Barbora Holá

Barbora Holá is a Professor of Empirical Legal Studies of International Criminal Justice at VU University Amsterdam and a Senior Researcher at the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR). She is also a Fellow at Griffith University’s Futures Law Centre and a Member of De Jonge Akademie of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). Her academic roles reflect a strong interdisciplinary engagement with law, criminology, and transitional justice.

Her educational background includes a PhD from VU University (2012) on the consistency of international sentencing, an LL.M. in International and European Law from the University of Amsterdam, and a Juris Doctor (summa cum laude) from Charles University, Prague. She was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Law and Society, UC Berkeley.

Her research centers on international criminal justice, transitional justice, and empirical legal studies, with specific interests in war crimes, sentencing, offender rehabilitation, and the societal impact of international tribunals. She employs empirical methodologies to analyze judicial practices, witness credibility, and the long-term legacies of mass atrocities.

Her recent publications reflect a strong trend toward interdisciplinary and data-driven analysis of international criminal justice, with a focus on institutions like the ICTY, ICC, and domestic transitional mechanisms in Colombia and Rwanda. Themes include remorse, rehabilitation, insider witnesses, and alternative sanctions in post-conflict settings.

• Member, De Jonge Akademie KNAW (2018–present)
• Fellow, Futures Law Centre, Griffith University (2018–present)
• NWO-Veni grant recipient
• NWO-Vidi grant recipient

Barbora Holá has supervised numerous research projects and collaborates widely across institutions. She has been involved in major empirical studies on international sentencing, perpetrator characteristics, and the intergenerational transmission of trauma. She is actively engaged in public discourse through academic publications, policy briefs, and public lectures.

She is affiliated with the Centre for International Criminal Justice (as Co-director) and contributes to research themes on Empirical Legal Studies, Sanctions, and Intergenerational Transmission at NSCR. Her work often involves cross-national comparative analysis and collaboration with scholars in Europe, Australia, and Latin America.