Skip to main content
Overview

Professor Michael Bohlander

Chair in Global Law and SETI Policy


Affiliations
Affiliation
Chair in Global Law and SETI Policy in the Durham Law School

Biography

Professor Bohlander has broad experience as a practitioner in several domestic and international jurisdictions, as well as an academic. 

He has been the International Co-Investigating Judge in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia since 2015, of which nearly four years full-time in Phnom Penh. From 2017 until 2022, he was also an international judge of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, where he sat on the first case to be brought before the court's Supreme Court Chamber. 

He joined Durham University in 2004 as a full professor, having previously been a life-tenured member of the German judiciary since 1991, hearing civil and criminal cases at trial and appellate level. 

Since 1991, he has also published widely on German law, English and Welsh criminal law, comparative and international criminal law, and Islamic law. 

As of 2020, his main research focus has been on the consequences of a potential contact with extraterrestrial intelligence for human law and society in the wider sense.

 

Links to Professor Bohlander's SETI and UAP research and public engagement

 

From Description to Meaning – Epistemological problems of scientific UAP research and ethics of contact

“Don’t look up?“ – Why it is past time for serious holistic research into Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena

Professor Bohlander on the Fermi Paradox and UAP - Guardian 15 Oct 2025

Interview in SCU Review 6.4. (2025)

Politikberatung zu SETI und UAP in Großbritannien am Beispiel des House of Lords Select Committee on UK Engagement with Space

Interview mit Prof. Dr. Michael Bohlander

Submission of Written Evidence on SETI and UAP to House of Lords Select Committee on UK Engagement with Space

Translations of the Declaration on SETI and UAP Research of 24 April 2025

Recordings and materials on the Symposium “Grounding the SETI and UAP Debate” of 24 April 2025

Warten auf Godot - Sinn und Unsinn der gegenwärtigen Debatte zur UAP Disclosure

Letter to The Guardian - 14 Feb 2025

Contact with extraterrestrial intelligence and human law

Alien encounter narratives in a forensic environment

Rechtliche Aspekte des Kontakts mit ausserirdischer Intelligenz

Es ist an der Zeit, dass die Menschheit ein planetares Speziesbewusstsein entwickelt

"Joining the galactic club": what price admission?

Metalaw - What is it good for?

Interview: "Les OVNIs entrent à la Fac" (NEXUS May-June 2025)

Radio interview on Canadian Global News Radio 980 CKNW on US congressional UAP hearings

How would humans react to contact with extraterrestrials? - The Debrief

Academics at Durham law school and St Andrews university launch global online survey

Limina Special Volume

Human life after contact with extraterrestrial civilisations - Call for contributions

"Joining the Galactic Club" finalist in 2023 Canopus Awards

WTUFO Podcast with Caleb Mayo 12 April 2025

"Take me to your lawyer" - The Micah Hanks Programme | Podcast

International Symposium on Professor Bohlander's book "Contact with Extraterrestrial Intelligence and Human Law"

International Law and Life in Space: Developments

Alien Conversations

SETI and the Consequences

Space, Law and Alien Life - Symposium

Research interests

  • Contact with extraterrestrial intelligence and its impact on human law
  • Legal aspects of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)
  • International and comparative criminal law

Publications

Authored book

Book review

Chapter in book

Conference Paper

Edited book

Journal Article

Manual

Newspaper/Magazine Article

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

Other (Print)

Scholarly Edition