PhD, LLM (German University of Administrative Sciences, MSc (London School of Economics and Political Science), First and Second State Examinations in Law (Munich and Berlin)

Post-Doctoral Fellow: Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa

Walter Benjamin Fellow (German Research Foundation) 

johannes.socher@up.ac.za

Expertise:

Comparative Constitutional Law, Public International Law, Transitional Justice, Rule of Law, Criminal Justice, European Law, German Public Law.

Links

• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?authuser=1&user=H4IC3gEAAAAJ
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johannes-socher
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/johannessocher

Current Projects

1. Party Constitutionalisation and Constitutionalism in Sub-Saharan Africa (project for a co-edited volume with Charles Fombad; conference with invited contributors held at the Future Africa Campus, University of Pretoria, South Africa, on 25–26 April 2024)
2. Beyond Civil Oversight: The Armed Forces in Anglophone West African Constitutions (project for a journal article on the role of the armed forces in the constitutions of Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Gambia).
3. From Rwanda via Mauritius to Namibia? The Case for a Truth Commission Addressing the Herero and Nama Genocide (paper presented at the conference “In Search of an African Vision of International Criminal Justice”, University of the Western Cape, South Africa, 6–8 May 2024
4. Compendium on African Bills of Rights (project for a co-authored handbook on fundamental rights in African constitutions with Charles Fombad and Marko Svičevič)
5. Authoritarian Constitutionalism in Anglophone Africa: Separation of Powers from Independence to Democratization (book proposal presented at the workshop “Comparative Constitutionalism in the Global South”, Columbia Law School, New York, USA, 20–21 October 2023)

Academic Fellowships and Grants 

• University of Pretoria Postdoctoral Fellowship, UP Department of Research and Innovation (2024–2026)
• Walter Benjamin Postdoctoral Fellowship, German Research Foundation (2024–2025)
• Klaus Mehnert Dissertation Prize 2020, German Association for East European Studies

Publications:

Books

• Russia and the Right to Self-Determination in the Post-Soviet Space, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192897176.001.0001.
  
  Reviews: Archiv des Völkerrechts (Caroline von Gall) – forthcoming; CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries 59 (2022), 1151 (Peter Rutland); Europe-Asia Studies 74 (2022), 693–694 (Taras Kuzio); Die Öffentliche Verwaltung, September 2022, no. 17, 724–725 (Michael Fuchs); Review of Central and East European Law (Bill Bowring); Survival: Global Politics and Strategy 64 (2022), 211–212 (Angela Stent); Völkerrechtsblog (Polina Kulish und Tero Lundstedt); Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht 82 (2022), 501–506 (Matthias Hartwig). 

• Praxis der Richtlinienumsetzung im Europäischen Verwaltungsverbund, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2020 (co-editor, with Cristina Fraenkel-Haeberle and Karl-Peter Sommermann), https://doi.org/10.3790/978-3-428-58029-3.

Journal Articles

• Symbolic Popular Participation in Constitution-Making in Francophone Africa, African Journal of International and Comparative Law, forthcoming (co-author, with Charles Manga Fombad), https://www.euppublishing.com/loi/ajicl.
• Truth Commissions Addressing Colonial Injustices and their Legacies: Lessons from Africa – submitted
• Assistance to Constitutional Courts in Fragile Contexts: The Case of Mali, 2017–2022, Verfassung und Recht in Übersee/World Comparative Law 56 (2023), 241–256 (redacted version of the report below), https://doi.org/10.5771/0506-7286-2023-1-241.
• Enhancing Access to Justice through Donor-Led Legal Aid Initiatives: International Normative Framework, Practical Approaches, and Some Findings from the Field, Law and Development Review 15 (2022), 1–22 (redacted version of report below), https://doi.org/10.1515/ldr-2021-0144.
• Russland und das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Völker im postsowjetischen Raum, Osteuropa Recht 67, no. 1 (2021), 8–26 (summary of dissertation in German language), https://doi.org/10.5771/0030-6444-2021-1-8.
• Farewell to the European Constitutional Tradition: The 2020 Russian Constitutional Amendments, Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht/Heidelberg Journal of International Law 80 (2020), 615–648, https://www.zaoerv.de/80_2020/80_2020_3_a_615_648.pdf.
• Europäisierung der Regulierungsbehörden im Energiesektor im Vergleich: Organisation und Unabhängigkeit nationaler Regulierungsbehörden in Deutschland und im Vereinigten Königreich,
  Die Verwaltung 52 (2019), 203–238, https://doi.org/10.3790/verw.52.2.203.
• Implementation and Spill-over Effects of the Environmental Information Directives in a Comparative Perspective, Catalan Journal of Public Administration no. 58 (2018), 125–136 (co-author, with Cristina Fraenkel-Haeberle), http://dx.doi.org/10.2436/rcdp.i56.2018.3056.
• Lenin, (Just) Wars of National Liberation, and the Soviet Doctrine on the Use of Force, Journal of the History of International Law/Revue d’histoire du droit international 19 (2017), Special Issue on the Russian Revolution, 219–245, https://doi.org/10.1163/15718050-19231018.

