Professor Craig Barker
Professor Barker’s primary research interest is in the field of public international law. He completed his PhD on the topic of "The Abuse of Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities" in 1991 and has subsequently written on international immunities from jurisdiction in relation to diplomats, states and heads of state. He has also researched the relationship between international law and international relations and aspects of international criminal law. He completed a book examining The Legal Protection of Diplomatic Personnel in 2006 and is currently working on a book for OUP on The Law of International Immunities. He has a developing research interests in matter relating to international criminal law and law and international security, including terrorism.
Postgraduate supervision available in public international law, especially international immunities and international criminal law.
Professor Jo Bridgeman
Professor Bridgeman's principal areas of interest are responsibilities to and the care of children, legal theory, tort law and healthcare law. In the field of healthcare law she has published work on the healthcare of teenagers, a number of pieces which analyse the issues arising from the Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry and, in Parental responsibility, young children and healthcare law (CUP, 2007), a critical analysis of moral, social and legal responsibilities for the healthcare of babies, infants and young children. This body of work adopts a critical feminist perspective informed by, and developing, the feminist ethic of care in the analysis of the responsibilities of parents, professionals and the state to children through the development of a conceptual framework of relational responsibility. She is co-editor, with Heather Keating and Craig Lind, of three collections of essays, published by Ashgate, exploring responsibility in family law and life. Her current work focuses upon concepts of responsibility in the Law of Tort.
Postgraduate supervision is available in any of the areas of healthcare law, tort or feminist legal theory.
Dr Qingxiu Bu
Dr Bu's research interests lie broadly in Transnational Business Law, Corporate Finance Law, Securities Market Regulation, Corporate Law and Corporate Governance.
Postgraduate supervision is available in the above areas.
Dr Elizabeth Craig
Dr Craig’s research interests lie primarily within 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 the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, focusing in particular on issues surrounding the definition of the term ‘national minority’ and the balancing of tensions between the individual right to self-identification and the pursuit of equality between groups. She is also 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.
Doctoral supervision would be available in the area of European, international and comparative minority rights law.
Dr Mark Davies
Dr Davies’ research interests are primarily in the fields of professional negligence and conduct, education and the law and science and law. He has published widely in a range of these areas, with a particular focus on the professional conduct of lawyers and medical practitioners and the application of law to higher education. Recent and ongoing projects include looking at crisis and change in the self-regulation of medical practitioners and solicitors, solicitors' negligence and the professional regulatory implications raised by expert witnesses in legal proceedings. Recent conference/seminar invitations have included: Anglo-US Higher Education Law Round Table at the Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies; ESRC Public Services Programme - Trust and the regulation of doctors; and ESRC Seminar at Cass Centre for Professional Service Firms - The Challenge of Change in Professional Service Firms. He also has an interest in the development of the regulatory functions of new professional bodies.
Mark would be happy to consider applications for MPhil and DPhil research in any of these or associated fields.
Professor Marie - Benedicte Dembour
Professor Dembour's current interests can be subsumed under the following words: human rights, discrimination, migrants, culture, postcolonialism, open borders. She is currently writing a monograph on whether or not the European Court of Human Rights treats migrants as humans equal to citizens. This follows another monograph (‘Who Believes in Human Rights? Reflections on the European Convention ‘CUP, 2006) where she explored the way in which conceptual critiques of human rights manifest themselves in the Strasbourg case law. Marie also has a longstanding interest in anthropological perspectives on legal processes.
Areas for doctoral supervision: postcolonial critiques of human rights; discrimination against migrants based on nationality laws; culture and rights; ethnographic studies of legal processes.
Mr Paul Eden
Mr Eden’s research interests lie in the field of commercial law. Within this field his primary focus is on the relationship between property law and commercial law with special reference to the role of equitable property interests in commercial transactions. Other areas of research interest are international measures to prevent the financing of terrorism and the codification of criminal law and criminal law defences.
Postgraduate supervision is available in the above areas.
