Dennis R. Schmidt currently serves as an Assistant Professor in International Relations at Durham University. Prior to joining Durham, he was a Senior Lecturer at Swansea University. Schmidt has held fellowships and visiting posts at the Elliot School of International Affairs in Washington, D.C., the LSE Centre for International Studies, and the University of Tübingen. 

Schmidt’s work focuses on the relationship between ethics, politics, and law at the global level, exploring international order and global governance in theory and practice. He is interested in how international norms and institutions shape, and are shaped by, changing ideas and patterns of global order, and how pluralism and cultural diversity affect the constitution and morality of global governance.

During his fellowship at HIAS, Schmidt will explore the ethical and cultural foundations of international law, with a particular focus on international criminal justice and the laws of war. At the heart of this endeavour lies the question of how international institutions have integrated and mediated tensions between the world’s diverse cultures and moralities. Given the intractable relationship between international law, colonialism, and Eurocentric history, critical questions about the universal appeal of contemporary humanitarian norms and institutions have taken centre stage. To what extent are value-laden understandings and practices of justice, crime, and punishment globally shared? Do certain moral rules and principles transcend national and cultural boundaries? Schmidt’s project will combine philosophical inquiry into these issues with an empirical study of how specific institutions have dealt with the tensions between notions of common humanity and human diversity.

His tandem partner is Antje Wiener, Professor for Political Science, especially Global Governance, at Universität Hamburg. 

Dennis Schmidt’s fellowship is funded by the Joachim Herz Foundation.