About the author(s):
Rogier is a researcher at the Netherlands Defence Academy (NLDA) and works at the Dutch National Prosecutor’s Office. He holds LL.M-degrees from Utrecht University and the University of Nottingham. Before taking up his current positions, he was an associate legal officer in Chambers at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and a legal adviser at the International Humanitarian Law Division of the Netherlands Red Cross.
Rogier is an adjunct-lecturer at the Hague University of Applied Sciences, where he teaches international humanitarian law, and he co-convenes the Hague Initiative for Law and Armed Conflict.
I am very proud to announce that Katharine today (I just left the celebraties drinks held afterwards) successfully defended her PhD! She defended her thesis in the beautiful “Senate Hall” of Utrecht University and was awarded a cum laude (which is very rarely given in the Netherlands) doctor degree for her thesis on “The Accountability of Armed Groups under Human Rights Law”. One of her supervisors, prof Terry Gill, (the other two (!) were profs Cees Flinterman and Harmen van der Wilt), mentioned in his “laudatio” (congratulating speech) that one of the committee members (the committee was made up of profs Andrew Clapham, Jann Kleffner, Elies van Sliedregt, Cedric Ryngaert and Fred Soons) had referred to her manuscript as “exquisite”. Having read an advanced copy of her manuscript, I can wholeheartedly agree with this observation! We can all look forward to the publication that will surely be of great assistance to those working in this field.
Her defence explains (partially) explains the lack of activity on the blog (I do also have a good excuse – albeit not as good as Katharine’s). Utrecht University had been smart enough to offer her an assistant professorship, so hopefully she (and I will also make an effort) will be able to devote more time to the blog in the near future.
For now: Congratulations Dr Katharine!
Congratulations!