Bart Stapert

Bart Stapert (1964) earned law degrees from Groningen University in the Netherlands and Loyola University School of Law in New Orleans, Louisiana. From 1989 to 2001 he worked as an investigator and later as defense attorney in capital cases in the United States. He was admitted to the bar in Louisiana in 1997 and founded the St. Thomas Community Law Center. For his work for human rights in the US he was awarded an honorary doctorate of law from Utrecht University in 2001. He was admitted to the bar in the Netherlands in 2007 and is also still an active member of the Louisiana bar. Stapert publishes and teaches on the subjects of human rights and US law and is finishing a Ph.D.-dissertation on the right to counsel. He is the chairperson of the Dutch section of Amnesty International and a foundation for financial assistance to anti-death penalty lawyers en serves as an advisor to the Dutch branch of Reprieve. He is specialised in extradition cases and is a member of the criminal law department of Böhler Franken Koppe Wijngaarden.