Elizabeth Faulkner

Biography

Dr Elizabeth A. Faulkner is a Lecturer in Law at Keele University (UK), & a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). Elizabeth joined the School of Law in February 2021 having previously held a Lectureship in Contemporary Slavery at the Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull and in the Law Schools of De Montfort University and Staffordshire University.  Elizabeth’s interests, broadly conceived, are in international law, human rights, legal history and crime, specialising in international child law, human trafficking, modern slavery, children’s rights, mobility/migration and exploitation.

She is the author of 'The Trafficking of Children: International Law, Modern Slavery and the Anti-Trafficking Machine' which was published by Palgrave Macmillan in April 2023 in the Transnational Crime, Crime Control and Security Series. In 2024 she published her first edited collection with Bristol University Press 'Modern Slavery in Global Context: Human Rights, Law and Society' in April 2024. Her most cited work to date is a co-written peer reviewed article with Dr Conrad Nyamutata titled 'The Decolonization of Children’s Rights and the Colonial Contours of the Convention on the Rights of the Child' published in the International Journal of Children’s Rights in 2020.

Elizabeth has a range of media experience, appearing in interviews upon local, national and international radio stations to discuss aspects of her research. Appearing as a panellist on BBC’S live TV program The Big Questions in March 2018 as an expert upon modern slavery. She has presented her work internationally and has been an invited speaker to institutions including the University of Oxford, the University of Manchester, Tel Aviv University (Israel) and University of Liverpool.

Elizabeth teaches upon a range of undergraduate and postgraduate Law modules and welcomes doctoral research proposals upon a range of subjects related to her interests in children and the law, international law, human rights, human trafficking and modern slavery.

Research and scholarship

Funding

Elizabeth has secured funding from several funders including the British Academy, and Royal Irish Academy, Economic and Social Research Council, Modern Law Review and Society of Legal Scholars.

Current PhD students

Louisa Street (ESRC CASE Studentship) Sexting and Minors

Doctoral Researchers

Elizabeth welcomes applications for doctoral research upon a range of subjects in line with her expertise and interests in international human rights law, transnational organised crime, children and the law, modern slavery, children’s rights, exploitation, sexual violence and immigration. Please get in touch via email to discuss.

Teaching

Undergraduate

• Child Law (Module Leader)
• International Human Rights Law (Module Leader)
• Family Law (Module Leader)
• Transnational Organised Crime
• Law in Action (Module Leader)

Postgraduate

• LLM in International Law (Human Rights Pathway)
• Child Care Law and Practice MA, Keele University (Course Director)
• LLM in International Economic and Commercial Law
• International Human Rights Law (Module Lead)

Further information

Invited Speaker and Visiting Positions

• Invited Speaker, Motherhood and Academia, International Women’s Day Event, University of Manchester (8.03.2024)
• Invited Speaker, The Treatment of Children as Asylum Seekers and Refugees, International Refugee Law Seminar Series, Garden Court Chambers, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London (21.03.2024)
• Royal United Services Institute’s (RUSI) Inaugural Serious and Organised Crime Conference, Whitehall, London (December, 2023)
• Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, Organised Immigration Crime, Child Sexual Abuse, Workshop, Royal United Services Institute’s (RUSI), Whitehall, London (20.10.2023)
• 'Advancing a Child Rights Informed Approach to Antislavery Policy and Practice’, Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, University of Oxford, April 2023 (LINK)
• British Academy and Royal Irish Academy, selected to attend the ‘Knowledge Frontiers Symposium, Royal Society, London (February 2023)
• The International Law of Child Trafficking – The Silence of History, 6.04.2022, TraffLab, Tel Aviv University, Israel https://www.trafflab.org/about
• ‘Decolonising Children’s Rights: Critical reflections workshop’, 7th Children’s Rights Research Symposium, Children’s Rights Research at 30: Reflections, Challenges and Opportunities, 15-17 December 2019, University of Liverpool, UK
• Seminar Coordinator, ‘Modern Slavery and Ethics’, Trinity College, University of Cambridge (November 2019)
• Visiting Fellow, School of Histories, Languages and Cultures, University of Liverpool (June – July 2019) o Public Seminar ‘The trafficking & exploitation of children in the 1920s’ International Slavery Museum 27.06.2019
• Lecturer in International Child Law, De Montfort Law School, De Montfort University (2014 – 2020)

Policy Engagement

• Joint Committee on Human Rights, Forced Labour Inquiry, Faulkner E.A. and Rutherford A. (2025) Written Evidence LINK
• United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child call for evidence on General Comment No. 27 on children’s rights to access to justice and effective remedies, evidence submitted 15.08.2024 LINK
• UN High Political Forum participant, New York, July 2024
• UN Committee on the Rights of the Child General Comment on Access to Justice and Remedies, Invited participant and rapporteur in Roundtable consultation, 12 April 2024 Leiden, The Netherlands
• Joint Committee on Human Rights conducting legislative scrutiny of the Illegal Migration Bill, submission of evidence in April 2023 LINK
• Home Affairs Committee human trafficking inquiry, evidence submitted February 2023 LINK

