Team
Researchers
Gezy Schuurmans
PhD researcher
Project: Prosecutorial policy and case selection in domestic prosecutions of international crimes
Gezy Schuurmans holds a Master of Advanced Studies in Transitional Justice from the Geneva Academy and an LLM in International Law and Global Governance from Tilburg University. Prior to joining the Joined-Up Justice Project, she was a Research Assistant at the Canadian Centre of Statelessness conducting qualitative research and a Student Assistant at Tilburg University College. She also completed several internships, inter alia, with the Permanent Representation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the UN in Geneva and with the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion.
William Fortin
PhD researcher
Project: The Outer Limits of Criminal Conduct
William Fortin holds an iBA (First Class Hons) in international studies from York University (Glendon College), a MA in international studies from the University of Durham, and an LLM (Cum Laude) in public international law from Utrecht University. He also studied law, public affairs, and international relations at Laval University and social sciences at Sciences Po Paris. William volunteered in 2017 as a Court Observer in Ghana, monitoring court cases related to domestic, sexual, and gender-based violence, before joining Lawyers Without Borders Canada in 2018, first in Cote d’Ivoire and then in Haiti, working on matters related to the protection of human rights defenders, detainees’ rights, the criminal justice system, transitional justice, and other human rights issues. He also interned for different organizations in Paris, Chicago, Pô (Burkina Faso), and The Hague.
Rory Sugrue
PhD researcher
Rory Sugrue (he/him) holds an LLB in Law and German from Trinity College Dublin and a MSc in Law and Society from Leiden University, where he wrote his master's thesis titled 'Gender Identity Asylum Seekers in Ireland: A Critical Step for the Trans Liberation Movement'. Thereafter, he worked as a research consultant for an LGBTI+ advocacy group, preparing a report on the experiences of queer refugees who are living in state-provided accommodation centres. He has previously worked as a Judicial Assistant at the High Court of Ireland. His research interests include asylum law, SOGIESC law, and socio-legal research. He is contactable in English, Gaeilge, and German.
At the beginning of 2023 he joined the JOINEDUPJUSTICE project as a PhD researcher. His research explores the scope and content of refugee exclusion under Article 1F of the 1951 Refugee Convention, to clarify who is deemed undeserving of refugee protection.
Didem Dogar
Post Doc
Didem Doğar is a postdoctoral researcher in International Criminal Justice at Tilburg Law School, focusing on the intersection between international criminal law and refugee law. She received her Doctor of Law (D.C.L.) and LL.M. degrees from McGill University. Her doctoral dissertation investigates the use of immigration and refugee law for national security risks and punitive ends and determines its effect on refugees from the Global South. Her doctoral research has been supported by various sources including the Quebec government’s scholarship(FRQSC), the scholarship of SHERPA, and McGill University. Her work has been published in Refugee Survey Quarterly, Springer, and the International Journal of Migration and Border Studies. On the Use of Asylum Testimonies, won an external academic award—the 2021 Paul-Gérin-Lajoie Rising Star Award. Beforeher studies, Didem worked at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Council of Europe and as a corporate lawyer in Istanbul.
Co-Investigators
James Simeon
York University, Toronto
Dr. James C. Simeon, Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, York University, Toronto, Canada, is the Vice-President, and a past President, of the Canadian Association of Refugees and Forced Migration Studies (CARFMS). He serves as the Coordinator of the International Association for Refugee and Migration Judges' (IARMJ) Inter-Conference Working Party Process. His areas of research include international refugee law, human rights law, humanitarian law, criminal law, and public policy and administration. He publishes in these areas of research and organizes and leads academic and professional conferences, symposia, and workshops. Prior to joining the faculty at York University, he served on the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) and as the Executive Director of the International Association of Refugee Law Judges (IARLJ), the predecessor of the IARMJ.
