Dr Sarina Landefeld

I am an international legal scholar with a particular interest in the laws of war and armed conflict. My research explores interdisciplinary perspectives drawing on International Relations and history. My doctoral research on the changing conceptualisation of individuals in international humanitarian law was funded by the AHRC/Midlands3Cities Doctoral Training Partnership, and won the DJ Harris Prize for the best PhD thesis at the University of Nottingham School of Law in 2021.

I am also the Assistant Reviews Editor at the Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies.

I joined the University of Leicester in September 2023 after having worked as a lecturer at Leicester De Montfort Law School.

My research interests lie at the interstices between international law, International Relations and history. My work explores the history of international humanitarian law, focusing in particular on conceptual developments, law-making processes, and the protection and regulation of individuals in armed conflicts. 

My PhD thesis and forthcoming monograph provides a critical analysis of the changing conceptualisation of individuals under international humanitarian law since the second half of the nineteenth century.

• Sarina Landefeld, Individuals in International Humanitarian Law: A Historical Analysis (Hart Publishing 2025)
• Sarina Landefeld, ‘The Changing Significance of Nationality for the Protection of Civilians in the Hands of a Party to an International Armed Conflict’ (2023) 28(3) Journal of Conflict and Security Law 501
• Neville Wylie and Sarina Landefeld, ‘Prisoners of War, Civilians and the Post-World War I Development of International Humanitarian Law’ in Rotem Kowner and Iris Rachamimov (eds), Out of Line, Out of Place: A Global and Local History of World War I Internments (Cornell University Press, 2022)
• Sarina Landefeld, ‘The Evolution of Norms and Concepts in International Law: A Social Constructivist Approach’ in Rossana Deplano (ed), Pluralising International Legal Scholarship: The Promise and Perils of Non-Doctrinal Research Methods (Edward Elgar 2019) 
• Andreas Zimmermann and Sarina Landefeld, ‘Europäische Menschenrechtskonvention und Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht der Konventionsstaaten’, 2014(3) Zeitschrift für Ausländerrecht und Ausländerpolitik 97 

I am interested in supervising projects in the following areas:

• international humanitarian law/law of armed conflicts
• protection of civilians
• public international law
• international law and history
• international law and International Relations

Undergraduate

LW1120 Constitutional & Administrative Law

Postgraduate

LW7168 Law of the United Nations

LW7261 International Law and the Use of Force

PhD in Law (University of Nottingham)

LLM in Public International Law (University of Nottingham) 

MA in International Relations – Legal Studies (University of Aberdeen)

FHEA