Jens David Ohlin

Jens Ohlin became the Allan R. Tessler Dean on July 1, 2021. He previously served as Interim Dean, Vice Dean, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, and Director of Faculty Research.

A prolific researcher, his scholarly work stands at the intersection of four related fields: criminal law, criminal procedure, public international law, and the laws of war. Trained as both a lawyer and a philosopher, his research has tackled conspiracy and other doctrines penalizing collective criminal action, the philosophy of international law, theories of rationality, and chivalry in warfare. More recently, he has focused on new battlefield technology, including cyber-attacks, drones, autonomous weapons, and modes of statecraft below the threshold of armed conflict, including disinformation and election interference.

Dean Ohlin’s current book project, The Sovereign Other, is a work of political and legal philosophy that explores the relationship between the domestic and international social contracts. It reverses the traditional assumption that the social contract between societies should be understood by analogy to individuals within a society.

In addition to his theoretical work, Dean Ohlin is the author of three casebooks in three different fields: international law, criminal law, and criminal procedure, and the author of the 16th edition of Wharton’s Criminal Law, a four-volume treatise frequently cited by judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys. He is a steering-board member of an international working group researching secondary liability for international crimes and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.