Maarten Bolhuis
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Maarten Bolhuis is Assistant Professor of Criminology at the Faculty of Law, VU Amsterdam. His research focuses on the interaction between accountability efforts regarding conflict-related crime, such as atrocity crimes and terrorism, and immigration control. For instance, he has studied the criminal prosecution of asylum seekers for atrocity crimes outside their country of origin; policies to identify alleged war criminals or terrorists among asylum seekers and the reliance on open-source information in this context; and the use of citizenship revocation against dual nationals suspected of or convicted for atrocity crimes and terrorism. Maarten is Programme Coordinator of the MSc in International Crimes, Conflict & Criminology, board member at the Center for International Criminal Justice (CICJ), and member of the Amsterdam Laboratory for Legal Psychology (ALLP). He participates in the JoinedUpJustice project inter alia by co-supervising the PhD project of Rory Sugrue.
Supervisory Team
Elies van Sliedregt
Tilburg University
Elies van Sliedregt is Professor of Criminal Law & Procedure at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. She is principal investigator of the ERC Advanced Grant project Joined Up Justice - Building a Global Justice System at the Domestic Level. Her research focuses on the interplay between international criminal law, national criminal law and EU criminal law. She is interested in international cooperation in prosecuting international crimes (war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and aggression). Van Sliedregt was the 2015 Holding Redlich fellow at the Castan Center for Human Rights at Monash University, Melbourne and, in 2018, appointed as Fellow of McLaughlin College, York University, Toronto. She is member of the Royal Netherlands Academy for Arts and Sciences (KNAW), sits on the Advisory Committee on Public International Law (CAVV) and is a trustee of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL).
Maarten Bolhuis
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Maarten Bolhuis is Assistant Professor of Criminology at the Faculty of Law, VU Amsterdam. His research focuses on the interaction between accountability efforts regarding conflict-related crime, such as atrocity crimes and terrorism, and immigration control. For instance, he has studied the criminal prosecution of asylum seekers for atrocity crimes outside their country of origin; policies to identify alleged war criminals or terrorists among asylum seekers and the reliance on open-source information in this context; and the use of citizenship revocation against dual nationals suspected of or convicted for atrocity crimes and terrorism. Maarten is Programme Coordinator of the MSc in International Crimes, Conflict & Criminology, board member at the Center for International Criminal Justice (CICJ), and member of the Amsterdam Laboratory for Legal Psychology (ALLP). He participates in the JoinedUpJustice project inter alia by co-supervising the PhD project of Rory Sugrue.
Ligeia Qauckelbeen
Tilburg University
Ligeia studied law at Ghent University (cum laude, 2012) and holds an LL.M degree in International Human Rights and Criminal Justice from Utrecht University (cum laude, 2013). She subsequently worked for ICTY Defense Counsel, before returning to Ghent University to obtain a PhD in International Criminal Law (2022). During her time as a PhD researcher, she simultaneously was an Academic Teaching Assistant building experience as a lector in International and European Criminal Law. Next to her PhD, she also participated in several EU funded studies (e.g., STEPS2 Resettlement Project).
Ligeia Quackelbeen is currently Assistant Professor of International and European Criminal law at the University of Tilburg. In that capacity, she is currently setting up a study on the position of the judges in the international criminal justice sphere and seeks to unravel some of the influencing factors on judicial interpretation by interviewing judges on their position in key debates.
Joeri Bemelmans
Tilburg University
Joeri Bemelmans is associate professor of criminal law and criminal procedure at Tilburg University and deputy judge at the district court of Gelderland.
He studied law at the Radboud University in Nijmegen (LLM 2011, MSc 2012). He also obtained his PhD in criminal law there (cum laude, 2018). Before joining Tilburg University in 2022, he worked for the Supreme Court of The Netherlands.
As a member of the supervisory team he draws from his experiences in both academic and practical legal research on national, supranational and comparative criminal law.
