Law, with its ability to change one’s moral obligations and authorize coercion, has the capacity not only for eradicating, but also for producing evil. In my project, I ask: what is the relationship between evil and law?

My dissertation will cover the following questions:

• What is evil, evil law, and evil legal system?

• Is evil law law in the first place?

• Does law hinder or help evil regimes?

• What duties do we have in relation to evil law?

• Can evil law be resisted from the ‘inside’, or only from the ‘outside’?

I am looking at these issues from a legal-historical as well as legal-theoretical perspective, focusing on law of Nazi Germany, Soviet Union under Stalin, and slavery in the antebellum United States.