Academic interests
My socio-legal research agenda focuses on regulation, rights, and legal mobilization in the context of the digital transformation, humanitarian emergencies, and terror. I am particularly interested in the relationship between ethics, law, and social justice. My focus on technology includes digital experimentation, cybersecurity, generative AI, drones, and the digital body. In 2023, I published 'Humanitarian extractivism: The digital transformation of aid' with Manchester University Press. I also consult as an ethics advisor for international aid and science projects.
Central to my academic practice is the objective of contributing to critical societal dialogue around governance, legality, and accountability in crises, involving scholars, communities, practitioners, and policymakers. Through CRITPEACE, I also work on defense procurement and militarization, contributing to a more informed public conversation about the future of peace in the Nordic region and beyond.
From 2017, I have documented the legal ripple effects of terror attacks in Norway through the prism of transitional justice. Starting in 2021, I have organized the annual Sámi Law Symposium at the Faculty of Law. From 2025, I convene the Thematic group on Sámi law [Sámerievtti fágajoavku, Saemiereaktan faagedåehkie].
I have been the project leader of seven projects financed by the Research Council of Norway. Currently, this includes LAW22JULY: RIPPLES: Rights, Institutions, Procedures, Participation, Litigation: Embedding Security (SAMRISK) and 'Legal regulation in an era of deglobalization: socio-legal perspectives on technology, migration, democracy, and war' (with Peter Scharff Smith). I also led the European-Ukrainian Refugee Pets: Emerging Trends (EURPET) initiative, as part of the Norwegian Forum for Animal Law.
I have published in journals such as Law and Society Review, Feminist Legal Studies, PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, The International Journal of Transitional Justice, Cornell Journal of International Law, Big Data & Society, Journal of Human Rights Practice, International Journal of Human Rights, International Journal of Refugee Law, Third World Quarterly, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Global Studies Quarterly, International Migration, Global Policy, Third World Thematics, Oslo Law Review, the Australian Feminist Law Journal, Journal of Military Ethics, International Review of the Red Cross, Disasters, Millennium-Journal of International Studies, Refugee Survey Quarterly, Nordic Journal of Human Rights, Conjuntura Austral and RIS - La Revue internationale et stratégique. My work has been translated into multiple languages, including Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish.
Background
Kristin Bergtora Sandvik graduated from the University of Oslo with a Masters in Women’s Law in 2002. She obtained an LL.M (waived) from Harvard Law School in 2003, and a doctorate in Juridical Sciences (S.J.D) from Harvard Law School in 2008. Her dissertation was called “On the Everyday Life of International Law: Humanitarianism and Refugee- Resettlement in Kampala”. Sandvik has also studied social anthropology at the University of Oslo, and she has been a guest researcher at the Oxford Refugee Studies Centre and the Refugee Law Project (Uganda).
Since 2016, Sandvik has been a professor at the Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law. In 2009, Sandvik was hired by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) as a senior researcher. In 2011, Sandvik co-founded the Norwegian Center for Humanitarian Studies (NCHS), where she served as Director from 2012 to 2016. She held a 20% position as a research professor in humanitarian studies at PRIO until 2026. Starting in January 2026, Sandvik is Professor II in Sámi and Indigenous Peoples Law at UiT, the Arctic University of Norway.
While Sandvik has mainly used the qualitative methods of socio-legal studies, anthropology of law, and international law (structured and semi-structured interviews, participant observation, literature reviews, discourse analysis, and doctrinal legal analysis), she has also directed mixed-methods projects involving household surveys and statistical comparison.
Teaching