Randall Lesaffer - Biography Curriculum Vitae#

Randall Lesaffer studied law as well as history at the universities of Ghent and Leuven. From KU Leuven, he obtained a PhD in Law (1998). He is a professor of legal history at KU Leuven and a part-time professor of legal history at Tilburg University. He serves as dean of law and criminology at the KU Leuven campus KULAK in Kortrijk. He coordinates the 600th anniversary of the Faculty of Law at KU Leuven (1425 - 2025).

Lesaffer's scholarship focuses on the history of international law since 1500, a field in which he has extensively published. He is also the author of a widely-used textbook on European legal history (Cambridge UP) and has just finished a history of the Western constitutional tradition (Owl Press). He is currently writing a political history of international law at the end of the Cold War (for Cambridge UP). He is editor-in-chief of the book series Studies in the History of International Law(Brill/Nijhoff), an editor of the Journal of the History of International Law (Brill/Nijhoff) and of the Global Law book series (Cambridge UP). He is the general editor of The Cambridge History of International Law, which will appear in 13 volumes from 2024 onwards. In recent years, he was editor of Oxford Historical Treaties (2014 - 2023) and president of the Grotiana Foundation (2015 - 2023).

From 2008 to 2012, Lesaffer served as dean of Tilburg Law School. During his term, he put globalization and the innovation of legal education, with an eye to more interdisciplinary and societal reflections on law, at the heart of the school's strategy. This materialized, among others, in two new international master programs, the highly successful LLB program in Global Law, the Global Law book series and the foundation of the Law Schools Global League, of which he was co-president (2012-2013).

Lesaffer lives in Zedelgem, near Bruges, and has been actively involved in local politics and socio-economic networks for over 30 years.