Markus Böckenförde

Markus Böckenförde is associate professor of Comparative Constitutional Law at CEU’s Department of Legal Studies and the Chair of the Global Comparative Constitutional Studies Program. Before joining CEU, he was the Founding Executive Director of the Centre for Global Cooperation Research at the University Duisburg-Essen (2012-2018). As head of the advisory team to the Policy Planning Staff at the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (Bonn-Berlin) he gained some first-hand practical experience in political decision making processes (2011-2012). From 2009-2011, he was Program Officer and temporarily Acting Program Manager for the Constitution Building Project at International IDEA, Stockholm, Sweden. Between 2001-2008 Markus Bockenforde was the Head of Africa Projects and a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (MPIL) in Heidelberg. In 2006-2007, he was seconded by the German Foreign Office to the Assessment and Evaluation Commission (AEC) in Sudan as its legal expert. The AEC has been mandated to support and supervise the implementation of the Sudanese Comprehensive Peace Agreement. From 1995-1997 he was research assistant to Justice Professor Steinberger, the German delegate to the Venice Commission (Council of Europe's advisory body on constitutional matters).

Markus Böckenförde holds a law degree and a PhD (summa cum laude, awarded with the Otto Hahn medal of the Max Planck Society) from the University of Heidelberg and a Master of Laws degree (distinction, valedictorian) from the University of Minnesota as well as the equivalent of a Bachelor degree in political science (University of Freiburg). During the Constitution Building processes of Sudan, Somalia, Tunisia, and Libya, he has worked together with the pertinent constitutional assemblies and has been otherwise involved in the processes in Afghanistan, Nepal,Yemen, and Myanmar. He is the co-author of International IDEA’s Practical Guide to Constitution Building (also translated into Arabic, Myanmarin, and Vietnamese) and several Max Planck Manuals on Constitution Building . He has worked as a consultant on constitutional issues for the UN, UNDP, GTZ, DAAD, International IDEA, the German Foreign Office, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. His academic interests lie in constitutional law in Africa and socio-legal approaches to constitutional law. Markus Böckenförde is the Co-Director of the Summer University Course 'Constitution Building in Africa' at CEU.