Fikret Erkan Kimdir? | Associate Professor of Law, Jurist and Author

Who is Fikret Erkan?

“Who is Fikret Erkan?” is a question that arises at the intersection of law, technology, governance, and historical consciousness.

Fikret Erkan is an Associate Professor of Law, a jurist, and an author whose intellectual trajectory moves between judicial practice and academic inquiry. With more than two decades of professional experience — including years as an administrative judge and service as Deputy Secretary General of the Council of State — Erkan represents a rare synthesis of judicial leadership and scholarly production.

His academic work unfolds across multiple yet interconnected fields: international law, European Union law, human rights law, artificial intelligence law, sports law and arbitration, as well as port governance and maritime management. What binds these diverse areas together is a central concern: the architecture of responsibility in complex systems.

During his postdoctoral research at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in the United States, Erkan focused on privatization, private military companies, outsourcing of defense services, and port restructuring. These studies explored the transformation of state authority in an era increasingly shaped by market mechanisms and technological infrastructures.

In recent years, Fikret Erkan has concentrated on artificial intelligence and liability regimes, examining how legal systems respond to algorithmic decision-making and technologically mediated harm. His work on Artificial Intelligence and Liability for Damages contributes to the broader debate on accountability in the digital age, questioning how responsibility is distributed when autonomy is partially transferred to intelligent systems.

Beyond academic scholarship, Erkan is also an author of historical and philosophical works. In The Enderun School: The Palace School of the Ottoman Empire, he revisits the intellectual formation of elites within the Ottoman palace, exploring themes of education, loyalty, justice, and moral discipline. His literary work reflects the same philosophical concern found in his legal research: the cultivation of responsibility and ethical order within institutions.

Writing in English, German, French, and Turkish, Fikret Erkan seeks to build bridges between law and literature, governance and culture, technology and moral philosophy.

Ultimately, the question “Who is Fikret Erkan?” cannot be answered merely through titles or positions. It is better understood as an ongoing intellectual project — one that examines how law structures power, how institutions shape responsibility, and how justice evolves in times of technological and historical transformation.