Chapters in Books

• Prohibitions of Ethnic Political Parties and Constitutionalism in Sub-Saharan Africa, in Charles Fombad, Nico Steytler and Yonatan Fessha (eds.), Ethnicity and Constitutionalism in Africa (Oxford University Press) – submitted, under review with the editors.
• Reflexiver Instrumentengebrauch, in: Matthias Kötter et al. (eds.), Rechtsstaatsförderung: Handbuch für Forschung und Praxis, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2022, 318–323 (co-author, with Gregor Walter-Drop), https://shop.kohlhammer.de/rechtsstaatsforderung-39026.html#147=22.
• Organisations- und verfahrensrechtliche Vorgaben im Umweltbereich: der europarechtliche Ausgangspunkt, Ch. 2, in: Fraenkel-Haeberle, Socher and Sommermann (eds.), Praxis der Richtlinienumsetzung im Europäischen Verwaltungsverbund (see second book above), 33–43.
• Die Umsetzung organisations- und verfahrensrechtlicher Vorgaben des europäischen Umweltrechts in Deutschland, in: Fraenkel-Haeberle, Socher and Sommermann (eds.), Praxis der Richtlinienumsetzung im Europäischen Verwaltungsverbund (see second book above), 61–73.
• Die Umsetzung organisations- und verfahrensrechtlicher Vorgaben des europäischen Umweltrechts in Großbritannien, in: Fraenkel-Haeberle, Socher and Sommermann (eds.), Praxis der Richtlinienumsetzung im Europäischen Verwaltungsverbund (see second book above), 87–100.
• Die Entwicklung der Vorgaben des Unionsrechts zu Organisation und Unabhängigkeit von Regulierungsbehörden im Energiesektor, in: Fraenkel-Haeberle, Socher and Sommermann (eds.), Praxis der Richtlinienumsetzung im Europäischen Verwaltungsverbund (see second book above), 179–189.
• Die britische Ofgem als Referenzmodell unabhängiger Energieregulierungsbehörden in Europa, in: Fraenkel-Haeberle, Socher and Sommermann (eds.), Praxis der Richtlinienumsetzung im Europäischen Verwaltungsverbund (see second book above), 191–200.
• Organisation und Unabhängigkeit der Energieregulierungsbehörden in Deutschland, in: Fraenkel-Haeberle, Socher and Sommermann (eds.), Praxis der Richtlinienumsetzung im Europäischen Verwaltungsverbund (see second book above), 239–251.
• Annäherung nationaler Verwaltungssysteme trotz „no gold plating“-Politiken?, in: Cristina Fraenkel-Haeberle et al. (eds.), Europäisierung und Internationalisierung im Vergleich, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2017, 67–78, https://www.duncker-humblot.de/9783428152452.

Blog Posts

• Know Your Enemy and Know Yourself: On the Continuing Relevance of Analysing Russian Approaches to International Law, Völkerrechtsblog, 13 June 2024, https://voelkerrechtsblog.org/de/know-your-enemy-and-know-yourself/
• Russland und das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Völker, ZOiS Spotlight 13/2021, 7 April 2021, https://www.zois-berlin.de/publikationen/russland-und-das-selbstbestimmungsrecht-der-voelker; English version: https://en.zois-berlin.de/publications/russia-and-the-right-of-peoples-to-self-determination.
• Farewell to the European Constitutional Tradition: The 2020 Russian Constitutional Amendments, Verfassungsblog, 2 July 2020 (adapted and shortened version of journal article above), https://verfassungsblog.de/farewell-to-the-european-constitutional-tradition.
• Rechtsstaatsförderung in Zeiten der Corona-Pandemie, PeaceLab Blog, 9 June 2020 (part of the debate „Corona-Pandemie: Wie müssen sich Krisenprävention und Friedensförderung anpassen?“, https://peacelab.blog/2020/06/rechtsstaatsfoerderung-in-zeiten-der-corona-pandemie.

Reports and Policy Documents

• UNODC Regional Framework for Southern Africa 2024–2030 – forthcoming (policy document commissioned by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, based on desk research and stakeholder consultations).
• Organized Crime in Nigeria: A Threat Assessment, Abuja: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and National Institute for Security Studies, September 2023 (co-researcher, with Tejal Jesrani and others), https://www.unodc.org/documents/nigeria/NOCTA_Web_Version_25.09.2023.pdf.
• Assistance to the Constitutional Court of Mali 2017–2022, 1 February 2023 (report commissioned by the Research and Knowledge Transfer Hub for Rule of Law Assistance – RSF Hub, on file with the German Federal Foreign Office).
• Enhancing Access to Justice through Legal Aid Projects in Rule of Law Assistance, 30 November 2021 (report commissioned by the Research and Knowledge Transfer Hub for Rule of Law Assistance – RSF Hub, on file with the German Federal Foreign Office).