Last year, A-LAB awarded contributions toward two Ph.D. projects of the NSCR and the law school jointly, and the conducting of interviews that served both a research project at the NSCR and a project at the law school.
One PhD project concerns that of Beatriz Mayans Hermida with the working title Sanctions under the International Criminal Court’s Principle of Complementarity. Using the case study of Colombia, Beatriz explores the potential of alternative sanctions, such as “community service,” as punishment for the most serious international crimes in countries emerging from a violent conflict situation. Her research combines legal and empirical methods, such as interviews. Besides Beatriz, the research team consists of Catrien Bijleveld & Barbora Holá (NSCR & RCH).
The other doctoral research is that of Tessa van der Rijst. She investigates the question “How is silence and lying used in evidence constructions and how should that use be standardized?” To this end, she is conducting systematic fact-finding research on the use of the silence or statement of the defendant in the reasoning model of the Dutch criminal courts for different types of crimes. After this, interviews will also be conducted among judges and counsels, to reflect on the preliminary research results. Besides Tessa, the research team consists of Lonneke Stevens (RCH) & Barbora Holá (NSCR & RCH).
The contribution to conducting interviews concerns a project by Sjoukje van Deuren (RCH & NSCR) and Teun van Ruitenburg (NSCR) into the motivations for membership in the Hells Angels and the effects of government policies on the club and individual members.
It also allows the implementation of the plan for which seed money was awarded two years ago: the research stay of Dr. Robyn Holder, senior research fellow at Griffith University in Brisbane. Robyn will come to the NSCR and the VU as an A-LAB visiting scholar in June-July 2022. She is an expert on justice, victims’ rights, the role of the legal profession, medical complaints, compensation proceedings after sexual abuse, restorative justice, international law, International Criminal Court and criminal justice. She is theoretically and conceptually very strong and conducts qualitative and quantitative research. Her broad research experience and interdisciplinary view is of interest to a large group of A-LAB researchers, to lawyers but also psychologists and economists. She will give one or more lectures during her visit and is eager to talk with A-LAB researchers to realize new collaborations.
