David Roef (D.)
Professor Criminal Law and Neuroscience
Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, Faculty of Law
Expertises
- Substantive Criminal Law
- Corporate criminal liability
- Comparative Criminal Law
- Neurolaw
Career history
David Roef is professor in criminal law and neuroscience at the department of criminal law and criminology. He studied law at the Free University of Brussels. He defended his dissertation ‘Strafbare Overheden. Een rechtsvergelijkende studie naar de strafrechtelijke aansprakelijkheid van overheden voor milieuverstoring (A comparative study on the criminal liability of public legal entities for environmental pollution) cum laude in 2001 (Intersentia, ISBN90-5095-183-X) It was awarded the J.C. Ruigrok-award in 2004 and the Modderman-prize for best dissertation in the field of criminal law in 2005. Roef also worked as a researcher for the Dutch parlementary commission on construction fraud (2002). He has been frequently involved in (comparative) legal research related to environmental criminal law, corruption and criminal liability of legal entities. He currently lectures in subjects including comparative criminal law, legal philosophy, neurolaw and criminal policy.
Most recently he published with co-author and co-editor Dr. Johannes Keiler the handbook Comparative Concepts of Criminal Law (Intersentia, 4rd revised edition, 2025, ISBN 978-1-78068-685-1)).
As a Phd supervisor Roef concluded the following projects (together with Prof. Klip): J. Claessen, ‘Misdaad en straf. Een herbezinning op het strafrecht vanuit mystiek perspectief’ (Wolf Legal Publishers, 2010); J. Keiler, ‘Actus Reus and participation in European Criminal Law’ (Intersentia 2013); S. Freeland, ‘Addressing the Intentional Destruction of the Environment During; Warfare Under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court’ (Intersentia, 2015); C. Peristeridou, ‘The principle of legality in European criminal law’ (Intersentia, 2015); A. Goldberg, 'Blaming the addicted brain. Building bridges between the criminal law and neuroscientific perspectives on addiction' (Eleven, 2022)
Currently he is supervising the Phd project of Ruben Knehans on legal and ethical aspects of direct brain intervention in cases of violent crime.
Roef is the course coordinator of the following English courses: law and neurosciences, and of the Dutch course materieel strafrecht en criminele politiek.
In 2018 he was nominated for the UM Wijnand Wijnen Teacher Award and also for the national ISO Award for best teacher of the year.
Roef is also the co-founder of the interfacultary minor human and legal decision making