Max Lesch is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs at Leiden University, working at the intersection of international politics, security, and law.

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Max Lesch is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs at Leiden University, working at the intersection of international politics, security, and law.  

His research explores the politics and practice of international law, focusing on the tension between security and human rights and the transformation of the global peace and security order. Max is particularly interested in different forms of enforcement, the interplay between formal and informal lawmaking, and the effects of contestation in world politics.  

His current book project, Breaking and Making International Law, traces how the responses of legal institutions to norm violations have driven the development of international law. It shows how the practice of expert committees, quasi-judicial bodies, and courts have shaped the prohibition of torture from the colonial wars to the war on terror by influencing both formal and informal lawmaking processes. 

Prior to joining Leiden University, Max was a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute and held positions at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, and Zeppelin University. He holds a PhD in Political Science (International Relations) from Goethe University Frankfurt. 

His work has appeared in International Studies Quarterly, International Studies Review, Global Studies Quarterly, International Relations, Global Constitutionalism, and the Heidelberg Journal of International Law, among others. Max is a co-author of the monograph International Norm Disputes: The Link between Contestation and Norm Robustness (Oxford University Press, 2023) and a section editor and author for the Oxford Handbook on Norms Research in International Relations (Oxford University Press, 2025).