A chance meeting on Robben Island, outside the prison where Nelson Mandela was held for 27 years, has led to a profitable and rewarding collaboration for Waikato law professor Neil Boister.

Professor Boister has been awarded a Freidrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award by the German-based Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in recognition of his achievements in international and transnational criminal law research.

He was nominated by Dr Florian Jessberger, professor of criminal law at the University of Hamburg, Germany.

“I was visiting Robben Island in 2001, and it just so happened that Florian was there too. He knew the friend I was with, we got talking and since then I have visited Hamburg and we are now planning to work on a project on the EU’s influence on the development of transnational criminal law,” he says.

Professor Boister will travel to Germany in November initially for a period of seven months followed by shorter periods, and work with Professor Jessberger, researching how the European Union is spreading its ideas on criminal law world-wide.