Dr Helena Howe
Dr Howe's’s research interests lie in the areas of intellectual property law, land law and tort law, but also environmental law to the extent that this relates to property rights in land. She is particularly interested in notions of obligation, duty and responsibility as they relate to these areas of law. Her PhD, for example, analyses the effect of changing concepts of ownership on our ability to constrain property rights in land and copyright law in the community interest.
Doctoral supervision is available in the above areas.
Dr Michael Kearney
Dr Kearney's research interests are broadly in the area of public international law, particularly international humanitarian law, international criminal law, and human rights. Of particular interest is the role and impact of international law on the question of Palestine as well as issues related to crimes of incitement, propaganda for war, and freedom of expression.
Michael is keen to supervise doctorate students who intend to focus on the following areas: human rights & self-determination; any aspect of international criminal law, international humanitarian law, or human rights law.
Professor Heather Keating
Professor Keatings’s main areas of research are the criminal law and family (especially child) law. She is currently working on a monograph, Children, Responsibility and the Criminal Law. In 2006 she presented a paper on the responsibility of children in the criminal law to the second Sussex symposium on responsibility, law and the family which formed the basis for her article in the Child and Family Law Quarterly, 2007. In July 2007 she gave a paper to 'Parenting: An Interdisciplinary Workshop' at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRAASH) at the University of Cambridge on the physical punishment of children: the role of the State in protecting children and guiding parents building upon her article in Legal Studies in 2006. She is joint editor (with Craig Lind) of a special issue of the Journal of Law and Society, 'Children, Family Responsibilities and the State' published in 2008 (and as a book by Blackwell). The proceedings from the first symposium, 'Responsibility, Law and the Family' were published by Ashgate in 2008 (edited by Jo Bridgeman, Heather Keating and Craig Lind).
Heather offers MPhil and DPhil supervision in a range of criminal law and family law subjects.
Dr Tarik Kochi
Dr Kochi’s research interests lie in the areas of: critical approaches to global security; contemporary problems of war and terror; International law; legal and political theory; critical theory.
Doctoral supervision is available in any of the above fields.
Mr Laurence Koffman
Mr Koffman’s main research interests are currently in the areas of criminal justice policy under New Labour, especially in relation to youth justice. The principal areas of interest are: the policy of diversion; evaluating anti-social behaviour legislation; and the responsibility of parents for their children's conduct. A further interest is sentencing and penal policy since the Criminal Justice Act 1991. The particular areas of interest are: the status of 'proportionality' as a sentencing principle; and evaluating community and non-custodial measures.
Doctoral supervision is available in any of the above areas.
Dr Phoebe Li
Dr Li is interested in exploring the interface between world trade, intellectual property, and technology regulation, and the extent to which this can be used to embody human rights claims under globalisation.
Doctoral supervision is available in any of the above fields.
Mr Craig Lind
Mr Lind’s research interests lie in the sphere of sexuality and family regulation; children in law, family law and medical law. He is currently completing a project looking into the relationship between culture, sexuality and legal regulation (particularly in the realms of family law). This project involves researching the way in which sexual identity is understood in other cultures (both within western legal jurisdictions and outside of them) and the ways in which western (particularly family) regulatory regimes impact upon those identities. Craig’s research began in South Africa and moved to England to enquire into the cross-cultural dilemmas that arise here, and the lessons that might be learned from another jurisdiction with a different view of the way in which problems associated with cross cultural lives might be resolved. A second area of particular interest is the way in which law contributes to, and is influenced by, social constructions of fatherhood (particularly in the context of the regulation of assisted reproduction). The aim of this research is to develop a general consideration of the nature of fatherhood and the impact that law and the discourses of law have on the construction of paternity.
Postgraduate supervision is available in the areas of sexuality, family regulation, children in law, family law and medical law.
Mr Donald McGillivray
Mr McGillivray's particular research and teaching interests fall generally within the areas of land use and environmental regulation, including the intersection of these fields (especially access to land). He sustains a general interest in all aspects of environmental law, and has particular interests in relation to climate change, nature conservation, biodiversity and ecosystems, water management and environmental assessment.
Doctoral supervision is available in any of the above areas.
