Social justice and human rights

SJHR

Social justice and human rights

This cluster brings together academic colleagues in the Law School whose work explores social justice and human rights broadly.

Areas of research include socio-legal research approaches, medicolegal research and ethics, public law, disability law, gender equality, sexuality and queer approaches to law, immigration law and asylum, prison reform and resistance, human rights, courts and judges, African law and society, and media and the law.

Cluster convenor: Dr Martha Gayoye

Cluster overview

Building on the Law School's longstanding reputation for progressive approaches to social and legal change and excellence in socio-legal research, SJHR members apply a range of doctrinal, empirical and theoretical methodologies to diverse legal settings raising issues of social justice and human rights. Drawing from critical, feminist, queer, Marxist, materialist, postmodern and post-structural theories, alongside moral and political philosophy, SJHR scholars engage with the law as both productive of injustice and as a possible site of resistance.

The research expertise and interests of SJHR members are wide-ranging but current research areas include:

Socio-legal research approaches
Medicolegal research and ethics
Public law
Disability law
Gender equality
Sexuality and queer approaches to law
Immigration law and asylum
Prison reform and resistance
Human rights
Courts and judges
African law and society
Media and the law

Dr Martha Gayoye – Cluster Convenor. Areas of research interest are socio-legal approaches to law and public law, gendered constitutionalism, gender and judging, and courts and judges.

PI – Courts and Judges as agents of social change, British Academy Wolfson Fellowships Awards 2023
Dr Jane Krishnadas – Areas of work: Social justice, CLOCK Convenor and Director.
Fabienne Emmerich – Areas of work and interest are in prison reform and resistance.
Ezgi Tascioglu – Areas of work are socio-legal studies, law in everyday life, and social and cognitive justice.
- Past Projects, 2022-25: Principal Investigator, ESRC New Investigator Grant ES/W003945/1 (£233,340)
- 2014: Juan Celaya Grant on Globalisation and Law, awarded by the Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law
Abi Pearson – Areas of work and interest are in disability law. Dr Abigail Pearson is a Trustee of the Research Institute of Disabled Consumers (RiDC).

Current Project: 'Everyday Plastics', funded by the National Lottery Community Fund.
Dr Diane Blenkiron – Areas of interest are in intersectionality theory, and the legal profession. Current work is on the experiences of Muslim women in the legal profession.
Laura Higson-Bliss – Areas of research interest and work are in social media and law.
Forough Ramezankah – Areas of work are in socio-legal research on immigration and asylum law.
Yossi Nehushtan – Yossi’s areas of research are legal theory, political theory, public law, human rights law, and law and religion.
Anthony Wrigley – Areas of work are end of life ethics, genetics and reproductive ethics, bioethics, research ethics involving vulnerable and terminally ill participants, and metaphysics. In 2022, Prof. Anthony Wrigley was appointed as a member of the NHS Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation Advisory Group.

Our researchers have a proud track record of knowledge exchange and engagement with various stakeholders at the local, national and international level. Some recent examples include:

Abi Pearson has written for the Conversation on the lack of understanding of the face covering exemption for people with disabilities and the potential impact on the human rights of persons with disabilities. As a result of this article, she has appeared on BBC Radio Stoke and BBC Radio Merseyside. Abi also assisted Journalism students from City University London in creating a media package, by being interviewed for a TV segment.
Anthony Wrigley’s contributions in The Telegraph, ‘The Gosport scandal’ (20 June 2018): a commissioned commentary on the Gosport Inquiry Report: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/20/gosport-scandal-twisted-parody-old-people-should-cared/; in Medscape, ‘How do we decide who gets COVID-19 life-saving treatment?’ 06/04/20. Interview on the ethics of life saving resource allocation decision-making: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/928161?src=43986_perspective_sayburn_bus&faf=1#vp_1 and co-authored work (with S. Read and S. Santatzoglou): ‘Loss and Bereavement: A Guide for Professionals Working Across the Criminal Justice System’ (2019): https://www.barrowcadbury.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Loss-and-Bereavement-Guide-for-web-June-19.pdf

Research events include:

Professor Anna Lawson (Leeds University): ‘Disability Rights and Disability Critique: Key Challenges for Legal Scholarship and Practice’, 25 March 2022 (event co-hosted with the LLM in Law and Society).
Dr. Ronagh McQuigg (Queen’s University Belfast): ‘The Evolving Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights on Domestic Abuse’, 3 March 2022.
Dr. Sharon Thomson (Cardiff University): ‘Feminist Legal History and the Case of Divorce’, Guest Talk: SJHR International Women’s Day, 12 March 2021. Video recording available at: https://youtu.be/KGhVdfL4rAs

Examples of research events organised by the research cluster members include:

Flick Adams and Fabienne Emmerich are the co-founders and co-facilitators of their new abolition feminist web platform, Read and Resist, a collective and collaborative forum bringing together a host of community, activist, and academic voices on all things Transformative Justice. As part of their web platform, they hold a monthly open digital reading group (Read and Resist), a blog (Write and Resist), and they have a podcast (Listen and Resist) and a YouTube Channel (Watch and Resist) both in their early stages. During Semester 1 of the academic year in 2020, Flick and Fabienne convened reading group sessions centring on Joy, Care Love and Resistance and the “Post-Covid” recovery, “Walking While Trans”, and Claudia Jones. Events include 13th January 2021: reading group session entitled: Black Lives Matter: Abolition Now! Flick and Fabienne welcome submissions to the platform in all mediums. Please visit Read and Resist to find out more about how you can get involved! You can also follow Read and Resist on Twitter and Instagram too.
Jonathan Hughes co-organised the Ethics of Disordering (one-day workshop) in June 2016.
Abi Pearson organised a KISI funded roundtable event in April 2020, including colleagues from Leeds University and Keele, Caudwell Children, Art Research Together to discuss the potential value of creating an online space to enable people with disabilities, families, supporters and allies to share their experiences of living with disability to increase representation in legal and policy discourse.
Anthony Wrigley was the lead organiser for a one day, multi-disciplinary conference at Keele (on the 24th of September 2018), supported by KISI and the Royal Institute of Philosophy: ‘What is the role of Compassion in Decision-Making when working with Vulnerable and Marginalised people’.

Everyday Plastics, funded by the National Lottery Community Fund.
Courts and judges as agents of social change 2023–26, funded by the British Academy. This project is convened by Dr Martha Gayoye as Principal Investigator.
CLOCK (Community Legal Outreach Collaboration Keele), conceptualised and convened by Dr Jane Krishnadas, Director of CLOCK and Director of Legal Outreach in the School.