Biography

Christopher Roberts holds a BA from Brown University, an MA from SOAS, and a JD and JSD from NYU School of Law. Christopher has worked as an expert legal consultant with numerous organizations addressing human rights, supranational litigation, and constitutional and legislative reform throughout the Middle East, Africa and South Asia.
Christopher’s doctoral project, ‘Alternative Rights Visions: The History of the Regional Rights Systems and the Emergence of a Systemic Approach to Human Rights’, explored the comparative historical development of the European, Inter-American and African regional human rights systems, and the different visions of human rights that emerged from their respective experiences. His previous work has also explored the open boundaries of the notion of crimes against humanity, and the complexities of the interrelationship between sanctions and human rights law.
At the EUI, Christopher will be working on his new project, focused on the historical development of repressive public order laws in Britain and the British Empire, between the late 19^th century and the period of decolonization (roughly 1873-1968). While at EUI, he will be exploring the period from 1873-1914, in which new challenges to more conservative orderings emerged both in Britain and in the Empire, leading in turn to the development of new repressive ideologies, aimed at delegitimizing and repressing mass popular mobilizations.
Christopher has experience leading undergraduate, graduate and professional courses in international human rights law and in political, critical and democratic theory.