Peter Verpoorten

Background

About Peter Verpoorten

Peter is a doctoral candidate in the Doctoral School of Political Science, in the political theory track. After studying Law, he started working as a criminal defense attorney in 2004, specializing in mental illness and human rights cases. Peter has extensive trial experience before the Belgian Courts of Assizes, the Belgian Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights. He published a handbook on mental illness and criminal law in 2022. As a working student, Peter obtained a Candidate degree in Political Science in 2005, and a Master degree in Comparative and International Politics (cum laude) in 2023 at KU Leuven. His master's dissertation was titled 'The party ban as a restriction on the actions of a political party as an actor in a democracy'. Peter then moved to CEU to work on his PhD on the topic of Militant Democracy. His research interests include democratic backsliding; authoritarian politics; international relations; humanitarian intervention and just war; resistance, terrorism and civil war. He is a partner at Verhaegen, Verpoorten & Segers Lawyers in Belgium, where he lives with his family.