Research group links

• Exeter Centre for International Law
• Human Rights and Democracy Forum
• Science, Culture and the Law at Exeter (SCuLE)

Research interests

My current research focuses on the dual use of forensic and medical evidence in the investigation of mass violence crimes on one hand and in the identification of victims and the building of post-atrocity memory on the other. It also explores and analyses the weight of this type of scientific evidence in the prosecution – both domestic and international – of international crimes and gross human rights violations.

The other strand of my research focuses on judicial decision-making in international criminal justice to examine it in the light of the ongoing tensions between the need to reduce the length of international criminal proceedings and the necessity to safeguard the right to a fair trial.

Research projects and collaborations

Since 2020: Partner: Interdisciplinary research project War Losses and Casualties.

2012-2016: Co-investigator: Interdisciplinary research project ‘Corpses of Mass Violence and Genocide’.

Member: European Criminology Group on Atrocity Crimes and Transitional Justice (ECACTJ). 

External member: Northumbria Centre for Evidence and Criminal Justice Studies (NCECJS). 

Research students

First supervisor

2016-2022: Dr Suzanne Schot, ‘A Confrontation of Facts and Truth? Testimonies of Victims, Witnesses, and Perpetrators during the Investigation and Prosecution of International Crimes’.

2016-2021: Dr Yves Sezirahiga, ‘The Right of Victims of International Crimes to Reparations in the Aftermath of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda’.

2013-2020: Dr Tadesse Simie Metekia, ‘Prosecution of Core Crimes in Ethiopia: Domestic Practices vis-à-vis International Standards’. Thesis awarded with distinction (cum laude).

2013-2016: Dr Nicole Siller, ‘Defining ‘Trafficking in Persons’ under International Law and Determining Trafficking’s Incorporation within Enslavement as a Crime against Humanity’.

2007-2011: Dr Clotilde Pégorier, ‘The legal qualification of ethnic cleansing’.

2004-2009: Dr Lisa Yarwood, ‘State Accountability: Holding States to Account for Breaching Jus Cogens Norms’.

Second (external) supervisor

2019- : Yasmin Abulkher, ‘The Modern Fingerprint: The Framework and Boundaries of Gathering and Presenting Open Source Evidence in Criminal Proceedings’.

2019- : Audrey Fino, ‘The inter-relatedness of human rights and international criminal law in the field of hate speech’.

2018- : Adina Nistor, ‘Beyond reasonable misunderstandings: Cultural differences and international crimes on trial’.

2017- : Sophia Ugwu, 'Sexual Assault on Men: Rethinking the definition of rape in International Criminal Law’.

2016- : Welmoet Wels, ‘The management of dead bodies in armed conflict: dilemmas in doing justice to the dead'.

2013-2018: Dr Abel Knottnerus, ‘African Presidents and the International Criminal Court: A legal analysis of the African Union's concerns about the prosecution and trial of sitting heads of state and government’.

Other information

External Teaching

June 2022, Asser Institute, The Hague, Netherlands and War Crimes Research Office, American University’s Washington College of Law, USA: ‘Genocide’, Lecturer, 16th edition of the annual Summer Law Programme on ‘International Criminal Law and International Legal & Comparative Approaches to Counter-Terrorism’.

June 2021, Department of Anthropology/Promise Institute for Human Rights, UCLA, USA: Lecturer, Summer School on Evidentiary Training, Evidentiary Dilemmas Research Project (NSF research project).

May 2021, Sciences Po Aix, France: ‘Nouvelles formes de conflits armés et droit pénal international’, Guest lecturer, Master 2 GDSI Alternants ‘Histoire de la pensée stratégique’. 

March 2021, Sciences Po Aix, France: ‘Génocide et crimes contre l'humanité en ex-Yougoslavie', Guest lecturer, Master 1 ‘Guerre et Conflit au XXème siècle’.

February 2021, Sciences Po Aix, France: Guest lecturer (seminar), ‘Le TPIY et l'utilisation de la preuve médico-légale dans la qualification du crime de génocide’, UMR Mesopolhis, Axe 5 ‘crises, violences et conflictualités’.

December 2020, Faculté de Médecine de la Timone, Marseille, France: Lecturer, ‘Exhumations et  expertises médico-légales au sein des TPI et des CPI’, Unité d’enseignements ‘Archéologie et anthropologie des conflits armés récents’.

March 2020, Faculty of Law, University of Lund & Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Sweden: Guest speaker (seminar), ‘Jus cogens crimes and international recognition of victims’ rights – The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia’.

March 2020, Faculty of Law, University of Lund & Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Sweden: Guest lecturer, ‘Dead Victims’ Rights, International Criminal Justice and Post-Atrocity Memory’. Master’s Program in International Human Rights Law, course ‘Values, Rights and Legal Trends: The Role of Ethics?’.

