Notes on Contributors
Andy Aydın-Aitchison
is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Edinburgh School of Law, where he teaches on the postgraduate M.Sc. in Global Crime, Justice and Security, and on the senior undergraduate course, Criminologies of Atrocity.
Annalisa Battista
has successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis at the University of Edinburgh School of Law. Her research topic is the widespread and systematic use of sexual violence as a means of genocide during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. She teaches on the senior undergraduate course, Criminologies of Atrocity. She has taught on the criminology of atrocity at the University of Edinburgh, Saveetha Law School, and the University of Westminster.
Thijs B. Bouwknegt
is Senior Researcher at the niod Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (knaw); and Visiting Research Professor at the University of Amsterdam (UvA).
Anne-Marie de Brouwer
is co-director at impact: Center against Human Trafficking and Sexual Violence in Conflict, an expertise centre that focuses on how to prevent and address these two crimes. She is furthermore the chair of the Mukomeze Foundation and co-owner of Bèkske: Rwandan Empowerment Coffee.
Patrick Cammaert
Major General (ret.), had a distinguished military career in the Netherlands with the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps, as well as in the United Nations, where he served as Sector Commander in Cambodia (untac), as Assistant Chief of Staff in Bosnia/Herzegovina (unprofor), as Force Commander in Ethiopia and Eritrea (unmee), as Military Advisor to the Department of Peace Keeping Operations (dpko), as General Officer Commanding (goc) the Eastern Division in the Democratic Republic of Congo (monuc) and, as a civilian, as Head of Mission of unmha in Hodeida in Yemen.
Koko Christiaanse
is a graduate of Utrecht University’s llm in Public International Law and Leiden University’s M.Sc. in Law and Society, and was the research assistant for the 2023–2024 Global Justice Investigations Lab.
Marije Luitjens
is an assistant professor of peace and conflict studies (ir) at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Amsterdam University College (auc). In addition to lecturing at auc, she conducts research in various conflict-affected settings, such as Medellín (Colombia), Kosovo and Srebrenica (Bosnia-Herzegovina). She has also developed an analytical tool called the ‘Peace System Analysis’, which can be used to unpack the complexities of peace and conflict processes and is subject to further research.
Brianne McGonigle Leyh
is Professor of Global Justice Studies at Utrecht University’s School of Law, affiliated with the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (sim) and the Montaigne Centre for the Rule of Law and Administration of Justice. Her specializations include human rights law, transitional justice, victims’ rights and the documentation of serious crimes. She is the Director of Masters Education of the Law School and a Senior Teaching Fellow, leading interdisciplinary education projects.
An Michels
is a clinical psychologist with an additional degree in family therapy. She specializes in the development of support strategies for conflict-affected populations. She has worked in Rwanda, Burundi and Indonesia for Médecins Sans Frontières and established the support unit in the Special Court for Sierra Leone in Freetown. Throughout her work, she has developed particular expertise in supporting victims of gender-based violence and children affected by armed conflict in their involvement in transitional justice mechanisms. She has advised numerous international organizations on these topics. She is the Psychologist/Trauma Expert and Team Leader of the psychosocial support team in the Victims and Witnesses Section at the International Criminal Court. In this role, she advises the Court on the development of survivor-centred and trauma-informed approaches. In addition, she authored a study on the integration of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support approaches in accountability mechanisms for atrocity crimes. She is a research fellow at the Human Rights in Trauma Mental Health Program at Stanford University and was nominated for a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency in 2024.
Caecilia Johanna van Peski
holds an M.Sc. Degree in Educational and Cultural Psychology from Tilburg University, an m.a. Degree in Civil‒Military Interaction from the Helmut Schmidt University, University of the German Bundeswehr in Hamburg, Germany, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Integrated Border Security and Management for Senior Leadership from the osce Border Management College in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. She is a Commander in the Royal Netherlands Navy and a member of the
Furtuna Sheremeti
is a criminologist who is researching the harms of crimes committed during wars and the needs of victims in these cases. She is from Kosova, and works and resides in Prishtina. She is a lecturer at the Faculty of Law in Prishtina.
Alette Smeulers
is a professor of international crimes at the University of Groningen and has recently published a book entitled Perpetrators of Mass Atrocities – Terribly and Terrifyingly Normal? (Routledge, 2024), which is based on doing more than 30 years of research on perpetrators of mass atrocities. The book has been published in Dutch under the title Angtsaanjagend normaal (Alfabet, 2025). She additionally hosts a podcast series together with Nicola Quaedvlieg called Terribly and Terrifyingly Normal?
Maartje Weerdesteijn
is an assistant professor at the Department of Criminology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She is on the board of the Peace and Conflict Studies Center and a researcher at the Center for International Criminal Justice.
Martin Witteveen
is an appeals prosecutor, specialized in international crimes and human trafficking, and works pro bono for ngos. He works for Dutch & Detained in support of Dutch nationals detained abroad and works with the Minister of Justice and Human Rights of the National Unity Government of Myanmar and his staff, the National Unity Consultative Council, and various lawyers in and outside Myanmar to train on ihl/icl and future accountability. He previously worked as an investigation team leader in the Office of the Prosecutor (otp) of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where he led the team investigating crimes in the situation of Northern Uganda. He also helped creating networks with investigators and prosecutors of international crimes in national jurisdictions and with international organizations such as Interpol and