Teaching and research fields

Uwe Hellmann's research concerns the general and special parts of criminal law as well as criminal procedural law, with a particular focus on commercial criminal law and criminal tax law.

Uwe Hellmann is the author of a concise e-textbook on the general principles of German criminal law published in Moscow. Together with Manfred Heinrich he continues the publication of the textbooks on the specialised elements (Parts 1 and 2) of the German Criminal Code, originally established by Volker Krey. In addition, Uwe Hellmann has authored a textbook and casebook on commercial criminal law. He is the author of a textbook on criminal procedural law and edits and co-authors the corresponding casebook. Together with Harro Herffs he has written a handbook of best practice for medical practitioners on accounting fraud. Uwe Hellmann has also contributed to a compendium on commercial criminal law, as well as to the Nomos Commentary on the German Criminal Code. He has commented on numerous criminal tax law provisions in an extensive commentary on the Tax Code and the Procedural Code of Fiscal Courts.

The teaching programme in the law faculty also encompasses these areas of criminal law. The degree programme consists of the basic (foundation) courses and a specific area of study, which the students can choose themselves. For the foundation courses, lectures are held on the general and specialised parts of the criminal law as well as criminal procedure. Uwe Hellmann holds lectures on commercial criminal law, criminal tax law and European and international criminal law for those law students specialising in “Economic, Tax and Environmental Criminal Law”. Students pursuing the LL.M. in Corporate and Tax Law also attend the lecture on criminal tax law.

Each year, Uwe Hellmann holds lectures on European criminal law for master’s students at the Université Paris Nanterre. He also lectures on all areas of criminal law, as well as commercial criminal law at the German School of Law at the University of Szeged, as part of the course “German Law”.

Alongside this, the department cooperates with several other universities abroad.

The department works particularly closely with the O.E. Kutafin Moscow State Law University (MGJuA). Each year, a round table discussion is held at the MGJuA on the current issues of commercial criminal law in Russia and Germany. Uwe Hellmann and department staff also take part in further academic conferences at the MGJuA throughout the year. The department hosts an annual round table discussion on the “Shared matters of German and Russian criminal law” with academics from the MGJuA and other universities and research institutions in Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Macedonia, Kazakhstan and Kirgizstan, as well as criminal law professors and practitioners from Germany. In addition, the two universities hold an annual German-Russian seminar on German and Russian criminal law, alternating annually between Potsdam and Russia, with professors and students from the MGJuA, Lomonosov Moscow State University and the research university “University of Economics” in Moscow taking part.

Uwe Hellmann is the head of the Research Centre for Russian Law, which was established in the law faculty of the University of Potsdam in the summer semester of 2018.

He is the chairman of the German delegation of the Association of Criminalists and Criminologists. This group, originally founded in Russia, organises annual, tri-national conferences with the cooperation of Uwe Hellmann and his staff. To date, these academic events have been held in Armenia, Macedonia, Kazakhstan and Kirgizstan.

On 1st March 2014, Uwe Hellmann was awarded the International Law Prize "Femida" in Moscow.

With support from the Franco-German University (Deutsch-Französischen Hochschule/Université franco-allemande), Uwe Hellmann, together with colleagues from the Université Paris Nanterre, run annual tri-national summer schools at the Belarusian State University (BSU) in Minsk. These are attended by numerous academics from Germany, France and Belarus. Additional tri-national summer schools have been held in Naples and Florence.

Uwe Hellmann was project manager of the TEMPUS project “Training on alternative dispute resolution as an approach for ensuring of human rights” (TRADIR). Together with partners from Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland and Italy, they developed a master’s programme in alternative dispute resolution.

The outcome of the department’s international partnerships has been, inter alia, collated in a text entitled "Writings on German and Russian Criminal Law” published by Alexey Rarog, Gennady Esakov, Pavel Golovnenkov and Uwe Hellmann through the University of Potsdam.

Together with Elisa Hoven, Michael Kubiciel and Christian Schröder, Uwe Hellmann is a co-publisher of the “Publication Series on German, European and International Commercial Criminal Law”. Additionally, Uwe Hellmann works on several editorial advisory boards of a number of Russian academic periodicals.

On the following pages you can find further information on the research and teaching in the department for Criminal Law and Commercial Criminal Law at the University of Potsdam, as well as its international partnerships.