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About
Anna Lukina is a Fellow in Law at the LSE Law School. She has recently completed a Ph.D. in Law at the University of Cambridge, funded by the Institute of Humane Studies’s Humane Studies Fellowship, the Cambridge Law Journal’s Partial Ph.D. Studentship, and the Modern Law Review Scholarship. Her thesis was entitled ‘Towards a Jurisprudence of Evil Law’ and focused on the relationship between law and extreme moral iniquity, both generally and with regards to Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union, and slavery in the antebellum United States.
Anna has served as a Convenor of the Cambridge Legal Theory Discussion Group. Previously, she has served as an Executive Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, a Convenor of the Oxford Law Faculty Public Law Discussion Group, an Associate Editor of the Oxford Undergraduate Law Journal, an Editorial Assistant at the Review of Central and East European Law, and a Copy Editor for the Brill-Nijhoff’s Law in Eastern Europe book series.
Anna also serves as a Bye-Fellow at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge. She holds an LL.M. from the Harvard Law School (2020), a B.C.L. with Distinction from the University of Oxford (2019), and a B.A. in Law (Jurisprudence) from the University of Oxford (2018).
Research
Research Interests
Anna’s research lies primarily in legal theory. She is particularly interested in the jurisprudence of atypical legalities such as such as evil regimes, pre-legal and post-legal societies, and even supernatural settings and imagined realities. In that work, Anna also draws on moral and political philosophy, legal history, in particular Soviet law, and public law.
Publications
- ‘Beyond Political Decisionism and Legal Normativism: A Schmittian-Kelsenian Synthesis’ LSE Legal Studies Working Paper 56/2025
- ‘Angels, Demons, Us: Reconciling Raz and Aquinas on the Coordinative Function of Law’, Washington University Jurisprudence Review (forthcoming)
- ‘Justifying Constitutional Self-Defence: A Coda to Schupmann’, A Research Agenda for Comparative Constitutional Law (Mark Tushnet and Bojan Bugarič eds.), Edward Elgar (forthcoming)
- Book Review: Geneviève Cartier and Mark D. Walters (eds.), The Promise of Legality: Critical Reflection on the Work of TRS Allan, (2025) Jurisprudence
- ‘Making Sense of Evil Law’, (2025) Law and Philosophy
- Book Review: Valentin Jeutner, The Reasonable Person: A Legal Biography, (2025) 88(4) Modern Law Review 857-860
- (with Ekaterina Mishina) 'Teaching Soviet Law in the 21st Century', (2024) 51(3) The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review 322-358
- 'Legal Form in the Soviet Dictatorship: Evgeny Pashukanis and His Interlocutors' Legal Form: Pashukanis and the Marxist Critique of the Law (Cosmin Cercel, Gian Giacomo Fusco, and Przemyslaw Tacik eds.), (2024) Routledge 35-51
- (with Bill Bowring) Translation: Evgeny Pashukanis, Hegel, State and Law (On the Centenary of His Death), Legal Form: Pashukanis and the Marxist Critique of the Law (Cosmin Cercel, Gian Giacomo Fusco, and Przemyslaw Tacik eds.), (2024) Routledge 186-203
- Book Review: Lauri Mälksoo, Illegal Annexation and State Continuity: The Case of the Incorporation of the Baltic States by the USSR, (2023) 54(2) Journal of Baltic Studies 416-418
- 'The Problem of Evil Law' Research Handbook on the Politics of Constitutional Law (Mark Tushnet and Dimitry Kochenov eds.), (2023) Edward Elgar 710-728
- (with Shane Finn) 'Law Among Chaos: an Anti-Schmittian Reading of Skyrim' Law, Video Games, Virtual Realities: Playing Law (Dale Mitchell, Ashley Pearson, and Timothy D. Peters eds.), (2023) Routledge 236-250
- 'Between Exception and Normality: Schmittian Dictatorship and the Soviet Legal Order', (2022) 35(2) Ratio Juris 139-157
- Book Review: David M. Crowe (ed.), Stalin’s Soviet Justice: ‘Show’ Trials, War Crimes Trials, and Nuremberg, (2021) 46(2) Review of Central and East European Law 297-305
- 'Legal Nurturing: the Educational Function of Law in the Soviet Union' Special Issue - The Soviet and Post-Soviet Law: The Failed Transition from Socialist Legality to the Rule of Law State, (2021) 18(2) The Ideology and Politics Journal 57-74
- 'Opening the Pandora’s Box: Kelsen and the Communist Theory of Law', (2020) 11(4) Jurisprudence 530-551
- 'Russia and International Human Rights Law: A View from the Past' Russian Discourses on International Law: Sociological and Philosophical Phenomenon (P. Sean Morris ed.), (2018) Routledge 46-66
- 'Soviet Union and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights' (2017) Max Planck Institute for European Legal History Research Paper Series
- 'The Semenchuk Case of 1936: Storytelling and Propaganda above the Law in the Soviet Criminal Trial', (2016) 41(2) Review of Central and East European Law 63-116
Teaching
Engagement and impact
Engagement and Impact
In Conversation With: Dr Anna Lukina, (2026) Corpus Juris - The LSE Law Review Magazine
‘The Law Persists’: Dr Anna Lukina on teaching and life at Wolfson, (2025) Wolfson College, University of Cambridge
Confessions of a Luddite Teacher: a Case for Edtech Pessimism, (2025) LSE Higher Education Blog
Interview with Anna Lukina, PhD Candidate in Law, University of Cambridge, (2023) Third-Culture Lawyer
Teaching Soviet Law in the 21st Century: A Case Study Theses for the Roundtable at the ASEEES Annual Convention (2023) "Building a Free University in the Post-Soviet Space: Challenges and Opportunities", (2023) Palladium - Free University (Brīvā Universitāte) Journal
Podcast: Anna Lukina on Transitional Justice and Soviet Law (2022) Free University (Brīvā Universitāte) Media Centre
The Legality of Evil: A Response to Balázs Majtényi on Radbruch’s Formula and Amoral Law (2023) Verfassungsblog
Law student, Anna Lukina, on doing a PhD at Wolfson - and investigating 'Evil law', (2022) PhD Student Profile Series - Wolfson College, University of Cambridge
Podcast: Democratic Backsliding: Constitutional Law versus Authoritarian Politics (2022) Efficient Secrets
St. Thomas Aquinas on Angels, Demons, and Evil ‘Law’ (2021) Ius & Iustitium
Podcast: Anna Lukina on Kelsen & Communist Theories of Law (2020) Ipse Dixit
The Soviet Legal Narrative: How Stalin’s Prosecutor Used Law to Build the Soviet World (2020) Athwart
Kelsen on Marx, Engels, and Natural Law (2020) Legal Form
The Soviet Legacy and Current Human Rights Debates (2018) Oxford Human Rights Hub Blog
The Soviet Court as a Propaganda Instrument (I and II), (2017) The Language of Authoritarian Regimes