Robert Esser was born on 29 August 1970 in Tönisvorst in the Lower Rhine region. In October 1991, he began studying law at the University of Trier. He not only completed his studies and legal traineeship there, but also earned his doctorate with the highest distinction. His thesis, Auf dem Weg zu einem europäischen Strafverfahrensrecht (“Towards a European Criminal Procedure Law”), for which he received the Trier University Award for early career researchers, offered a comprehensive and meticulous analysis of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), establishing one of the earliest foundational works on European criminal procedure law. In his habilitation thesis, which – like his doctoral thesis – was supervised by his academic mentor Professor Hans-Heiner Kühne, he used the example of breach of trust (Section 266 of the German Criminal Code) to examine the “limits of criminal law as a means for correcting undesirable social developments”, critically analysing a central offence in commercial criminal law from the perspective of the rule of law.
After 15 years in Trier, Robert Esser found a new home in Passau in October 2006. Since February 2007, he held the Chair of German, European and International Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure and White-Collar Crime, and served as Director of the Institute of International and Foreign Law. From 2010 to 2013, he was Dean of Studies at the Faculty of Law. In 2014, he declined an offer of a professorship from Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen–Nuremberg, and in 2020 he was a visiting professor at National Taiwan University in Taipei. In the same year, he received the University of Passau’s Award for Services to Internationalisation.
It became apparent early on that international engagement was one of Robert Esser’s lifelong passions. After studying abroad at Uppsala University in Sweden, he took his first professional steps at the University of Trier as a student assistant at the Academy of European Law. During his legal clerkship, he completed an elective placement at the American Prosecutors Research Institute in Alexandria, Virginia (USA). In recent years, he regularly organised the German–Vietnamese Summer School and international seminars in Slovenia, Estonia, Czechia, Hungary and Poland. He also maintained wide-ranging international contacts, including in China, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Taiwan and Thailand.
His deep commitment to human rights is evident in his more than 1,750-page commentary on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), published in the highly regarded Löwe–Rosenberg Commentary, of which he was also co-editor. Since 2010, he had headed the Research Centre for Human Rights in Criminal Proceedings (HRCP). For ten years, he coached student teams from Passau for the renowned Helga Pedersen Moot Court Competition (HPMCC), which simulates complaint proceedings on alleged human rights violations before the ECtHR.
Yet Robert Esser was not only an outstanding scholar of great professional integrity. Those who knew him privately found him to be witty, warm and humorous, as well as an unfailingly helpful and loyal friend. He was an enthusiastic football supporter and followed his club, Borussia Mönchengladbach, with passion. In legal policy debates, he consistently championed fair and citizen-centred criminal procedure.
His care and dedication extended to his doctoral candidates, whose work he supervised with exceptional commitment and whose academic paths he supported selflessly. He also looked after his professorial chair’s staff team with great consideration, always ready with a sympathetic ear and considered, fatherly advice.
In Robert Esser we have lost a nationally and internationally esteemed scholar, a universally respected colleague, a devoted mentor and a loyal friend. We will miss him deeply and will always remember him with gratitude.