• Narration in International Law
• Cinematic Representations of International Law
• Theatre and International Law
• The Formation of Customary International Law Through Restatements
• Punitivity in International Law

• Repetition in Legal Argumentation
• Restatements of Law
• Moot Courts as Theatrical Rehearsal Practices
• Cinematic Representations of International Law
• Punitive Wars

• Theories and Approaches to War and Collective Security (double course with Prof. Wolfgang Wagner)
• Legal Restraints on War (with Prof. Wolfgang Wagner)
• International Law (Introductory Course)
• International Humanitarian Law
• International Law Seminars
• Documentary Film, World Politics and International Law
• Thesis Seminars

• Chief Editor of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law
• Co-Director Centre for the Politics of Transnational Law, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
• Co-Editor Routledge Book Series "The Politics of Transnational Law"
• Consultant for Research in International Law for the Nuffic Project on Capacity Building at the Westbank (in cooperation with Utrecht University and the Universities of Bir Zeit, Al Quds, Hebron and Al Najah)

• Justice on Screen, Seminar Osgoode Law School, January 2018
• Cinematic Representations of International Law, University of Amsterdam, November 2017
• International Law and the Absurd, Seminar, Asser Institute, The Hague, January 2018
• Punitive Wars, Research Seminar Bir Zeit University, April 2018
• Methods of International Law, Research Seminar for the University of Indonesia Law School, held in Bogor , August 2017
• Objects of International Law, Conference, London, September 2016
• Film and International law, Conference, London, April, 2016
• Restatements of International Law, Research Seminar VU University, Amsterdam, November 2017

• 2017: Freehill Scholarship Cambridge University for short sabbatical stay at the Lauterpacht Center for International Law
• 2015-2019: Nuffic funding for capacity building project (together with VU International Office and Leiden University).
• 2015-2019: Nuffic funding for development research capacity on the Westbank
• 2017: Faculty of Law, VU University, PhD competition, four year funding for PhD research on “Narratives of Beginning in EU military missions” (together with Tanja Aalberts)
• 2011-2015: COST funding 2011-2015 for establishing a pan-European research network
• 2015: Societal Impact Funding for “Transnational Listing Project” (VU University)
• 2013: Faculty of Law, VU University, PhD competition, four year funding for PhD research on “International Criminal Trials as Theatrical Performances”
• 2010: Dutch Research Council, four year funding for PhD research on “rogue states” (co-applicant)

Restatements, Narration and Collective Sense Making in International Law

This project focuses on a specific technique in legal narration: the construction of (legal) meaning through acts of repetition.  Repetition is more than an act of copy-pasting the past into the present. It involves the construction of a narrative about the past’s relevance for the presence and the future, as well as a story about the way in which the present and future are linked to the past.

In my project I will focus on some specific, institutionalized forms of repetition in international law: the restatement of existing rules by international committees of legal experts- as well as the way in which these restatements themselves have been taken up by other parties in global governance.  Restatements combine two elements. On the one hand, restatements present a rule as being already in existence, thus creating a sense of narrative coherence in international law. On the other hand, a restatement is a beginning in and of itself: it brings something from the past into the present, thus presenting the previously established rule as valid now and as an appropriate guide for future actions.  Restatements thus combine continuity and renewal, much like other acts of repetition do.  I study continuity and renewal in restatement practices of three rather different expert bodies: (a) the International Law Commission (ILC); (b) the group of experts invited by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence; (c) the expert bodies connected to the UN Counter Terrorism regime.