For more information about the Centre and its future events please contact:
Professor Jo Bridgeman
Director, Centre for Responsibilities, Rights and the Law
E J.C.Bridgeman@sussex.ac.uk
T +44 (0) 1273 678133
Dr Elizabeth Craig
Deputy Director, Centre for Responsibilities, Rights and the Law
E emc22@sussex.ac.uk
T +44 (0)1273 873960
Professor Jo Bridgeman
Professor Bridgeman is Director of the Centre for Responsibilities, Rights and the Law and Professor of Healthcare Law and Feminist Ethics in the Sussex Law School. Her early work analysed the legal regulation of the healthcare of young people, women and children including a range of publications exploring the issues raised by the Inquiry into children’s heart surgery at the Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry. Her research examining the concept of responsibility in relation to children and families commenced with her monograph, Parental Responsibility, Young Children and Healthcare Law (CUP, 2007). In this book she undertakes a sustained analysis of the responsibilities of parents for the healthcare of their children ranging from the non-emergency encounter with healthcare services (eg childhood immunisation) to decisions about the withdrawal of treatment from babies with life-limiting conditions and the long-term care taken by parents of their disabled children. Drawing upon the feminist ethic of care, she develops a conceptual framework of relational responsibility which, she argues, should frame legal regulation of parental responsibility for the healthcare of young children. The concept of relational responsibility, drawing upon the feminist ethic of care, has been developed in a number of publications undertaking a critical analysis of the social, moral and legal responsibilities of parents, professionals, communities and government for the care of children.
‘Accountability, Support or Relationship? Conceptions of Parental Responsibility’, (2007) 58 Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 307-324, contrasting relational responsibility with liberal and communitarian approaches to responsibility
‘Children with Severe Disabilities and Their Families: Re-examining Private Responsibilities and Public Obligations from a Caring Perspective’, in Law and Bioethics: Current Legal Issues 2008, OUP, (2008), 358-375, examining the privatisation of the care of children with severe disabilities
‘Parental Responsibility, Responsible Parenting and Legal Regulation’ in Responsibility, Law and the Family, Jo Bridgeman, Craig Lind and Heather Keating (eds), Ashgate, (2008), 233-249, comparing relational responsibility with approaches to responsibility in the family policy of the New Labour Government
‘Parental Responsibility, Relational Responsibility: protecting children after their death’ in Responsible Parents and Parental Responsibility, Rebecca Probert, Jonathan Herring, Stephen Gilmore (eds), Hart, (2008), applying the concept of relational responsibility to an aspect of parental responsibility, the responsibilities of parents after the death of their child
‘Intensive caring responsibilities and crimes of compassion?’ with Heather Keating in Regulating Family Responsibility, Jo Bridgeman, Craig Lind and Heather Keating (eds), 2011, examining the intersection of family and criminal responsibilities in cases where a parent has killed a child suffering from severe disabilities, debilitating injury or chronic illness
Jo has presented her work on concepts of responsibility, caring responsibilities and parental responsibilities at numerous conferences and seminars. Jo has also worked with colleagues in the Sussex Law School, Heather Keating and Craig Lind, to contribute to the theorising and academic analysis of, and debates on, responsibility in family policy and law. Together they have organised a series of workshops and, in 2008, an International Interdisciplinary Conference on Gender, Family Responsibility and Legal Change. Jo is co-editor, with Craig Lind and Heather Keating, of three volumes which explore aspects of responsibility in family life, policy and law:
Responsibility, Law and the Family, 2008 explores different conceptualisations of responsibility in family life, law and policy.
Taking Responsibility, Law and the Changing Family, 2011 explores the role of the law in the acceptance, avoidance and allocation of family responsibilities in an era of increasing diversity in family life.
Regulating Family Responsibility, 2011 explores the effect of legal regulation, and the absence of regulation, on the day to day responsibilities which people take, or seek to avoid, within their families.
Dr Elizabeth Craig
Elizabeth Craig is Deputy Director of the Centre. Her research interests lie in the areas of international human rights and comparative law, with a particular emphasis on the development and application of European minority rights law. She is currently undertaking comparative research into State and minority experiences under European minority rights law, focusing in particular on issues surrounding the definition of the term ‘national minority’, the balancing of tensions between the individual right to self-identification and the pursuit of equality between groups and relationships between justice and security oriented approaches to minority rights.. In 2010 she was awarded a small grant by the SLSA to undertake associated empirical research. Elizabeth is currently planning a monograph, which aims to explore the impact of European minority rights law in the post-devolution context and builds on her earlier doctoral research on the use of both adversarial and reporting systems to challenge State policy on national minority education. The aim will be to draw comparisons between the experiences of Northern Ireland, a society in transition, and the rest of the United Kingdom. Recent publications include: 'From soft to hard law? Culture, Identity and Languages Issues within the Northern Ireland Bill of Rights Process' (2010) 56 Focaal Journal of Global and Historial Anthropology 35-48 and 'The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the Development of a "Generic" Approach to the Protection of Minority Rights in Europe?' (2010) 17(2) International Journal on Minority and Group Rights 307-325.
In 2007/08 Elizabeth worked as legal advisor to the Northern Ireland Bill of Rights Forum and she continues to monitor developments in Northern Ireland as well as discussions on a future British or UK Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. In 2009 she acted as legal expert on the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages on a Council of Europe mission to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Last year she co-organised a Workshop on Minority and Indigenous Rights: Emerging Themes and Challenge, which was held at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies on 18-19 November 2010 and was funded by the Human Rights Consortium.