Mirjana Gavrilović Nilsson, BA (Hons)., MSc. (BA (Hons) Criminology, MSc. Investigative Psychology)

Thesis title: From State Ideology to Individual Criminal Action: Testimony and Evidence from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

PhD Law

Year of study: 3

University of Edinburgh
University of Glasgow

Email: m.b.gavrilovic-nilsson@sms.ed.ac.uk
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PhD supervisors:

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City: Edinburgh
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Biography

Background

Mirjana is PhD Candidate and atrocity criminologist currently doing a PhD in Law in the Edinburgh Law School at University of Edinburgh.

Mirjana completed a BA with honours in Criminology at the University of Manchester in 2017 followed by a MSc with distinction in Investigative Psychology at the University of Huddersfield in 2018. After her Master's, she worked as a tutor in Criminology at the University of Manchester receiving recognition for outstanding tutor of the year in 2019. She also volunteered with Circles UK in Manchester, an organisation with the aim to prevent further sexual abuse, working with the objective of no more victims, by helping men and women who have sexually offended to reintegrate responsibly into the community after imprisonment.

In August 2019 Mirjana moved to the Hague, the Netherlands to start a 5-month internship in the Investigative Analysis Division, Prosecution Division at the International Criminal Court.

In January 2020, she started her PhD at the University of Edinburgh as an atrocity criminologist. Between November 2022 until March 2024, Mirjana volunteered with His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland as an Independent Prison Monitor Independent to provide an independent viewpoint on the humane treatment and conditions for prisoners in all prisons across Scotland by conducting investigations either as a result of a prisoner raising an issue or from observations that are made during prison visits. She is also employed as a tutor in Edinburgh Law School tutoring on courses such as Introduction to Criminology and Atrocities of Criminology (Honour's Course).

Mirjana has completed courses in Profiling and Psychology of Terrorists at King's College, Summer University Srebrenica, Conflict Analysis at Utrecht University and International Criminal Court Summer School at the University of Galway. She has since then presented at conferences such as the International Association of Genocide Scholars, European Society of Criminology, and Peace, Culture and Conflict Network Conference (see Conferences tab). She is currently a member of the European Criminology Group on Atrocity Crimes and Transitional Justice within the European Society of Criminology and a member of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.

CV

mj_cv_2023.pdf

Qualifications

BA (Hons) Criminology

MSc (Dist) Investigative Psychology

Responsibilities & affiliations

Convenor for University of Edinburgh Criminology Reading Group 2020-2022

Convenor for Edinburgh Postgraduate Law Conference 2021

Independent Prison Monitor at the HM Inspectorate for Prisons in Scotland 2022-2024

Teaching & PhD supervision

Undergraduate teaching

Tutor - Introduction to Criminal Justice

Tutor - Introduction to Criminology

Tutor - Criminologies of Atrocities (Honour's Course)

Tutor - Introduction to Global Crime and Justice

Research

Research summary

This PhD research project asks how atrocity crime takes place by examining and providing an integrated multi-level analysis of the role of individual perpetrators and the organisational frameworks, namely local governments, that structure their activity. The focus of this project lies on the SDS Municipal Assembly and Crisis Staff that took over power by force in Bosanski Šamac at the start of 1992. A crime script and thematic analysis are used to build a multi-level model of atrocity crime perpetration and see how they were organised for atrocity crimes to occur throughout the municipality of Bosanski Šamac in 1992-1993.

This interdisciplinary research brings together Criminology, Sociology, History and Oral History to deliver methodological and substantive advances in understanding atrocity crimes by looking at the atrocities that occurred in Bosanski Šamac in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the 1990s and by using the archives of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and any related external material as data.

Current research interests

Atrocity crimes, war crimes, conflict analysis, genocide studies, international criminal justice, transitional justice, mass violence, international criminal courts and tribunals, oral history, archives, international criminal law, peace and culture, perpetrators, investigative profiling, criminal investigation, post-conflict reconciliation

Past research interests

serial killers,terrorists, psychopaths, sextortion, drug cryptomarkets

Conferences

Conference details

European Society of Criminology Conference 2018

European Society of Criminology Conference 2020

European Society of Criminology Conference 2021

Why Remember? Peace, Culture and Conflict Network 2022

International Association of Genocide Scholars Biannual Conference 2023

European Society of Criminology Conference 2023

Organiser

University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Law Conference 2021

Criminology Reading Group 2020-2022

Papers delivered

European Society of Criminology Conference 2021 - From Organisation to Individual Criminal Action: A Multi-level Framework for Atrocity Crimes in the Municipality of Bosanski Šamac

Why Remember? Peace, Culture and Conflict Network 2022 - A Criminological Examination of the Lives of Human Remains in the Aftermaths of Mass Violence

International Association of Genocide Scholars Conference 2023