Professor Lars Waldorf

Professor

Department: Northumbria Law School

Before joining Northumbria, Lars Waldorf taught law at Essex, Dundee, York, and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. He has worked mostly on accountability and empowerment in Rwanda and then Sri Lanka. In an earlier life, he was a poverty and civil rights lawyer in the US.

Lars has been Principal Investigator on two AHRC-funded grants -- "Performing Empowerment" and "Performing/Informing Rights" -- that helped empower people with conflict-related disabilities in Sri Lanka and Nepal through a combination of inclusive dance and rights education. He is also a member of the AHRC Peer Review College.

His current research and impact work brings together art, law, and resistance studies in the aftermath of Sri Lanka's 2022 occupy movement. As part of that, he is co-curating "Artful Struggles 2024: Contemporary Art from Sri Lanka" with Dr Nilanjana Premaratna for GemArts at the Gateshead Central Library in June and July 2024.

Email Lars

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Human rights, law and humanities, legal empowerment, peacebuilding, resistance studies, transitional justice

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Resistance to illiberal peacebuilding: towards a new research agenda, Waldorf, L., Premaratna, N., Olivius, E., Åkebo, M. 14 Aug 2025, In: Conflict, Security and Development
‘This coconut was the one that finally worked’: cursing for peace and justice in Sri Lanka, Waldorf, L., Premaratna, N. 3 Apr 2025, In: Peacebuilding
Performing/Informing Rights: Mixing Inclusive Dance and Human Rights Education for Disabled People in Sri Lanka and Nepal, Waldorf, L., Marambio, H., Blades, H. 30 Jan 2024, In: Journal of Human Rights Practice
Illiberal peace-building in Asia: a comparative overview, Smith, C., Waldorf, L., Venugopal, R., McCarthy, G. 2 Jan 2020, In: Conflict, Security and Development
Between transition and transformation: Legal empowerment as collective reparations, Waldorf, L. 8 Feb 2019, From Transitional to Transformative Justice, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
Legal Empowerment and Horizontal Inequalities after Conflict, Waldorf, L. 4 Mar 2019, In: Journal of Development Studies
Apotheosis of a warlord: Paul Kagame, Waldorf, L. 1 Jan 2017, Warlord Democrats in Africa, Uppsala, Bloomsbury
Inhumanity's law: Crimes against humanity, RtoP and South Sudan, Waldorf, L. 1 Jan 2016, In: International Politics
Local transitional justice - customary law, healing rituals, and everyday justice, Waldorf, L. 25 Nov 2016, An Introduction to Transitional Justice, London, Taylor and Francis
Introduction: Legal empowerment in transitions, Waldorf, L. 3 Apr 2015, In: International Journal of Human Rights