Themes
Themes
The HRIC works to strengthen the human rights framework by enhancing its implementation and effectiveness through research, policy development, and practice. Their research team conducts various projects, collaborating with and advising numerous entities at the national, regional, and international levels to support better implementation. The Centre's work is focused on the following areas:
Business and Human Rights
Our research in this area investigates the negative human rights effects caused by non-State actors, especially multinational corporations involved in natural resource extraction. It examines the interactions between business entities and non-State armed groups involved in civil conflicts, as well as with various security forces—public, private, and hybrid—responsible for protecting corporate extraction sites.
Climate Justice and Human Rights
Specialising in climate law and policy, focusing on legal responses to climate loss, damage, government accountability, rights-based approaches, procedural climate justice, and just transitions. Recent projects include studying climate and human rights law for disability-inclusive adaptation and assessing inclusive implementation of just transitions to low-carbon futures in UK cities.
Critical Legal Studies and the Theory of Human Rights
This work is unified by a deep engagement with legal and social theory, particularly in examining how rights discourse operates across human, animal, and environmental contexts. It explores the design and application of constitutional rights—both vertically and horizontally—while interrogating judicial deference and models of constitutional dialogue and collaboration across jurisdictions. A strong decolonial perspective underpins much of our research, focusing on how legal education and human rights law reflect and perpetuate historical notions of the “human.” By tracing the evolution of these ideas through race, gender, and postcolonial thought, the research critically examines the boundaries of legal personhood and the possibilities for reimagining law in more inclusive, relational, and ecologically attuned ways.
Gender, Sexuality and Human Rights
Across our work in this area, key research themes converge around the legal regulation of gender, sexuality, and reproductive autonomy within national and international frameworks. Our work collectively interrogates how law constructs, constrains, and negotiates bodily autonomy—particularly for women, trans, and non-binary people—through systems such as Sharia-based family law, constitutional law, and international human rights regimes. We explore how rights related to sexuality, reproduction, and gender identity are interpreted, resisted, or reimagined across diverse legal traditions, from Iran and China to Europe. Shared concerns include the tension between tradition and modernity, religion and secularism, and domestic and international legal orders; the impact of coloniality on gendered legal structures; and the possibilities of law as a site for both resistance and transformation in advancing gender and sexual justice.
The HRIC has a well-established record of work with the African human rights system, particularly the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Commission) and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Court). It obtained observer status with the African Commission in April 2016. Working in collaboration with these institutions, as well as governments, national human rights institutions (NHRIs) and civil society organisations the HRIC aims to contribute through its research to a better understanding of the practices and procedures of the human rights system in Africa.
Human Rights in Armed Conflict
This research cluster is centred on the intersection of human rights and international humanitarian law, particularly in contexts of armed conflict and emerging technologies. It explores both the substantive rights of war victims, including people who are displaced or detained during conflict, and the procedural dimensions of pursuing human rights claims before international courts and tribunals. A key focus lies in understanding how traditional legal principles—such as distinction, proportionality, and military necessity—apply in modern warfare, especially regarding cyber operations and the conduct of state and non-state actors, including hacker groups and “hacktivists.” Underpinning this work is a concern with the protection of human dignity in conflict and the evolving challenges that technological innovation poses to established norms in human rights and humanitarian law.
Labour and Human Rights
This research area brings together human rights and labour law to examine how work, dignity, and collective organisation are protected within international and domestic legal frameworks. It investigates the recognition of labour rights as human rights through the jurisprudence of global and regional bodies such as the ILO, WTO, UN supervisory mechanisms, and the ECHR. Central themes include freedom of association, collective bargaining, and the rights of migrant workers, alongside emerging challenges posed by technological change in the workplace. Together, this scholarship highlights how evolving forms of work and governance—particularly the rise of AI and algorithmic management—reshape the meaning and protection of fundamental labour rights in a globalised economy.
Mental Health and Human Rights
The Centre has been involved in providing guidance/advice to a range of bodies responsible for monitoring places where individuals are deprived of their liberty in the context of mental health.
Migration, Statelessness and Refugee Rights
This research collectively examines the intersections of human rights, refugee law, and migration law, with a particular focus on how legal norms governing migration, nationality, and citizenship shape inclusion and exclusion on a global scale. It explores the limits of state power in areas such as deportation and removal, assessing how international human rights law constrains or enables these practices. The work also adopts socio-legal and comparative perspectives to analyse the acquisition, retention, and loss of citizenship, as well as the broader constitutional dimensions of belonging. A strong emphasis is placed on refugee protection and displacement, investigating how humanitarian and human rights frameworks interact in responding to crises and safeguarding the rights and dignity of displaced and vulnerable populations.
The repatriation of cultural heritage back to communities is presently going through a renaissance. Repatriation contributes to cultural renewal exampled by the African Union (AU) declaring 2021 as 'The African Union year of arts, culture and heritage: levers for building the Africa we want'. Additionally, repatriation contributes to restorative justice. Restorative justice is a way of healing wounds and moving onto the path of reconstruction and reconciliation, particularly for individuals. Contact:
Trade, Sustainability and Human Rights
This research explores the interconnections between international law, trade, investment, and human rights, with a shared concern for justice, sustainability, and equality in the global economic order. It examines how principles of state responsibility, compensation, and sustainable development operate within evolving regimes of international economic law, while also interrogating the social and normative dimensions of trade governance. Through socio-legal and political economy approaches, this work investigates how trade and investment frameworks intersect with gender, labour, environmental protection, and human flourishing, revealing both the potential and the limitations of international economic law in addressing power imbalances and advancing equitable, rights-based development.
Torture Prevention and the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention Against Torture (OPCAT)
The Centre carries out a number of activities which aim to promote the implementation of the prohibition against torture and other ill-treatment under international law. In particular, the HRIC is recognised as one of the leading organisations working on the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture (OPCAT). The OPCAT seeks to prevent torture and other ill-treatment through the establishment of a system of regular visits to places where people are deprived of their liberty undertaken by a UN treaty body, the Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture (SPT), and national bodies, National Preventive Mechanisms (NPMs).
UK Human Rights Act, the European convention of Human Rights and the protection of civil liberties
This research cluster engages critically with contemporary challenges to civil liberties and human rights in the digital and constitutional age. A central focus lies on freedom of expression, privacy, and access to justice, particularly in the context of online regulation and state accountability. Scholars examine how private governance by digital platforms under frameworks such as the UK Online Safety Act and EU Digital Services Act reshapes public discourse, democratic participation, and users’ speech rights. Parallel work explores the tension between freedom of expression, counter-terrorism, and privacy rights, including the regulation of harmful or extremist online content. Other strands address access to justice as both a substantive right and a vehicle for protecting broader civil liberties, alongside constitutional scholarship analysing the Human Rights Act, judicial remedies, and the UK’s evolving relationship with the ECHR. Together, this research interrogates how law mediates power between state, market, and citizen in the protection of rights and democratic freedoms.
The HRIC is keen for its research to be practically applicable and relevant to a variety of academics, lawyers, policy-makers and other stakeholders. We hold various events in collaboration with others. Staff at the HRIC include leaders in international human rights law and are often sought for expert advice. They are recognised as being at the forefront of human rights research and have contributed major academic publications to leading journals. The HRIC also welcomes a number of visiting staff who are human rights experts and practitioners.
As a human rights organisation, the HRIC stands against those who contributed to slavery and other human rights violations, both past and present.