The Law School has a significant and growing cluster of researchers focusing on Human Rights, including specialists on International Human Rights, refugee law and Public Protest.
David Mead's book The New Law of Peaceful Protest was published by Hart Publishing in 2010 and is the only book in the UK on the subject. Our researchers have significant international links. Michael Hamilton for example organised a panel discussion on peaceful assembly at the 2013 Law and Society annual meeting in Boston with all the leading US and UK scholars in the area in attendance.
The work of these researchers has had a direct impact on public policy in the UK and in Europe, through the European Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, for which Michael Hamilton co-authored their Guidelines on Public Protest. David Mead's work relating to the policing of demonstrations has been relied on by legal practitioners, including in front the Supreme Courts of the UK and New Zealand.
There is a growing cluster of PhD students in the area of human rights and public law, often co-supervised with colleagues in the School of Political, Social and International Studies, and we plan to bring those researchers and others across the University into a wider grouping looking at policing from all disciplinary angles.