About me

Anna Lukina is a Fellow in Law at the LSE Law School. She is currently completing 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 is entitled ‘Towards a Jurisprudence of Evil Law’ and focuses 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 is currently 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 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).

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.

LL305 Jurisprudence

'Teaching Soviet Law in the 21st Century' The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review (2024) 51 (3), 322-358 (with Ekaterina Mishina)
'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
(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
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 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

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