Hoko Horii works as assistant professor at the VanVollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society, where she teaches in various courses such as Law, Gender, Race & Intersectionality, Law & Culture, Law and Society in Japan, and Law & Governance in Asia. She taught previously at Science Po (Paris), Sophia University (Tokyo), and University of Indonesia (Jakarta).  

After she completed her LL.M. at Nagoya University and her Ph.D. at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) and the Van Vollenhoven Institute (2020), she was a post-doctoral fellow at Kobe University (2020-2023), conducting a research project funded by Japan Society of the Promotion of Science (JSPS). For her PhD research project, she studied child marriage practice in Indonesia and critically examined the concept of agency in international human rights. She continued to explore the concept of agency in law in her post-doctoral projects, by examining the background and practice of ‘age of consent’ laws and sexual violence law in three countries: Japan, Indonesia, and the Netherlands. She collaborates internationally by co-authoring articles with colleagues from Leiden University, Science Po, University of Indonesia, Carlos III University Madrid, and McGill University, and by organizing workshops and conferences with her research partners.

She has published articles in journals in various disciplines, including socio-legal journals, law journals, the study of legal pluralism, international human rights, childhood studies, and development studies. She sits on the board of the Asian Journal of Law and Society (Cambridge University Press) and the Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia (BKI). She is also an active member of the Childhood, Law & Policy Network (CLPN), and leads Intimate Legal Interactions (ILI) - an interdisciplinary and international group of scholars who share an interest in laws governing intimate relationships.

She has received grants from various institutions such as the Toyota Foundation, Asian Modernities and Traditions (Leiden University), and Canadian Embassy in Jakarta, as well as awards such as Van Wersch Springplank Prize and Meijers Prizes for her academic work. Next to her academic works, she worked on several development projects in Jakarta (Indonesia), Cebu (the Philippines) and Yangon (Myanmar). She also invests in dissemination of academic knowledge by initiating discussions outside academia, cooperating with journalists, CSOs, and non-academic audiences. 

She uses facilitation philosophies and methods to maximize the outcome of conversations, meetings, events, and teaching. The idea of facilitation is to make it easy for groups to think, plan, and make decisions together, and to ensure that every person has an opportunity to hear others and express their ideas. She is completing a series of training programs to become a professional facilitator, to build more inclusive, authentic, and healthier academic communities.  

Hoko Horii's personal website: https://hokohorii.com/ 

Publications