mr. Gerben Geessink

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Gerben Geessink is a PhD candidate at the department of legal theory and legal history of the faculty of law. In 2021, he graduated in Legal Theory & Socio-Legal Studies (LLM). Besides, he holds a degree in Criminology (Bsc). After graduating, he started working as a lecturer at the VU, and as of January 2023, he started with a PhD project on the place and functioning of the compensation order in Dutch criminal law.

As a teacher, Gerben is or has been involved in several courses offered by the department of legal theory, such as: Encyclopedie criminologie (Philosophy of criminal law), Juridische Vaardigheden B (Legal Skills B), and Recht, ethiek en biotechnologie (Law, ethics and biotechnology). Besides, he has supervised several bachelor theses.

Gerben’s PhD research is focused on the nature, meaning, and function of the compensation order (schadevergoedingsmaatregel) within Dutch criminal procedure. He does so by following a twofold approach consisting of: a) a legal-theoretical analysis of the concepts of both punishment and compensation, since these are the two figures to which the compensation order seems to be somehow related; and b) a legal comparative analysis of the nature, meaning, and function of the compensation order in England, and the restorative sanction (sanction-réparation) in France, which understand compensation in criminal procedure in significantly different ways.

His PhD research is part of the project ‘Compensation as punishment. A multidisciplinary inquiry into how the compensation order transforms traditional ideas of punishment, redress and criminal procedure', funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).