Dr Paul Behrens

Paul Behrens joined the faculty in 2012. His principal research interests lie in the fields of international law, constitutional law and EU law. In the latter field, he has focused on the legal framework governing Brexit, has given evidence to the EU-Committee of the German Parliament, written several papers and given TV interviews. In the area of international law, his particular interests concern international criminal law, diplomatic law and international humanitarian law. Paul is the author of Diplomatic Interference and the Law (Hart Publishing 2016), co-editor of Diplomatic Law in a New Millennium (Oxford University Press 2017), of Holocaust and Genocide Denial: A Contextual Perspective (Routledge 2017), Elements of Genocide (Routledge 2012) and of other works. He has been an invited speaker at numerous conferences and has given guest lectures and seminars at the universities of Stockholm, Gothenburg, Uppsala, the Christian-Albrechts-University at Kiel, the University of Copenhagen, the University of Leiden and the Pázmány Péter Catholic University at Budapest.

Paul is an Associate of the Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Leicester University and member of the Surrey International Law Centre. Together with the director of the Stanley Burton Centre, he is the founder of an interdisciplinary research initiative which hosted conferences on selected topics in the field of genocide studies, including an interdisciplinary expert meeting on genocidal intent (funded by the British Academy). At Edinburgh, Paul has organised several international conferences on diplomatic law which brought together Ambassadors, other members of the diplomatic corps as well as some of the world's leading scholars on diplomatic law.

Paul has worked in the past inter alia for the European Communities Committee of the House of Lords and for the University of Leicester, where he was a lecturer in law until 2012. He has written expert commentaries for leading newspapers, including the Süddeutsche Zeitung, The Guardian and The Scotsman and has given radio and television interviews on current affairs, including to PBS / Deutsche Welle's "The Day" programme on Brexit.