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Current Projects

Foreign nationals before the criminal courts: immigration status, deportability and punishment - Dr Ana Aliverti (British Academy, £10,000)

The proposed research aims to investigate the impact of immigration status on the treatment of defendants before the criminal justice system. While citizenship and immigration status are in principle irrelevant for establishing criminal liability and punishment, this research seeks to examine whether and to what extent they influence everyday decisions by criminal justice actors. Proposed as a pilot project, it will involve the analysis of decision-making processes in two criminal courts in Birmingham. Specifically, this research will investigate whether and in which ways the immigration status of the defendant influences the decision to prosecute, the defence’s legal strategy, the decision on bail, and sentencing choices. In addition, it will examine the impact that a prospective deportation of the defendant has on sentencing decisions. The proposed project, which lays the foundation of a larger research project, is both topical and timely given the unprecedented levels of human mobility and the impact of mass migration on public services, including the criminal justice system.

For further details on this project's funding organisation click here

Criminal Justice and the Blaming Relation – Prof Alan Norrie (Leverhulme Trust, £154,645)

This project develops broader and narrower conceptions of ‘the blaming relation’ to address four central problems in criminal justice thinking. The core idea is of a relationship between (broader) ethical conceptions of freedom and solidarity and the (narrower) ways in which these are structured and shaped by modern socio-political relations to generate criminal justice forms. The relationship between the broader and narrower conceptions is then explored in the four problem areas. These involve in summary the relationship between criminal justice and (1) social reform/justice; (2) preventive justice; (3) historical (in) justice; and (4) restorative/transitional justice.

For further details on this project's funding organisation click here

Legal and Moral theory – Kimberley Brownlee (Philip Leverhulme Prize, £70,000)

Kimberley Brownlee has been awarded a three-year Philip Leverhulme Prize (£70,000). These prizes are designed to recognise and facilitate the work of outstanding young research scholars, who are making original and significant contributions to knowledge in their field with an international impact, and whose greatest achievements are expected to be still to come. Kimberley is using the funding to work on a substantial project on the ethics of sociability (including a book project under contract with Oxford University Press).

For further details on this project's funding organisation click here

Protecting Young Suspects in Interrogations: A Study on Safeguards and Best Practice - Prof Jackie Hodgson (European Commission €375,000)

Together with colleagues in four other EU states, Professor Jackie Hodgson has been awarded a European Commission Action grant of 375,000 Euros for the project: Protecting Young Suspects in Interrogations: A Study on Safeguards and Best Practice.
The objective of this two year project is to strengthen the protection of young suspects during interrogation by the police in the EU. The project consists of a comparative empirical study of the different legal procedural safeguards in place in Belgium, England and Wales, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands. Based on these findings, this will be followed by professional training and recommendations for minimum EU rules and best practice.

Please see here for the first volume being published from the research.

For further details on this project's funding organisation click here

The Rise and Fall of Juristocracy in Taiwan: Lessons from the Role of the Taiwan Constitutional Court in Managing the Jurisdictional Conflict between the Political Department, 1948-2012 - Dr Ming-Sung Kuo (Chiang-Ching Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly exchange, £35,847)

The objective of this research project is to shed light on the conditions for judicial review in steering the interdepartmental relationship between the political departments of constitutional power by examining the changing role of the Taiwan Constitutional Court (Justices of the Judicial Yuan, hereinafter the Court) in managing interdepartmental jurisdictional conflict since its inception in 1948.

For further details on this project's funding organisation click here

Criminal adjudication in the age of migration: an international workshop (British Academy/Leverhulme, £12,900)

Dr Ana Aliverti has been awarded the British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award (BARSEA).
The BARSEA aims at providing an opportunity for early career researchers who have established their academic credentials as leaders in their field to enhance their skills and career development through playing a leading role in engaging others through the organisation of engagement events.
Ana is the co-host and leading organiser of a two-day international workshop entitled ‘Criminal Adjudication in the Age of Migration’ to take place in March 2016 at the University of Oxford. This workshop will bring together leading international scholars and early career researchers from various countries, doctoral students, and British policy makers and practitioners to shed light on the relevance of citizenship and immigration status in criminal justice decision-making.
The theme of the workshop is associated to Ana’s current research project, funded by the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust, which investigates the impact of immigration status and citizenship on the treatment of defendants before the criminal justice system.

For further details on this project's funding organisation click here

From the Haitian Revolution to Appomattox: Law, Slavery, and Citizenship in the Atlantic World, 1791–1865 – Dr Philip Kaisary (Fulbright fellowship, £44,117)

This project will focus on the constitutionalism of the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) and the interpretative archive it generated in the United States through 1865. Philip will explore Haiti’s early constitutions in order to examine how the former slaves of St Domingue sought to codify in law their vision of freedom. This project will thereby provide a more complete critical picture of how constitutionalism, nationality, and citizenship figured in the jigsaw puzzle of Haitian, U.S., and Atlantic politics in this period, arguing that the birth of the world’s first black republic generated an enduring ideological inheritance and blazed a radical trail long into the 19th century Atlantic world.

For further details on this project's funding organisation click here

No Entry: The Evils of Social Deprivation - Dr Kimberley Brownlee (Independent Social Research Foundation, £48,000)

Debates about human rights neglect social rights. By ‘social rights’, Kimberley doesn’t mean economic rights, such as basic subsistence, health, and education, which have received considerable attention. By ‘social rights’, Kimberley means the rights that protect our fundamental interpersonal, associative, and community-membership needs irrespective of our economic circumstances. The project aims to remedy the neglect of these social needs by exploring 1) the theoretical and practical credentials of social human rights, and 2) the ethics and politics of sociability in acknowledging such rights. The project aims to show that we have more reason to attend to each other’s interpersonal needs than liberal thinking tends to recognise.

For further details on this project click here

To Do, To Die, To Reason Why; The Ethical Lives of Combatants - Prof Victor Tadros (Leverhulme, £152,274)

This project is concerned with the ethics of individual conduct in before during and after war. It is concerned with decisions whether to join the military, whether and how to participate in wars, when to follow orders, and what to do after the war is over. It looks at those decisions both from the perspective of soldiers deciding how to act, but also from the perspective of those who might respond to their actions either through preventive harm, or by holding them accountable for their actions.

For further details on this project's funding organisation click here