Online Publications and Public Engagement:

• E.A, Transforming Society ~ State as rescuer or villain in the tale of modern slavery? (November, 2024)
• Meet the Author, ‘Modern Slavery in Global Context: Human Rights, Law and Society’ Journal of Law and Society Blog (July, 2024)
• Faulkner, E.A. and Rogers, C, Maternity Leave and Academia: Insights from 130

UK Higher Education Institutions, Times Higher Education (18.01.2024) LINK

• The Conversation, Illegal Migration Bill: the concern for children’s rights keeping the House of Lords up all night (June, 2023) LINK
• Meet the Author, ‘The Trafficking of Children: Modern Slavery, International Law and the Anti-Trafficking Machine’ Journal of Law and Society Blog (May, 2023) LINK
• The Wilberforce Institute Blog, Universal Children’s Day: A time to pause and reflect upon our ongoing research on children (26/11/2020) LINK
• The Wilberforce Institute Blog, One Year On: Critical Perspectives on ‘Modern Slavery’: Law, Policy and Society, 30 October, 2019 (5/11/2020) LINK
• The Wilberforce Institute Blog, Summary of author’s recent publications, (22/10/2020) LINK
• The Conversation, How the UK asylum system creates perfect conditions for modern slavery and exploitation to thrive, (8.04.2019) LINK
• Open Democracy, “Britons never will be slaves”: the rise of nationalism and ‘modern slavery’. (11.09.2018) LINK
• Open Democracy, 40.3 million slaves – Challenging the hypocrisy of modern slavery statistics (31/10/2017) LINK
• The Conversation, How the idea of 'modern slavery' is used as political click bait (16/10/2017) LINK

Media Experience

• Interviewed by BBC Radio Stoke, Shropshire, Hereford & Worcester, Rwanda Scheme (January, 2024)
• Interviewed by Times Higher Education (THE) upon UKHE and Parenting
• Interviewed by BBC Radio Stoke, Illegal Migration Bill (June 2023)
• Interviewed by Talk Radio Europe, Child Trafficking (April 2023)
• Interviewed live by BBC Radio Humber in the aftermath of the Greys Tragedy (November 2019)
• Interviewed by BBC Radio 5 LIVE in the aftermath of the Greys Tragedy (November 2019) to discuss ‘modern slavery’, trafficking and immigration.
• Panellist on BBC’S live TV program The Big Questions (March 2018) as an expert on ‘Modern Slavery’

Publications

Faulkner, E.A. & Nyamutata, C (2020) The Decolonization of Children’s Rights and the Colonial Contours of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, International Journal of Children’s Rights, Vol.28 Issue 1 66-88

Faulkner, E.A. (2020) The Sexual Exploitation of Children, R. Akhtar & C. Nyamutata (ed) International Child law, 429 - 470 (Routledge, Fourth Edition)

Faulkner, E.A (2019) The development of child trafficking within International Law: A socio-legal and archival analysis, R. Deplano (ed), Pluralising international legal scholarship: the promise and perils of non-doctrinal research methods, 104 – 126 (Elgar)

Faulkner, E.A. (2019) The historical evolution of the international legal responses to the trafficking of children, J. Jones and J. Winterdyk (eds) The Palgrave International Handbook of Human Trafficking, 79 – 95 (Palgrave Macmillan)

Faulkner, E.A. (2018) 'The Victim, the Villain and the Rescuer: the trafficking of women and contemporary abolition', Journal of Law, Social Justice and Global Development (Special Issue, 'Gender and Development’, ed. Ann Stewart), Issue 21: 2018: 1-- 14

Forthcoming Publications:

Faulkner, E.A. & Bunting. A Slavery, Trafficking and the Law, A Cultural History of Slavery and Human Trafficking, B N. Lawrence (ed) (Bloomsbury Academic Press, forthcoming 2021)

Faulkner, E.A. The Trafficking of Children: International Law, Modern Slavery and Contemporary Abolition, Transnational Crime, Crime Control and Security Series (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming, 2022)

Online Publications

• The Wilberforce Institute Blog, Universal Children’s Day: A time to pause and reflect upon our ongoing research on children (26/11/2020) 
  
• The Wilberforce Institute Blog, One Year On: Critical Perspectives on ‘Modern Slavery’: Law, Policy and Society, 30 October 2019 (5/11/2020) 
  
• The Wilberforce Institute Blog, Summary of author’s recent publications, (22/10/2020) 
  
• The Conversation, How the UK asylum system creates perfect conditions for modern slavery and exploitation to thrive, (8.04.2019) 
  
• Open Democracy, “Britons never will be slaves”: the rise of nationalism and ‘modern slavery’. (11.09.2018) 
  
• Open Democracy, 40.3 million slaves – Challenging the hypocrisy of modern slavery statistics  (31/10/2017) 
  

The Conversation, How the idea of 'modern slavery' is used as political clickbait (16/10/2017)