Prof. Dr. Frederik von Harbou

Frederik von Harbou is Professor of Law at the Department of Social Work at the University of Applied Sciences Jena. He is Principal Investigator in the MeDiMi project “Human Rights Transformations of German Migration Law”. Frederik von Harbou studied law at the Humboldt University of Berlin and philosophy, Hebrew and the history and culture of the Middle East at the Free University of Berlin and the University of Zurich. He completed his doctorate at the University of Zurich with the multiple award-winning legal philosophy thesis “Empathy as an Element of a Reconstructive Theory of Human Rights” (Dr. iur. 2013). During this time, he conducted research at the Minerva Center for Human Rights at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, among others. After completing his legal clerkship at the Berlin Court of Appeal and his second state law examination, he founded a law firm for immigration and asylum law in Berlin in 2015, where he worked as a lawyer for five years. At the time, he was also a Research Assistant at the Department of Law at Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany. From 2018 to 2021, he was the scientific coordinator of the research project “Human Rights Challenges for European Migration Policy” (REMAP), which resulted in several joint publications with the MeDiMi Principal Investigators Jürgen Bast and Janna Wessels.

Contact: Frederik.vonHarbou@eah-jena.de