Amazon of rights

The project investigates how ecocentric normativity interacts with social realities in an important ecosystem of planetary relevance, namely the Amazon river system, using comparative law and visual ethnographic practice, especially documentary film, as a method of socio-legal research. The project is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation from 2023-2025 and implemented with partners in Potsdam, Melbourne, Kent, and the Amazon region.

Varieties of Constitutionalism

This German-Brazilian project investigates contestations of, and alternatives to, liberalism in comparative constitutional law, with a focus on Germany, Brazil and their regional contexts. It is funded by the German Research Funding Agency DFG and its Brazilian equivalent CAPES from 2020-2024.

Global Justice Clinic

The  Global Justice Clinic Erfurt combines legal teaching and activism. In this interactive format, students work on real-life cases with cooperation partners from practice and acquire legal skills through research-based learning. From 2024-2026, the clinic is supported by the Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre with a grant of 400.000€.

Völkerrechtsblog and WCL/VRÜ

Michael Riegner is co-publisher of the DFG-supported international law blog Völkerrechtsblog, which he co-founded in 2014 and is supporting with his team in Erfurt. Find out more here. 

WCL/VRÜ has been the only law journal based in Germany dedicated exclusively to legal developments in the Global South since 1968. The journal is co-edited by Michael Riegner and his team in Erfurt.  Find out more here. 

Economics, Law and Social Sciences Forum

The Staatswissenschaftliches Forum e.V. (SWF) is dedicated to the exchange between academia, business, legal practice, the state and society. Michael Riegner is chairman of the SWF. Further information can be found on the Forum's website.

Postcolonial hierarchies in Peace and Conflict

This BMBF-funded network investigates how historically formed postcolonial hierarchies manifest themselves in contemporary conflict dynamics and what implications this has for sustainable conflict transformation in the future. To do so, the Network brings together historical perspectives on the contexts of conflict formation (in particular those shaped by colonialism) with postcolonial research perspectives as well as with methodologies and theories of peace and conflict research.

Security Capitalism Research Group

The research group investigates the increasing overlapping of security and economy and therefore combines research on security policy (Prof. Hoffmann), political economy (Prof. Kessler), law (Prof. Riegner) and public policy (Prof. Goldthau) with the interdisciplinary bridging concept of geoeconomics. More information here. 

Nachwuchskollegs

Michael Riegner is a professorial member of the junior research groups Center for Political Practices and Orders and Effective and Innovative Policymaking in Contested Contexts, which promote structured doctoral training and interdisciplinary legal research.