Professor Lesaffer's research focuses on the historical and recent development of the international legal order.

1991-1998 assistant at the Department of Roman Law and Legal History at the Law School of the Catholic University of Leuven

1991-1995 attorney at law at the Bruges bar

1998- present parttime lecturer, reader (2001) and professor (2004) at the Law School of the University of Leuven

1998-1999 postdoctoral research fellow of the Foundation for Scientific Research of the Flemish Government

1999-present professor of legal history at Tilburg University

2008-2012 dean of the Tilburg Law School

Legal history, in particular the history of international law. Diplomatic as well as colonial history.

Click here for my courses.

 PhD Supervision

Ruud van den Berg, Vormen van begrip van wet en wetgeving. Westbegrippen in de staatsrechtsgeleerdheid in Duitsland en Nederland in de negentiende en twintigste eeuw (2003, with prof. mr. Paul Nève).

Raymond Kubben, Regeneration and Hegemony. Franco-Batavian Relations in the Revolutionary Era; A Legal Approach, 1795-1803 (cum laude, 2009, with prof. mr. Trix Jacobs).

Tessa Leesen, Gaius Meets Cicero. Law and Rhetoric in the Schools Controversies (2009, with dr. Olga Tellegen).

Klaas Dijkhoff, War, Law and Technology (2010, with prof. mr. Willem van Genugten).

Jan Hendrik Valgaeren, The Jurisdiction of the Pontiff in the Roman Republic: a Third Dimension (2012, with dr. Olga Tellegen).

Mieke van der Linden, The Acquisition of Africa (1870-1914): The Nature of Nineteenth-Century International Law (2014, with prof. mr. Willem van Genugten).

Alphonse Muleefu, Reparation for Victims of Collateral Damage: A Normative and Theoretical Inquiry (2014, with prof. mr. Rianne Letschert and dr. Felix Ndahinda).

Shavana Musa, Victim Reparation under the Ius Post Bellum: A Historical and Normative Perspective (2016, with prof. mr. Rianne Letschert and dr. Jan Lemnitzer, Oxford).

Roel Zijlmans, Troebele betrekkingen. Grens-, scheepvaart- en waterstaatskwesties in de Nederlanden voor 1800 (2016, with prof. dr. Beatrix van Erp-Jacobs).

Inge Van Hulle, Britain, West Africa and the Formation of Imperial International Law (1807-1885) (Leuven, 2016).

Stan Meuwese, Twee eeuwen dienstplicht, discipline, dienstweigering en desertie (2017, met prof. mr. Theo de Roos en prof. mr. Ben Vermeulen, Radboud).