed different aspects of academic freedom of importance to a human rights analysis. It uses as primary sources the UN and European human rights conventions and the jurisprudence of human rights supervisory organs, but it also draws on other material which relevantly attributes particular value to academic freedom or the role of the university. It discusses the interaction between the freedom of expression (as the principal right underlying academic freedom) and the right to higher education. Within the UN system these rights subsist in two complementary but quite different conventions, giving rise to obligations of marked contrast. The right to education is narrow, supported by state obligations which are relatively weak, but it serves ambitious aims capable of influencing the scope of academic freedom of teaching staff. This article canvasses the means by which a number of interests in higher education are met, including the academic freedom of teaching staff (in their interface with students and in their wider contributions as leaders in their field), the academic freedom of students, and their right to education. It also addresses the requirement for certain institutional characteristics in meeting those interests, such as autonomy and collegiality. It concludes that academic freedom is capable of far-reaching influence and this has implications for its role in the university, in the face of a number of contemporary challenges.