dr. Thijs Bouwknegt
Biography
Dr. Thijs Bouwknegt is historian of mass violence and transitional justice. His research focuses on the causes, courses and consequences of recent and remote historical injustices (genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes). His regional focus is Africa. Bouwknegt is working on a book (“Transitional History”) on mass atrocity and transitional justice in Africa (1890-2020), and is researching the relationship between colonial and post-colonial violence in the Great Lakes Region. He also serves as a trial monitor at the International Criminal Court (ICC), international criminal tribunals and related criminal trials for international crimes.
Thijs Bouwknegt has since 2011 been a member of the Holocaust and Genocide Studies core team, the Transitional Justice Programme, and is a visiting lecturer at the Graduate School of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam. Bouwknegt has published on subjects, including: mass violence and transitional justice in Rwanda, Liberia, Sierra Leone, DR Congo, Uganda, Chad, Ethiopia, Mali, Cambodia, Syria and Iraq; perpetrators and perpetration; child soldiers; international criminal justice and investigations; universal jurisdiction in Europa and Africa.
Between 2002 and 2011, Thijs Bouwknegt worked as an international journalist (Radio Netherlands Worldwide; International Justice Tribune; France24;) and as researcher at Amnesty International (West Africa), the ICC (Darfur, Uganda) and the United Nations’ International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Bouwknegt has observed over 150 war crimes and genocide trials at the international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Rwanda (ICTR), Sierra Leone (SCSL), Cambodia (ECCC), Lebanon (STL) and Kosovo (KSC), the ICC, and in Bosnia, Rwanda and DR Congo.