December 2019, Faculté de Médecine de la Timone, Marseille, France : Lecturer, ‘Les crimes des Khmers Rouges – Réponses médico-légales et judiciaires’, Unité d’enseignements ‘Archéologie et anthropologie des conflits armés récents’.

December 2019, Faculté de Médecine de la Timone, Marseille, France: Lecturer, ‘Les  expertises médico-légales au sein des TPI et des CPI’, Unité d’enseignements ‘Archéologie et anthropologie des conflits armés récents’.

May 2019, Universidad de la República de Uruguay, Montevideo, Uruguay : ‘Contextos Jurídicos, Tribunales Penales Internacionales, Corte Penal Internacional’, Masterclass, Curso ‘Arqueología y Antropología de los conflictos armados’ ECOS-Sud/CNRS-Ades, 20-24 May 2019.

April 2019, IUC Dubrovnik, Croatia: ‘Post-conflict justice and peacebuilding’, EU Internal and External Security, Advanced Seminar in EU Criminal Law and Policy, Faculty of Law University of Zagreb and Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law, 8-13 April 2019.

April 2017, Faculté de Médecine de la Timone, Marseille, France: Lecturer, ‘Les expertises médico-légales au sein des TPI et des CPI’, Unité d’enseignements ‘Archéologie et anthropologie des conflits armés récents’.

July 2017, Faculty of Law, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands: Guest lecturer, ‘Forensic evidence before international criminal tribunals and courts’, Summer School on International Criminal Justice, Center for International Criminal Justice.

March 2017 University of Luxembourg: Guest lecturer in International Criminal Law (crimes against humanity and genocide) on the Master programme on European Law, , Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance.

External teaching for practitioners

September 2022, Faculté de Médecine, Université de Genève, Switzerland: ‘Médecine légale et justice pénale internationale’, module  ‘Droit et Médecine légale’, CAS (Certificate of Advanced Studies)  en Droit, médecine légale et science forensique en Afrique’.

September 2021, Faculté de Médecine, Université de Genève, Switzerland: ‘Médecine légale et justice pénale internationale’, module  ‘Droit et Médecine légale’, CAS (Certificate of Advanced Studies)  en Droit, médecine légale et science forensique en Afrique’.

October 2020, Faculté de Médecine, Université de Genève, Switzerland: ‘Médecine légale et justice pénale internationale’, module  ‘Droit et Médecine légale’, CAS (Certificate of Advanced Studies)  en Droit, médecine légale et science forensique en Afrique’.

September 2019, Faculté de Médecine, Université de Genève, Switzerland: ‘Justice pénale internationale : Aperçu et notions générales’ and ‘Médecine légale et justice pénale internationale’, module  ‘Droit et Médecine légale’, CAS (Certificate of Advanced Studies)  en Droit, médecine légale et science forensique en Afrique’.

March 2019, T.M.C. Asser Instituut, Den Haag, Netherlands: ‘La preuve médico-légale et la justice pénale internationale’;  Antonio Cassese Initiative, Asser Institute and International Nuremberg Principles Academy, , ‘Strengthening Domestic Capacity to Prosecute International and Transnational Crimes in Africa’/ ‘Renforcement des capacités des magistrats en matière de répression des crimes internationaux et transnationaux en Afrique : Formation de suivi’, 18-22 March 2019. 

February 2018, T.M.C Asser Instituut, Den Haag, Netherlands : ‘Crimes contre l’humanité – accent sur l’élément contextuel’, Antonio Cassese Initiative, ‘Renforcement des capacités des magistrats en matière de répression des crimes internationaux et transnationaux en Afrique’, 5-9 Février 2018.

October 2016, International Nuremberg Principles Academy, Nuremberg, Germany : Opening lecture : ‘Crimes internationaux, Réponses nationales’, Antonio Cassese Initiative, Antonio Cassese Travelling School ‘Renforcement des capacités des magistrats en matière de répression des crimes internationaux au Burkina Faso, en Côte d’Ivoire et au Mali’, 31 Octobre – 4 Novembre 2016.

Modules taught

• LAWM141 - International Criminal Law and Justice
• LAWM148 - International Crimes and Crimes of Mass Violence
• LAWM640 - Dissertation

Biography

I started my academic career as a lecturer, and then senior lecturer, in law at Exeter Law School (2004-2011). From 2011 to 2021, I was Rosalind Franklin Fellow and then Professor in Comparative Criminal Law and International Justice at the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of Groningen (Netherlands). In 2016, I took up a Visiting Professional position in Chambers at the International Criminal Court. In 2021, I was Professeure invitée at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques d'Aix-en-Provence (Sciences Po Aix, France). Since October 2021, I am Professor of Law at Exeter Law School where I am the Director of Postgraduate Taught Studies.

I am Editor-in-Chief of the International Criminal Law Review (Brill) and of the book series Studies in International Criminal Law (Brill Nijhoff Publishers).

I am also one of the creators and editors of the academic journal Human Remains and Violence: An Interdisciplinary Journal (Manchester University Press).