Although the variety and depth of research in the Human Rights and Public Law Centre is difficult to capture, broadly speaking there are four main areas of concentration:
Some of our members’ interests span a number of these categories, showing the richness of work undertaken in the Centre.
As well as working in these areas of human rights, the members of the Human Rights and Public Law Centre take a variety of methodological approaches to human rights research and work.
Reflecting the spectrum of methodologies across Durham Law School and Durham University more broadly, members of the Centre have particular methodological strengths in these approaches:
Furthermore, the work in the Centre frequently draws together strengths that exist across the other research centres and clusters housed in Durham Law School. In this respect, analyses that consider human rights in the context of transitional justice, law and conflict, gender and the law, commercial law, comparative law and EU law are clearly in evidence.
Members of Durham Human Rights and Public Law Centre frequently engage with public discourse on rights-related matters through both traditional and social or non-traditional media. This reflects the Centre's commitment not only to excellence in research and teaching relating to rights but also to enriching public debates by means of the provision of expert opinion and the translation of research into policy debate and proposals.