Dr. Berihun Adugna Gebeye

Berihun Adugna Gebeye is a postdoctoral research fellow under the Alexander von Humboldt Chair of Comparative Constitutionalism (held by Prof. Dr. Ran Hirschl) at the University of Göttingen and works in the Max Planck Fellow Group in Comparative Constitutionalism. He holds an S.J.D. in Comparative Constitutional Law and an LL.M. in Human Rights (International Justice Specialization) from Central European University, an LL.M. in Human Rights Law from Addis Ababa University, and an LL.B from Haramaya University. Previously, he was a Visiting Scholar at Columbia Law School, a Visiting Researcher at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies of the University of Oxford, a Global Teaching Fellow at the Department of Law, University of Yangon, Myanmar and a Lecturer in Laws at Jigjiga University Law School, Ethiopia.

Berihun uses interdisciplinary approaches and materials to study comparative constitutional law and politics, human rights, rule of law, law and development, international law, and democratization in Africa. In his doctoral dissertation, he uses what he calls “legal syncretism” as a theoretical framework to understand and explain the nature of the post-colonial African state, its organization, structure, and notion of rights by taking Ethiopia, Nigeria, and South Africa as comparative case studies. In addition to a book project developing from his doctoral dissertation, his current research focuses on how liberal constitutionalism influences and is influenced by cultural diversity and the politics of citizenship and human rights in ethnically and religiously diverse states in sub-Saharan Africa.