Profile
Janne Nijman is Professor of History and Theory of International Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Amsterdam and senior fellow of the Amsterdam Center for International Law (ACIL). Nijman is also Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. Previously, she has been Chairperson of the Executive Board of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut in The Hague, and its academic director (2015-2022). Nijman is a member of the Advisory Council on International Affairs (AIV) and chair of its permanent Committee on Human Rights (2023-2026). Nijman is a Senior Fellow visiting the Research Group ‘The International Rule of Law – Rise or Decline?’ at Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Universität Potsdam in 2023-24. During Michaelmas Term (2022-2023), she was a Visiting Fellow at the Lauterpacht Center for International Law and a Visiting Scholar at Jesus College in Cambridge (UK).
Her research centers on how the past, present, and future of international law influence each other (see also an interview here and here). Currently, her research is focused on two themes 'Dutch Empire and International Law' and 'Cities and International Law'. Nijman has been PI of the research project ‘The Global City: Challenges, Trust and the Role of (International) Law (2016-2021)’ hosted at the Asser Institute. The project includes four individual PhD projects supported by the Gieskes Strijbis Foundation. Together with Helmut Aust (FU Berlin), Janne Nijman co-chairs the ILA Study Group on 'The Role of Cities in International law'.
She is an Advisory Editor of the London review of International Law and she has been an editor of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law (2010-2022). Nijman has been a board member of the Grotiana Foundation and Grotiana Journal (2005-2022) and member of the general board of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Vereniging voor Internationaal Recht (KNVIR, the Dutch branch of the International Law Association (ILA)) (2008-2022).
Nijman studied law at the University of Leiden (Meester in de Rechten, 1996) and the Université Robert Schuman in Strasbourg. She defended her doctoral thesis in public international law at Leiden University in 2004. Nijman is based at ACIL since 2004. She has been a post-doc researcher in the ACIL-based NWO Pioneer Project "The Divide and Interaction between National law and International Law" (2004-2005). Janne Nijman has been a Global Research Fellow of New York University School of Law (2003-04), affiliated to the History and Theory of International Law Program of the Institute for International Law and Justice, an Early Career Visiting Fellow at Queen Mary College School of Law, University of London (summer 2006), and a Visiting Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Bologna Institute for Policy Research (Spring term 2012). From 2007-2014, she has been Dean to the Law Faculty's PhD Candidates. Over the years, she has acted frequently as guest lecturer at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations "Clingendael" and at the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies (UvA). Previously, she participated in the 1998 ACUNS/ASIL Summer Workshop "Globalization and Global Governance: Changing Roles for State and Non-State Actors" Yale University, USA.
Ancillary activities (selection)
Janne Nijman is Chair of the Supervisory Board of World Press Photo and Member of the Supervisory Board of PAX for Peace and of the Supervisory Board of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She is a member of the Jury of the UCLG Peace Prize. She is a member of SER Topvrouwen. Nijman has been an International Gender Champion (Interview on Gender Equality on the occassion of IWD 2019) as member of the IGC The Hague hub from 2018-2022. Janne has been member and chair of the Board of Trustees of ICCT - International Center for Counter-Terrorism in The Hague and (founding) member of the Steering Committee of the Netherlands Network of Human Rights Research (NNHRR) (2017-2022). She has been chairperson of the board of the Vera Gottschalk-Frank Foundation and in that capacity member of the Selection and Evaluation Committee of the Arminius Fellowship at the Scaliger Institute (Leiden University). Until 2019, she has been a board member and research advisor on Global Justice to The Broker, an online platform that aims to 'bridge the gap' between academics and development policy makers. Nijman has been member and president of the executive board of Oikos, a NGO focused on fair and sustainable globalisation, and member of the Supervisory Board of Spark, which develops higher education and entrepreneurship so that young ambitious people are empowered to lead their post-conflict societies into prosperity.
Nijman has published op-eds in Eindhovens dagblad, Het Parool, Het Financieel Dagblad, Nederlands Dagblad, NRC Handelsblad, Trouw and Volkskrant. She has an alternating column with Herman van Rompuy in the magazine CDV: 'Wederkerigheid' (2019-4), 'Identiteit' (2020-2), 'Waarden en Europa' (2020-4), 'Het bonum commune’ (2021-2), 'Rentmeesterschap’ (2021-4), 'Vernedering' (2022-2), 'Grenzen aan het Gras' (2022-4), 'Stop ons Verzet' (2023-2) en 'Ressentiment' (2023-4).
Janne Nijman is currently working on a range of research topics, including :
Monograph & edited volumes :
Reviewed inter alia in (see links below):
Review Essay by Anthony Carty in: 6 Melbourne JIL 2005, 534-552.
Book Review by Robert Kolb in 18 European JIL 2007, 775-776.
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Chapters and articles :
'The Urbanisation of International Law – A Post-Cold War History', in: Eyal Benvenisti/Dino Kritsiotis (Eds.), Cambridge History of International Law, Vol. XII, Cambridge (CUP) 2024, together with Helmut P. Aust.
‘Bertha von Suttner: Locating International Law in Novel and Salon’ in: Immi Tallgren (Ed), Portraits of Women in International Law: New Names and Forgotten Faces (OUP, 2023) 20 pp.
'International Law needs People': 'Opening Remarks' as Convener of the Closing Plenary: International Law Needs People: Humanitarian Arms Control and the Peace movement, in: Proceedings of the ASIL Annual Meeting 2022, 116, 222-223.
‘Europe as a geopolitical actor after the Post-Cold War era’, Foreword to: Brigid Laffan’s ‘Can Collective Power Europe emerge from Putin’s War?’, Seventh Annual T.M.C. Asser Lecture (The Hague; Asser Press, August 2022) v-x.
‘The Grotian Myth and Dutch Modern Imperialism: Blind Spots in International Law Scholarship’ in the Online Symposium at Verfassungsblog: ‘Decolonization and Human Rights in the Kingdom of the Netherlands’, León Castellanos-Jankiewicz and Wiebe Hommes (Eds.), January 2022.
‘The Emerging Roles of Cities in International Law - Introductory Remarks on Practice, Scholarship and the Handbook’, together with Helmut P Aust, in: Aust, H.P. & Nijman, J.E. (eds.), Research Handbook on International Law and Cities (Elgar, 2021) 1-15.
‘Introduction’, together with Randall Lesaffer, in: Randall Lesaffer and Janne E. Nijman (Eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Grotius (CUP, 2021) 1-14.
‘Intelligence without a Conscience? A Plea for Regulation of the Digital World’, Foreword to: Andrew Murray’s ‘Almost Human: Law and Human Agency in the Time of Artificial Intelligence’, Sixth Annual T.M.C. Asser Lecture (The Hague; Asser Press, August 2021) v-x.
‘Ius Gentium et Naturae: The Human Conscience and Early Modern International Law’, in: Slotte, P. & Haskell, J. (eds.), Christianity and International Law: An Introduction (‘Law and Christianity’ Series), (Cambridge University Press, 2021) 153-176.
'Planetary Boundaries intra muros: Cities and the Anthropocene', together with Helmut Aust, in Duncan French and Louis J. Kotzé (eds.), Research Handbook on Law, Governance and Planetary Boundaries (Edward Elgar, 2021)
‘Marked Absences: Locating Gender and Race in International Legal History’, Volume 31 (3) European Journal of International Law (2020): 1025–1050.
‘International Law and the Social Question: An Alternative Hague Tradition?’ Foreword to: A. Orford, International Law and the Social Question. Fifth Annual T.M.C. Asser Lecture (The Hague; Asser Press, 2020) v-xiv.
'Grotius’ ‘Rule of Law’ and the Human Sense of Justice: An Afterword to Martti Koskenniemi’s Foreword', European Journal of International Law, Volume 30 (4), November 2019, Pages 1105–1114.
Book (in Dutch):
Thijs Jansen, Janne Nijman & Jan Willem Sap (eds.), Burgers en Barbaren.Oorlog tussen recht en macht, Amsterdam, Boom, 2007.