Mikkel Jarle Christensen

Primary fields of research

Legal sociology, sociology of elites, international proscution

Teaching

Law, morality and politics, Legal history

Current research

Principal Investigator The Global Sites of International Criminal Justice (JustSites) financed by an ERC Starting Grant (2019-2024).

Using a multi-disciplinary approach, the collective research project will look beyond courts to investigate the larger formation of “sites” that collectively structure and give direction to international criminal justice and its battle to end impunity for international crimes.

JustSites studies the constellation of localities in which international criminal justice is produced, received and has impact. Building an innovative scientific vocabulary, the project understands the "justice sites" to be localities in which the political, legal and professional activities that collectively create international criminal justice are developed. The justice sites include locations in which forensic exhumations are carried out, NGO offices in conflict zones, foreign ministries, private law firms, media outlets, academic research centers, and the international criminal courts. These sites are closely related, and all depend on and compete with each other to define the direction of international criminal justice. Together they form a constellation of sites that drives developments in this field of law. It is this constellation that is the research object of JustSites.

With its analysis of the constellation of justice sites, the project moves beyond the conventional focus on courts and their context to investigate instead the balances of authority and power that affect the relations between the justice sites. Contributing the first investigation of the wider constellation of justice sites is not only of significant value as frontier research, but is crucial for understanding the wider societal, legal and political impact of this field of law.

CV

Education

2011                    PhD University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Law, Sociology of Law

2009:                  Visiting researcher Open University, Walton Hall

2007:                  Master’s degree History of Ideas, Aarhus University (graduated in top three percentile)

2005:                  Erasmus Scholarship Département de Philosophie, Université Vincennes – Saint-Denis

2005:                  Bachelor’s degree History of Literature, Aarhus University

Academic employments

2016                    Associate professor, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen

2013                    Assistant professor, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen

2013                    Postdoc EuroChallenge and the Centre for Excellence for International Courts (iCourts), Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen

2012:                  Research administrator, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen

2011-2012:       Research assistant iCourts, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen

2008-2011:       PhD scholar Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen

2008:                  Research assistant Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen