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Nikola R. Hajdin

Nikola R. Hajdin

Associate Professor

Phone
(619) 525-1494
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Biography

Dr. Nikola R. Hajdin joined California Western School of Law in 2026 as an Associate Professor of Law. His scholarship lies at the intersection of criminal law, philosophy, constitutional law, and international criminal law, with a focus on how law assigns responsibility for harmful conduct in contexts involving speech, collective action, and political violence.

Before joining California Western, Professor Hajdin was a Fellow at Stanford Law School and taught at Georgetown University Law Center and Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. Prior to coming to the United States, he was a Fellow at the Faculty of Law and Christ Church, University of Oxford, where he taught international law, and at the Faculty of Law, Stockholm University.

Professor Hajdin holds a Ph.D. in international law from Stockholm University. He has also received legal training at Harvard Law School and the University of Cambridge. Before entering academia, he practiced law for nearly five years in France, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Serbia. In 2016, he clerked for Judge Helena Jäderblom at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and in 2015, he worked for the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court.

Since 2014, Professor Hajdin has published academic articles in leading law journals. His work has appeared in, among others, the American Journal of International Law, the Michigan Journal of International Law, the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, and the Leiden Journal of International Law. His book, The Crime of Aggression Under International Law, is forthcoming with Hart Publishing.

Professor Hajdin’s academic path, from his early legal education across Europe to his legal training in the United States, has been made possible by more than $1 million in competitive scholarships, fellowships, and research grants.

  • Stockholm University, Sweden, Ph.D. degree in International Law, 2021
    summa cum laude, opponent: Professor Claus Kress
  • Harvard Law School, Boston, MA, 2019-2020, carried out research and took
    courses as part of the Ph.D. program
  • Cambridge University, United Kingdom, 2020, carried out research as part of the
    Ph.D. program
  • Lund University, Sweden, LL.M., 2015
  • Belgrade University, Serbia, LL.M. and LL.B., 2012
  • Criminal Law

Books

  • Criminal Responsibility for Aggression under International Law (forthcoming in Hart Publishing, Oxford 2026)
  • Individual Responsibility for the Crime of Aggression (Stockholm University Press 2021)

Journal Articles

  • Who Should We Blame for Aggressive Wars?, 101 Tul. L. Rev. _ (forthcoming 2027)
  • Freedom of Speech and Criminal Solicitation, 116 J. Crim. L. & Criminology  659 (2026)
  • Neutral Business Assistance and the Limits of Complicity in International Criminal Law, 45 Mich. J. Int’l L. 381 (2024)
  • Responsibility of Private Individuals for Complicity in a War of Aggression, 116 Am. J. Int’l L. 788 (2022) (peer-reviewed)
  • Attributing Criminal Responsibility for the Crime of Aggression, 51 Ga. J. Int’l & Comp. L. 1 (2022)
  • The Actus Reus of the Crime of Aggression, 34 Leiden J. Int’l L. 489 (2021) (peer-reviewed)
  • What is Hybrid War?—The Terminology Used to Describe of Modern Warfare and Current Authority under International Law, 13 Juridisk Publikation 226 (2021) (peer-reviewed)
  • Leadership Nature of the Crime of Aggression: The ICC’s New Concern?, 17 Int’l Crim. L. Rev. 543 (2017) (peer-reviewed)

Book Chapters

  • The Responsibility of Desk Perpetrators (Schreibtischtäter) for Aggressive War, in Schreibtischtäter in International Law (Jens Meierhenrich ed., Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2027)
  • Article 25 – Individual Criminal Responsibility (with Kirsten Bowman), in Commentary on the Law of the International Criminal Court (Mark Klamberg ed., Torkel Apsahl Academic Publisher, 2022)
  • Article 33 – Superior Orders and Prescription of Law, in Commentary on the Law of the International Criminal Court 321 (Mark Klamberg ed., Torkel Apsahl Academic Publisher, 2017)

Selected Op-Eds & Other Publications

  • How to Prosecute Ongoing Acts of Aggression Following the Initial Invasion, Lawfare, Oct. 27, 2023
  • Complicity in a War of Aggression: Private Individual’s Criminal Responsibility, Just Security, Apr. 1, 2022 (Ukrainian translation) 
  • Vem kan åtalas för aggressionsbrott? , Norstedts Juridik (Sweden), Mar. 22, 2022
  • The Leadership Clause in the Crime of Aggression and Its Customary International Law Statute, Just Security, Mar. 17, 2022 (Ukrainian translation) 
  • ”En skamlig handling” – om Rysslands militära invasion av Ukraina, Norstedts Juridik (Sweden), Mar. 8, 2022
  • Aggression and Criminal Responsibility (for Whom?), Opinio Juris, Apr. 9, 2018
  • Self-Representation before the International Criminal Court: Safeguarding the Interests of Justice and Protecting Human Rights, Raoul Wallenberg Institute Publications (2016)
  • Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo et al, Oxford Reports on International Law, (2015) (commissioned commentary for case reporter)
  • Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo et al [Disqualification of the Prosecutor], OXFORD REPORTS ON INTERNATIONAL LAW, (2015) (commissioned commentary for case reporter)
  • Understanding Aggression: Legal Status and Individual Criminal Responsibility before the 2010 Kampala Conference, Raoul Wallenberg Institute Publications (2015)
  • Prosecutor v Germain Katanga, OXFORD REPORTS ON INTERNATIONAL LAW, (2014) (commissioned commentary for case reporter)