Dr. Johannes Bijlsma

Biography

Johannes Bijlsma is an Associate Professor at Utrecht University specializing in criminal law and legal philosophy. His research primarily focuses on issues surrounding mentally disordered defendants and the concept of preventive justice, which seeks to curtail the risk of reoffending. His PhD thesis highlighted the shortcomings of Dutch criminal law in assessing criminal responsibility among these defendants and proposed a new legal framework for adjudicating cases of legal insanity. Recently, his work has concentrated on the legal-philosophical underpinnings of preventive justice and the development of legal standards related to human rights and forensic psychiatry. He regularly collaborates with experts from various fields, including machine learning and neuroscience. Johannes graduated from the University of Groningen, where he specialized in criminal law and legal philosophy, and has previously worked as an attorney and at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam as an assistant professor. He has also held a visiting scholar position at Columbia University and has been involved in significant research projects addressing the intersection of law and neurotechnology. In 2016, he received his PhD with honors, and subsequently, he has been a program leader at the Willem Pompe Institute in Utrecht. He is notably active in the academic community and regularly contributes to discussions and research in substantive criminal law, reflecting a commitment to bridging comparative research insights with empirical disciplines.

Research Interests

Experience

Awards