When the Law is Silent: Hate Crime Prosecution and Implicit Bias in Law Enforcement Agencies

H.E. Dan-Andrei Muraru is The Ambassador of Romania to the United States of America. Andrei Muraru (born 1982) holds a PhD in History (2011) from the University “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” in Iași, as well as an MA (2007) and BA (2005) in History from the same university.

He had worked at the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile (IICCMER) – a governmental agency coordinated by the Romanian PM – since its foundation (2006), holding different offices, from expert-researcher to Executive President (2012-2014). Between July and December 2014, he was personal advisor to the President of the National Liberal Party, Klaus Iohannis. Between 2014 and 2021, Andrei Muraru was Senior Advisor to the President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis.

He is a university lecturer at the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (Department of International Relations and European Integration) and scientific researcher III at The Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania. He was an Erasmus-Socrates student at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2004-2005), as well as a Doctoral Fellow at New Europe College (2009-2010) and at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2010-2011).

He received a doctoral scholarship funded by a POSDRU program (2008-2011) and a postdoctoral fellowship at Yad Vashem - The International Institute for Holocaust Research for the year 2020. He is the author of the volume “Vișinescu, the Forgotten Torturer: the Prison, the Crimes, the Trial” (Polirom Publishing House, 2018), the coordinator of several volumes – “The Book of the Romanian Communist Prisons 1945-1967” (Polirom, 2008), “The King, the Communists and the Crown: The True History of Michael I's Abdication” (together with Alexandru Muraru; Polirom Publishing House, 2017), “The 1989 Revolution. Winners and Losers” (together with Anneli Ute Gabanyi, Alexandru Muraru, Daniel Sandru; Polirom Publishing House, 2020), and co-author of “A History of Communism in Romania. High-School Handbook” (Polirom Publishing House, 2008, 2nd edition 2009, 3rd edition 2014), the only existing handbook about communism in Romania.

Prof. Dr. Nadège Ragaru is Research Professor in history and political sociology at Sciences Po Paris. She was previoulsy Reid Hall Fellow at Columbia University and Visiting Scholar at Oxford University. Her research focuses on the history, historiography and memory of the Holocaust in Southeastern Europe, as well as on war crime trials at the end of the Second World War (Bulgaria) and in the 1960s (West Germany).

Her recent publications include: "And the Bulgarian Jews were saved…" A History of Knowledge about the Holocaust in Bulgaria, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2020 (in French); (with Maël Le Noc), “Visual Clues to the Holocaust:
 The Case of the Deportation of Jews from Northern Greece,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 35 (3), 2021, 376–403 ; “Bulgaria as Rescuer? Film Footage of the March 1943 Deportation and Its Reception across the Iron Curtain,” East European Jewish Affairs, 50, 1, 2021, 36–69 ; “Viewing, reading, and listening to the trials in Eastern Europe. Charting a New Historiography,” Cahiers du monde russe, 61 (3-4), 2020, 297–316.

Prof. Dr. hab. Constantin Iordachi is Professor of History at the Central European University, Vienna, co-editor of the peer-reviewed journal East Central Europe (2006–), and President of the International Association for Comparative Fascist Studies (ComFas). Member of the Academic Committee of the House of European History, Brussels.

His publications include Liberalism, Constitutional Nationalism, and Minorities: The Making of Romanian citizenship, c. 1750–1918 (2019);  A fasiszta Vasgárda Romániában, 1927–1941. Karizma, politika, erőszak (Budapest: L'Harmattan, 1st ed. 2017, second ed. 2018); Charisma, Politics and Violence: The Legion of the “Archangel Michael” in Inter-war Romania (2004); and “Fascism in East-Central and South-Eastern Europe: A Reappraisal,” East-Central Europe, vol. 37 (2010).

He is (co-)editor of over sixteen collective volumes, including Fascist Studies: New Perspectives (2010, 2011; Romanian edn. 2014; Turkish edn. 2015); Occupation and Communism in Eastern European Museums (London: Bloomsbury, 2021); The Rise of Comparative Method (Budapest, New York: CEU Press, 2021); Beyond the Fascist Century: Essays in Honor of Roger Griffin (London: Palgrave Macmillian, 2020); and Battling over the Balkans: Historiographical Questions and Controversies (Budapest: CEU Press, 2020);  The Collectivization of Agriculture in Communist Eastern Europe: Comparisons and Entanglements (Budapest, New York: CEU Press, 2014); The Biopolitics of the Danube Delta: Nature, History and Policies (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 2014); and Hungary and Romania Beyond National Narratives: Comparisons and Entanglements (Wien: Peter Land, 2013). 

Oana-Cosmina Mihalache is pursuing her PhD studies at the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA) in Bucharest. She was a Fulbright visiting scholar at Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), where she was affiliated with the Saltzman Institute for the 2019-2020 academic year. Her research is focused on the republican thought from a security perspective in explaining sovereignty after instances of humanitarian intervention. She worked as an adviser at the Presidential Administration in Romania and she currently works at the Embassy of Romania to the US. Her work experience includes previous positions as a political advisor at the Chamber of Deputies of the Romanian Parliament, consultant for the World Bank in Romania, political journalist and communication executive.

She published many articles on sovereignty and humanitarian intervention – more recently an article on “Norms of protection in IR: humanitarian wars and the ironic creation of pre-Westphalian states” published in The International Journal of Human Rights.