Carsten Stahn is currently Professor of International Criminal Law and Global Justice at Leiden University at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies (The Hague) and concurrently Professor of Public International Law and International Criminal Justice at the School. He has previously worked as Legal Officer in Chambers of the International Criminal Court (2003-2007) and as Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (2000-2003). He received his PhD degree (summa cum laude) from Humboldt University Berlin after completing his First and Second State Exam in Law in Germany. He holds LL.M. degrees from New York University and Cologne/Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) and obtained a habilitation from Humboldt University in Constitutional Law, International Law and International Criminal Law. 

His research interests can be divided into three main strands. One strand of work concerns global legal concepts and their function in the international legal order. A second strand relates to international practices, including the role and practices of international courts and tribunals and the broader role of law in relation to atrocity crime, transnational crimes and structural forms of injustice.  A third strand of his work relates to cultural heritage and protection of cultural property, including restitution of 'looted' art.

He has published 20 books and over 100 articles/essays in different fields of international law and international justice. His PhD on International Territorial Administration won the Ciardi Price of the International Society for Military Law and the Law of War (2009). He has conducted two large NWO funded research projects on Jus Post Bellum and Post-Conflict Justice and Local Ownership.  His most recent books include Confronting Colonial Objects (OUP, 2023) and the International Criminal Court in its Third Decade (Brill 2024). He is General Editor and former Editor-in-Chief of the Leiden Journal of International Law.