Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies

Raphael Oidtmann currently serves as a parliamentary and legal advisor to the State Parliament of Hesse and holds further appointments as adjunct lecturer at Mannheim Law School, as associate researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, and as associate postgraduate (‘doctorant associé’) at the Centre Marc Bloch Berlin. Previously, he was the scientific advisor to the executive director at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) and held positions as a research fellow and lecturer at the universities of Mannheim and Mainz.

Raphael holds master’s degrees in political science (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz), international and comparative law (University of Mannheim & University of Adelaide) and international relations (University of Cambridge). He is an alumnus of the Hague Academy of International Law and currently an external PhD candidate at the Institute of Political Science at Goethe University Frankfurt (supervised by Professor Nicole Deitelhoff).

Raphael’s principal teaching and research interests pertain to (general) international law, international criminal law, the history of international law, human rights and the law of armed conflict as well as international relations theory and history, geopolitics, international security studies and European Union integration. Recently, his research has focussed on (1) the actorness qualities of international institutions, in particular international (criminal) courts and tribunals, (2) the notion of global health in the context of international law as well as (3) questions of implementing and maintaining (international criminal) jurisdiction in areas of limited statehood (such as the High Seas, the Arctic, or Antarctica).

Raphael is a rostered expert for judicial systems, politics, and geopolitcs with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and was recently admitted as an assistant to counsel before the court. In a non-profit capacity, he also holds the role as a district dissemination officer with the German Red Cross.