About Me

A lawyer and historian by training, I have research interests ranging from international law and international relations to peacekeeping, transitional justice, (post-)colonialism and human rights/legal history. I draw on research methods from law and the social sciences. I was previously an Assistant Professor of (International) Criminal Law at the University of Amsterdam, and have held visiting positions at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, New York University School of Law, Harvard Law School, Cambridge University's Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, Stellenbosch University, and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public and International Law. The Swiss National Science Foundation has supported my doctoral and postdoctoral research.

I have several years of full-time work experience in human rights and security sector reform. Most recently, I advised the European Union's border mission in Libya. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, I worked for the EU police on justice reform with the National Police, Ministry of Justice and Parliament. I previously trained government officials, parliamentarians, attorneys and activists in Sudan and South Sudan. I have consulted (part-time) for NGOs and international organizations in the Central African Republic, Georgia, Mali, South Sudan and DR Congo. I was a member of the United Nations Security Council Roster of Experts.

I work and write in English and in French. I am also fluent in Polish and in German, and have a passive (reading) knowledge of Spanish and Russian. I can read some (baby) Arabic. 

I hold a Ph.D. in international law from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva (summa cum laude avec les félicitations du jury), and degrees in law and history from Adam Mickiewicz University, the University of Geneva and Columbia Law School in New York.