Impact

• Improving implementation of human rights in Africa
  Bristol’s Human Rights Implementation Centre (HRIC), supported by ESRC funding, carried out a programme of research that provided new evidence on what affects the implementation of human rights law. This has helped to bring about improvements to policies and practices in Africa to support the implementation of human rights law.
• Demanding homes fit for habitation
  It is estimated that over 8 million people in England are living in unaffordable, insecure or unsuitable homes. Research by Dr Edward Kirton-Darling in collaboration with Professor David Cowan (Cardiff) has helped drive the legal and cultural reform needed to tackle the issues that disproportionately impact those who are marginal to housing provision.

• Protecting UK employment rights
  Over the last forty years, the UK has witnessed a gradual erosion of workers’ rights through labour market deregulation that has been balanced, at least to some degree, by the guarantee of fundamental rights through the EU. Work by Professor Michael Ford was been pivotal in protecting workers’ rights post-Brexit and into the future.
• Reshaping Migration Laws in South America
  Immigration regulation has long been a legal and political challenge in South America. Professor Diego Acosta has produced extensive research on the issue that has decisively influenced several articles of major new immigration laws adopted in Brazil and Ecuador.
• Reforming Abortion Law in Northern Ireland
  Prior to October 2019, abortion was illegal in Northern Ireland with very few exceptions. Research by Professor Sheelagh McGuinness and Dr Jane Rooney supported the campaign to decriminalise abortion and informed legislation that has enabled Northern Irish women to access legal and local abortion services.

• Reducing incidence of torture
  Over 10 years of research by the University of Bristol’s Human Rights Implementation Centre has led to significant advancements in the monitoring of places of detention and deprivation of liberty, reducing the likelihood of torture or other ill-treatment taking place.
• Reimagining Family Law
  There is a dominant narrative of lifelong ‘big money’ pay-outs from wealthy men to their ‘gold-digger’ ex-wives which pervades the popular consciousness and media coverage of high-profile divorce settlements – or financial remedies. This discourse is reflected in parliamentary activity. However, such ‘big money’ cases are rare and Professor Emma Hitchings’s research focuses on more ‘everyday’ financial remedies.
• Improving medical manslaughter cases
  Criminal prosecutions of health care professionals following their fatal mistakes are complex and controversial. An original and extensive body of research by Dr Oliver Quick has provided clarity, significantly impacting the policies and processes for managing the offence of manslaughter by gross negligence in healthcare.

• Protecting the rights of psychiatric patients
  In 2019, 1 in every 8 people around the world were living with a mental disorder (WHO). Professor Judy Laing’s extensive research in this field is playing a crucial role in shaping and responding to the UK government’s Mental Health Bill which will have significant implications for the health and wellbeing of individuals in England and Wales.