Professor Susan Millns
Professor Millns’ research interests lie in the area of European public law, particularly constitutional law and human rights. She also has a strong interest in feminist legal studies. Her most recent research has examined the impact of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights on domestic systems across nine members of the European Union and associate countries. The research charts patterns of litigation, state implementation and domestic reform resulting from ECtHR judgments and explores in depth the relationship between judicial review of human rights at the supranational level and domestic politics and policies in Europe. A particular focus of the project has been the role of individuals and civil society in mobilizing the law in Europe.
Areas of doctoral supervision are European law, human rights law, constitutional law, law and gender.
Ms Verona Ni Dhrisceoil
Ms Ni Dhrisceoil's primary research interests lie in the areas of language rights and domestic language legislative regimes. She also has an interest in exploring the relationhsip between law and language in post conflict societies.
Doctoral supervision is available in any of the above fields.
Professor Malcolm Ross
Professor Ross’ research interests lie in the area of European Union (EU) law generally, but with special reference to the interface of market and social objectives. He has written widely on state aid, the regulation of public services and Union citizenship. He is particularly interested in services of general economic interest (SGEIs) and the extent to which they are subject to the competition and free movement rules of the EU. His current research addresses more theoretical concerns in relation to the emerging significance of solidarity as a paradigm in EU law and he is writing a monograph for OUP in this area (2010).
Malcolm welcomes applications to pursue doctoral research in EU law generally, but particularly in relation to all aspects of competition law, state aid, public services, the single market, EU citizenship, social solidarity, the principle of effectiveness and constitutional development.
Dr Charlotte Skeet
Dr Skeet’s research is centred on issues of constitutional law and governance (particularly human rights and devolution); gender; comparative law; law and society; and law and development.
Doctoral applications are welcome in any of the above areas.
Ms Teresa Sutton
Ms Sutton’s research interests are across land law (especially mortgage repossession), ecclesiastical law (especially in relation to sanctuary) and legal history.
Supervision is available in any area of land law.
Dr Kenneth Veitch
Dr Veitch's areas of research interest are: Law, Politics and the Welfare State; Social Solidarity; Social Policy and Techniques of Governing; Neoliberalism; Social Theory; Sociology of Law; Critical and Theoretical Approaches to Health Care Law and Policy.
Kenneth welcomes research proposals from prospective postgraduate research students wishing to study in any of the above areas.
Dr Richard Vogler
Dr Vogler researches and publishes in the area of comparative criminal justice, having recently completed major studies of the history of criminal justice from a global perspective and the development of the criminal justice reform process in Western Europe. His current work is on the comparative analysis of contemporary reform in terms both of practical efficiency and compliance with international human rights norms. He has worked as a Consultant for a number of Eastern European and Central Asian governments, the US Justice Department OPDAT program, the OSCE and the Council of Europe. Richard has also published recently on UK imprisonment of foreign prisoners and international criminal justice.
Richard offers doctoral supervision in the following areas: Comparative Criminal Justice; Criminal Procedure; Criminology; Criminal Justice History; International Criminal Justice.
Dr Mark Walters
Dr Walter's research interests lie in the field of criminal law, criminology and criminal justice. More specifically, Mark researches the causes and effects of hate crime, the philosophy underpinning hate crime legislation and the utility of alternative criminal justice measures aimed at responding to hate-motivted offences. He is currently writing a book which explores whether restorative justice practices can be used to effectively tackle the causes and effects of hate crime. His future research plans are to build on the foundations of his DPhil to further develop the field of criminological knowledge in relation to hate crime and restorative justice. Mark also has interests in the philosophy of punishment, sentencing purposes, criminal law, the use of restorative justice more broadly, as well as the criminological theory of self control.
Doctoral applications are welcome in any of the above areas.
Dr Jingchen Zhao
Dr Zhao's research specialism is within corporate law, corporate social responsibility and corporate governance, and he also contributes to research in the areas of insolvency law, international trade law, contract law and commercial law. His research specialism extends from general aspects of business law to interdisciplinary areas such as corporate governance, business ethics and investment strategy. Much of his current research on Chinese law has filled the gap in research on the legal aspects of corporate social responsibility and corporate governance.
Doctoral applications are welcome in any of the above areas.