About the Department
Jens Meierhenrich
Jens Meierhenrich
Assistant Professor of Government and of Social Studies
Jens Meierhenrich (D.Phil., Oxford, 2002) is Assistant Professor of Government and of Social Studies at Harvard University. He is a member of Harvard’s University Committee on Human Rights Studies, and has conducted field research in several international organizations as well as in South Africa, Rwanda, Japan, Cambodia, Germany, and Argentina. He recently served in Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and has previously worked with Luis Moreno Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
A Rhodes Scholar, Professor Meierhenrich is the author of The Legacies of Law: Long-Run Consequences of Legal Development in South Africa, 1652-2000 (Cambridge University Press, 2008), which won the American Political Science Association's 2009 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award for "the best book published in the United States during the previous year on government, politics, or international affairs," and is currently completing a genocide trilogy, comprising The Rationality of Genocide; The Structure of Genocide; and The Culture of Genocide (all forthcoming from Princeton University Press).
He is also preparing, for Oxford University Press, Genocide: A Reader as well as Genocide: A Very Short Introduction, and finishing a book on judicial responses to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, entitled Lawfare: The Formation and Deformation of Gacaca Jurisdictions in Rwanda, 1994-2009. Work in progress includes an edited volume on international courts (with Dinah L. Shelton) and a co-authored volume, The Darfur Proceedings: The Prosecution of International Crimes at the International Criminal Court (with John Hagan and Alex de Waal).
His articles have appeared in numerous journals, including Anthropology Today, the American Journal of International Law, the Journal of International Criminal Justice, Law & Social Inquiry, Constitutional Political Economy, Ratio Juris, the Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Human Rights Quarterly, Ethics & International Affairs, Electoral Studies, the Journal of Conflict and Security Law, the Journal of Genocide Research as well as in several edited volumes.
Professor Meierhenrich was recenly a Visiting Associate Professor of Law at the University of Tokyo, where he conducted research on the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, better known as the "Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal." His principal teaching interests are in comparative constitutional law, international law, international criminal law, international human rights law, international humanitarian law, and in law and the social sciences.
Papers:
| Varieties of Reconciliation | Jens Meierhenrich, “Varieties of Reconciliation,” Law & Social Inquiry, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Winter 2008), pp. 195-231 |
| The Trauma of Genocide | Jens Meierhenrich, “The Trauma of Genocide,” Journal of Genocide Research, Vol. 9, No. 4 (December 2007), pp. 549-573 |
| Perpetual War: A Pragmatic Sketch | Jens Meierhenrich, “Perpetual War: A Pragmatic Sketch,” Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 3 (August 2007), pp. 631-673 |
| Conspiracy in International Law | Jens Meierhenrich, “Conspiracy in International Law,” Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Vol. 2 (2006), pp. 341-357 |
| A Question of Guilt | Jens Meierhenrich, “A Question of Guilt,” Ratio Juris, Vol. 19, No. 3 (September 2006), pp. 314-342 |
| Presidential and Parliamentary Elections in Rwanda, 2003 | Jens Meierhenrich, “Presidential and Parliamentary Elections in Rwanda, 2003” Electoral Studies, Vol. 25, No. 3 (September 2006), pp. 627-634 |
| Analogies at War | Jens Meierhenrich, “Analogies at War,” Journal of Conflict and Security Law, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Spring 2006), pp. 1-40 |
| The Ethics of Lustration | Jens Meierhenrich, “The Ethics of Lustration,” Ethics & International Affairs, Vol. 20, No. 1 (April 2006), pp. 99-120 |
| Forming States after Failure | Jens Meierhenrich, “Forming States after Failure,” in Robert I. Rotberg, ed., When States Fail: Causes and Consequences (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), pp. 153-169 |
| Establishing Collective Norms: Potentials for Participatory Justice in Rwanda | Jens Meierhenrich, “Establishing Collective Norms: Potentials for Participatory Justice in Rwanda” (with Catie Honeyman, Shakirah Hudani, Alfa Turineh, Justina Hierta, Leila Chirayath, and Andrew Iliff), Peace & Conflict, Vol. 10, No. 1 (2004), pp. 1-24. |
| Judicial Networks | Jens Meierhenrich, “Judicial Networks,” in Karol Soltan and Anthony Langlois, eds., Global Democracy and Its Difficulties (London: Routledge, 2009), pp. 82-94. |
| The Foundations of Constitutionalism: An Analysis of Debaathification | Jens Meierhenrich, “The Foundations of Constitutionalism: An Analysis of Debaathification,” Constitutional Political Economy, Vol. 19, No. 4 (December 2008), pp. 277-300. |
| The Study of International Law | Jens Meierhenrich, “The Study of International Law,” in Gary King, Norman H. Nie, and Kay L. Schlozman, eds., The Future of Political Science (London: Routledge, 2009), pp. 194-196. |
| Armenian Genocide | Jens Meierhenrich, “Armenian Genocide,” in Akira Iriye and Pierre-Yves Saunier, eds., The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History (London: Palgrave, 2009). |
Email Address
jmeierhenrich@gov.harvard.edu
Phone
617-496-7376
Office Location
1737 Cambridge Street, CGIS Knafel Building 423, Cambridge, MA 02138
Office Hours
Friday, 12-2