Staff profile

Shaun Pattinson joined the Law School in 2006 and was promoted to Professor of Medical Law and Ethics in 2013. He founded Durham CELLS (Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Sciences) in 2011.

Shaun has a law degree from the University of Hull, a master's degree, PhD and higher doctorate (LLD) from the University of Sheffield, and a higher doctorate (DLitt) from Durham University. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (FRSB) and a UKCGE Recognised Research Supervisor. He was a Leverhulme Major Research Fellow in 2020–22. Shaun has been a visting scholar at the universities of Helsinki and Maastricht and is Guest Professor at Tongji University.

Research

Shaun's books include Influencing Traits Before Birth (2002); Revisiting Landmark Cases in Medical Law (2018); Law at the Frontiers of Biomedicine (2023) and  Medical Law and Ethics (7th edn, 2025). The first edition of Medical Law and Ethics was supported by an AHRC Research Leave award and the second edition was awarded the 2010 Minty Medico-Legal Society Prize for best medico-legal book. The writing of Law at the Frontiers of Biomedicine was supported by a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship. For reviews of these books see: Johnson 2003; Skene 2004; Harris-Short 2005; Smith 2006; Ryan 2007; McAlister 2015; Brownsword 2023; Freckelton 2023; Alghrani 2024; Hurford 2025.

Shaun has been awarded research grants by the AHRC, British Academy, Leverhulme Trust, SLS and Wellcome Trust. He has given papers at many UK universities and in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal and the US. He edited Medical Law International from July 2005 to July 2011, and is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry and The Biologist. He has advised the Canadian Donation and Transplantation Research Program (CNTRP).

Shaun was Deputy Chair of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, which is the closest that the UK has to a national bioethics committee. He was a member for 6 years (until April 2021) and, for the final two years of his term, Deputy Chair of the Council and Chair of the Council's Horizon Scanning Advisory Group. He was one of the seven-member Working Group on Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT), which launched its report  in the Speaker's House in the Palace of Westminster in March 2017, and contributed to the workshop/publication on Human Embryo Culture.

Shaun is currently a member of the Council of Governors of South Tees NHS Foundation Trust.

Research students

I am a UKCGE Recognised Research Supervisor and supervise PhDs on topics within medical law and ethics. Please note that PhDs in Durham usually start in October. See the information here for advice on Durham’s entry requirements and the content of a good PhD proposal. I am happy to provide advice on your draft proposal, but please ensure that it connects in some way to my expertise. I am not an empirical researcher.

Research students - current

• PhD: Beyza Gözde Bıçak (p); Abdurrahman Cakurtaran; Yuxin Li (p); Miranda Wang
• MJur: Nashmil Motazedi (p)

Primary supervisions marked with (p)

Research students - successfully completed

• PhD: Thomas Bennett (Senior Lecturer, City), Benedict Douglas (Associate Professor, Durham); Daniel Fenwick (p) (Senior Lecturer, Northumbria); Marianna Iliadou (p) (Lecturer, Sussex), Joshua Jowitt (Senior Lecturer, Newcastle); Daniel Lowe (Teaching Fellow, Warwick), Oluseyi Olayanju (Lecturer, Lagos State University); Clayton Ó Néill (p) (Senior Lecturer, QUB); Zoe Tongue (p) (Lecturer, Leeds)
• MJur: Jessica Birch (p); Aileen Editha (p); Daniel Fenwick (p); Elizabeth Gibbison (née Robinson) (p); Chantell Kimpson (née Burrows); Rebecca Lassey (née Blackburn) (p); Connor Wright (p)

• Medical Law
• Moral Theory (especially medical ethics)

Authored book

• Pattinson, S. D. (2025). Medical Law and Ethics. (7th ed.). Sweet and Maxwell
• Pattinson, S. D. (2023). Law at the Frontiers of Biomedicine: Creating, Enhancing and Extending Human Life. Hart Publishing
• Pattinson, S. D. (2020). Medical Law and Ethics. (6th ed.). Sweet and Maxwell
• Pattinson, S. D. (2018). Revisiting Landmark Cases in Medical Law. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315750651

Chapter in book

• Beyleveld, D., & Pattinson, S. D. (2023). Moral Interests, Privacy, and Medical Research. In M. Boylan (Ed.), International Public Health Policy and Ethics (61-73). (2nd). Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39973-2_5
• Beyleveld, D., & Pattinson, S. (2023). The Concept of Human Rights in the UDHR and the Rule of Law for the World Today. In M. Dahlin, J. Garland, A.-S. Lind, A. Singer, & S. Slokenberga (Eds.), Festskrift till Elisabeth Rynning: Integritet och rättssäkerhet inom och bortom den medicinska rätten (41–55). Iustus
• Pattinson, S. D. (2017). Advance Refusals and the Personal Identity Objection. In P. Capps, & S. D. Pattinson (Eds.), Ethical rationalism and the law (91-108). Hart Publishing. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781509910014.ch-006
• Pattinson, S. D., & Capps, P. (2017). The Past, Present and Future of Ethical Rationalism. In P. Capps, & S. D. Pattinson (Eds.), Ethical rationalism and the law (1-16). Hart Publishing
• Pattinson, S. D. (2015). Contemporaneous and Advance Requests: The Fight for Rights at the End of Life. In J. Herring, & J. Wall (Eds.), Landmark cases in medical law (255-269). Hart Publishing

Edited book

• Pattinson, S. D., & Capps, P. (Eds.). (2017). Ethical Rationalism and the Law. Hart Publishing

Journal Article

• Beyleveld, D., & Pattinson, S. D. (online). Moral Precaution and the Limits of Knowledge: A Reply to Coggon. Clinical Ethics, https://doi.org/10.1177/14777509251339277
• Pattinson, S. D. (2025). Writing for Publication: Inspiration and Perspiration. Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, 76(RS), 9-19. https://doi.org/10.53386/nilq.v76iRS.1196
• Pattinson, S. D., & Kind, V. (2017). Using a Moot to Develop Students’ Understanding of Human Cloning and Statutory Interpretation. Medical Law International, 17(3), 111-133. https://doi.org/10.1177/0968533217726350
• Gerke, S., & Pattinson, S. D. (2017). EU Marketing Authorisation of Orphan Medicinal Products and Its Impact on Related Research. European Journal of Health Law, 24(5), 541-564. https://doi.org/10.1163/15718093-12341439
• Pattinson, S. D. (2015). The Human Rights Act and the Doctrine of Precedent. Legal Studies, 35(1), 142-164. https://doi.org/10.1111/lest.12049
• Pattinson, S. D. (2012). Emergency Research and the Interests of Participants. Medical Law International, 12(2), 121-141. https://doi.org/10.1177/0968533212465615
• Pattinson, S. D. (2012). The Value of Bodily Material: Acquiring and Allocating Human Gametes. Medical Law Review, 20(4), 576-603. https://doi.org/10.1093/medlaw/fws005
• Pattinson, S. D. (2011). Directed donation and ownership of human organs. Legal Studies, 31(3), 392-410. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-121x.2011.00195.x