Toine Spapens
Tilburg University
Toine Spapens is full professor of Criminology at the Department of Criminal Law. Since the early 1990s, he has done extensive empirical research on (organized) crime and its containment, and on international law enforcement cooperation. Topics include inter alia trafficking in illicit firearms, drug production, illegal gambling, criminal families, and criminals involved in philanthropic activities. He also focuses on environmental crimes, specifically on waste-related offenses.
Didem Dogar
Post Doc
Didem Doğar is a postdoctoral researcher in International Criminal Justice at Tilburg Law School, focusing on the intersection between international criminal law and refugee law. She received her Doctor of Law (D.C.L.) and LL.M. degrees from McGill University. Her doctoral dissertation investigates the use of immigration and refugee law for national security risks and punitive ends and determines its effect on refugees from the Global South. Her doctoral research has been supported by various sources including the Quebec government’s scholarship(FRQSC), the scholarship of SHERPA, and McGill University. Her work has been published in Refugee Survey Quarterly, Springer, and the International Journal of Migration and Border Studies. On the Use of Asylum Testimonies, won an external academic award—the 2021 Paul-Gérin-Lajoie Rising Star Award. Beforeher studies, Didem worked at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Council of Europe and as a corporate lawyer in Istanbul.
Affiliate researchers
Senuri de Silva
Tilburg University
Senuri de Silva is a PhD candidate at Tilburg University. She is also an Attorney-at-Law from Sri Lanka (2017) and obtained her Advanced LLM in Public International Law from Leiden University (2021).
From January 2018 to September 2020, she was a prosecutor at the Attorney General’s Office in Sri Lanka working on a range of criminal law matters across the country. She has also gained experience in international criminal law as a Visiting Professional at the ICC, Chambers (2021) and as an intern at the International Bar Association (2022). Her current research will focus on domestic prosecutions for atrocity crimes in South Asia.
Leena Grover
Tilburg University
Leena Grover is Associate Professor of International Law at Tilburg Law School. Leena completed her doctorate in law at the University of Cologne (Interpreting Crimes in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Cambridge University Press, 2014)) and will submit her Habilitation to the University of Zurich in Fall 2023 (Interim Constitutions: Legal Nature and Performance (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming)). Her interest in domestic and international legal efforts to promote peace and security inform her next project, which will examine legal pluralism in the field of transitional justice. Leena has practised law for a decade, including at the International Criminal Court (ICC), UN High Commissioner for Refugees in India, and the Centre for Spanish Speaking Peoples in Canada, representing dozens of asylum seekers in domestic legal proceedings. Her work has been cited inter alia by the ICC Appeals Chamber, UN International Law Commission, and Supreme Court of Canada.
Melina Mouris
Tilburg University
Project: Rehabilitation in International Criminal Law
Melina Mouris holds an LLM in International and European Law (Cum Laude), with a focus on International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law, and an LLM in Dutch Law (With Distinction) from Tilburg University. Following her studies, she joined the Department of Criminal Law of Tilburg University as a researcher on multiple projects, including the IMOBEX project on mobile banditry at the intersection of criminal exploitation. Melina has experience with qualitative empirical research and the Organized Crime Field Lab methodology, which approaches so called ‘wicked crime problems’ in a multidisciplinary setting. Additionally to her research, she also worked as a lecturer in criminal Law and human rights.
Research Assistant
Patricia Florea
Tilburg University
My name is Patricia Florea and I work as a student research assistant in the Criminal Law Department. I graduated from the LLB Global Law programme in 2023, with a Minor in Business Law, and I am currently following the International Law and Global Governance Master’s at Tilburg University. Besides my work and studies, I am dedicated to volunteering. I am part of the League of Romanian Students Abroad (LSRS), an NGO with over 150 active volunteers from 13 countries, where I occupy the position of Vice President of Human Resources. I have also done an internship for Avocatoo, one of the most known law companies in Romania, where I wrote several blog articles related to commercial law and law and technology.
