Janine Ubink appointed as Professor of Law, Governance and Development
As from 1 March 2018, Leiden University will appoint Dr Janine Ubink as full Professor of Law, Governance and Development.
Janine Ubink is currently Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of California Irvine (UCI) and President of the Commission on Legal Pluralism. Her research centres around African law and governance, with a primary focus on customary law and its relation to state law; traditional authorities; land law and policy; legal pluralism; transitional justice, gender, and rule of law reforms and legal empowerment.
Ubink studied law at Leiden University, where she also undertook her PhD research that resulted in the dissertation In the Land of the Chiefs: Customary Law, Land Conflicts, and the Role of the State in Peri-Urban Ghana. Until 2013 Janine Ubink worked at the Van Vollenhoven Institute as an assistant professor. She has also taught at NYU School of Law, ANU Law School (Canberra, Australia), and FHR Lim A Po Institute for Social Studies (Paramaribo, Suriname). Janine also works as a consultant in this field, most recently as an advisor to the Ministry of Justice of Somalia.
Janine Ubink is appointed as Professor of Law, Governance and Development at the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society (VVI). The VVI is part of the Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of the Law at Leiden Law School. The VVI seeks to advance knowledge of the formation and functioning of legal systems in their social contexts, the impact of these systems on society and vice versa, their effectiveness in governance, and their contribution to development. The Institute adopts a sociolegal and global approach, doing research on law in the books and law in action in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe.