Geraldina Ester Di Natali
Geraldina Ester Di Natali is a PhD student in International Criminal Law at the University of Catania. In March 2022, she graduated cum laude with a Master's Degree in Law at the University of Trento, discussing a thesis in International Criminal Law entitled “Il sistema sanzionatorio dello Statuto di Roma: finalità della pena e tutela delle vittime dei crimini internazionali” (“The sanctioning system of the Rome Statute: purposes of punishment and protection of the victims of international crimes”).
As a student, she completed a curricular internship at the Local Prisoner Ombudsman Office in Trento.
In May 2022, she was selected as a research fellow in Criminal Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Trento as a member of the team for the “UNI4JUSTICE project”. At the same time, she was placed at the Tribunale di Sorveglianza di Trento as an intern.
Her research activity as a doctoral student started in August 2023 and is aimed at conducting a comparative analysis of duress as a defence in international criminal law, with a focus on the condition of former child soldiers held responsible for their criminal conducts before the International Criminal Court. The research activity is carried out with the support of the bibliographic resources available at the Siracusa International Institute for Criminal Justice and Human Rights.
In 2025, she was hosted as a visiting scholar at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, developing the comparative details of her thesis with regard to §§ 34 and 35 of the Strafgesetzbuch.
Other areas of scientific interest include studies on the purposes of punishment at the international level and the challenges associated with restorative justice processes in transitioning societies.