Summary of Staff Research Interests

Austen-Baker, Richard
Dr Austen-Baker specializes in the study of contracts, with an interest in contract doctrine, theory and history. His Ph.D. thesis analysed the relational contract theory of Ian Macneil. He has published articles on specific performance, the history of contract theory in the United States, relational contract theory and the contract "rule book", and on the role of silence in contractual agreement. He is currently pursuing research into implied terms in contract law, and on consumer-supplier relations and contract theory and continues research into relational contract theory.

Beresford, Sarah
Sarah Beresford undertakes theoretical research within the areas of Family, Gender and Sexuality and the law using feminist and queer theory methodologies. Her work explores notions of identity construction by and through legal discourse. Sarah is curently working on developing new research on the area of Law and Religion.

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Bryan, Ian
Dr Ian Bryan researches on a number of Criminal Law, Criminal Justice and Human Rights issues. He has peer-reviewed publications on such matters as the collaboration between intelligence agencies and War Crimes prosecutors, the Laws of Evidence, Criminal Culpability, Penal Theory, the Criminalisation of Religious and Racial Hatred and on Equality and Freedom from Discrimination in European Law. He contributed to a study into the Presumption of Innocence in English law to an international group comparing issues of Proof and Evidence in the common and civil law traditions. In addition, he has published on Legal History, 'Date Rape', the Proceduralisation of Interrogations in police investigations, on the safeguarding of Civil Liberties and Human Rights under domestic and International law and on procedural realities respecting various forms of alleged wrongdoing.

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Butler, Mark
Dr Mark Butler's research interests are centred on UK employment law and EU Labour law, with a particular emphasis on employee rights. Currently he is conducting research in the area of age discrimination, viewing the protections afforded to workers through comparative analysis. The primary focus of his research is on the position of the age discrimination protections in the context of retirement.

Cahill-Ripley, Amanda
I am interested in international human rights, in particular, economic, social and cultural rights - the right to water, right to health and right to education; human rights and development (including UK development and foreign policy); human rights and conflict; the rights of women and children; international humanitarian law and methods of human rights research. I also have a particular interest in economic and social rights in the Middle East.

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Chatterjee, Bela Bonita
Dr Chatterjee's work concentrates on interrogating transdisciplinary aspects of cyberlaw from a feminist perspective, with particular emphasis on gender, sexuality and sexual expression/pornography. Her recent research has been on recent legal interpretations of consensual sadomasochism in the sphere of employment law and human rights. If you cannot locate any of her publications please contact her on b.chatterjee@lancaster.ac.uk

Fijalkowski, Agata
My research interests lie within the areas of comparative constitutionalism, legal transition and European human rights. My monograph, 'From Old Times to New Europe: the Polish Struggle for Democracy and Constitutionalism', published by Ashgate, considers Polish constitutional and legal developments and their legal philosophical contexts starting with the pre-war period. My current research on legal transition examines the evolving European human rights jurisprudence in post-Communist states. I have published on the abolition of the death penalty in the region and have recently completed research concerning transitional justice in Romania, funded by the British Academy Small Research Grant. Part of this work has involved interviews with military prosecutors who have been involved in cases against members of the Romanian Communist Party and Securitate. My investigation now turns to the ways in which post-Communist states address the Communist legacy in respective de-communisation legal measures, which continue to cause much controversy throughout the region.

Firth, Georgina
The aims of my research to date have been to create bridges between academia and practice and to attempt to engage the legal community as a whole in a consideration of effective legal reform of the law on rape. I feel that I am in a unique position to do this as I have considerable experience of the operation of the law in practice. I also try to introduce feminist perspectives into mainstream legal debate. In general, I am researching criminal justice issues, including defences and consent, and the application of human rights law to life sentence prisoners and Foreign National Prisoners. My research focuses on gender issues in Criminal and Immigration law such as fairness to women defendants in relation to criminal defences, the inclusion of women in Refugee Convention definitions, sexual history evidence, and the new approach to issues such as consent in sexual offences. I am planning a research project on victim experiences in rape trials, drawing on research about memory and the ability to recount such experiences. I have also written about children in immigration detention and have participated in workshops on this area.

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Fovargue, Sara
My research centres around the legal and ethical aspects of clinical research, regulation and risk particularly in relation to reproductive technologies and developing biotechnologies, such as xenotransplantation. I have published on the legal regulation of xenotransplantation, and issues surrounding consenting to risk. I am also interested in decision making processes and practices with regard to the 'vulnerable'.

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Kibble, Neil
Criminal evidence; sexual history evidence in sex offence cases; evidence, proof and facts; criminal law; comparative criminal law and procedure; judges, juries and lay participation; judicial independence and accountability; affirmative action.

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Kopela, Sophia
Public international law, international law of the sea, international environmental law, international dispute settlement.

Lawton, Philip
My interests centre on issues of corporate governance. In particuar aspects of culture and the influence of politics and law on governance practice. Therefore comparative and legal transplantation aspects are of interest as are the legal dimensions of modelling the family firm and governance of small to medium sized enterprises.

MacCulloch, Angus
Competition Law: particularly antitrust and enforcement issues. Recent projects include the impact of the UK's cartel offence,human rights in competition law, and IP Law.

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Mauthe, Barbara
Dr Barbara Mauthe is working on discourse analysis within the area of Public Law. Her work explores the use of theory as the dominant form with public law and argues that by deploying alternative mechanisms, in particular concepts, it is possible to widen and enhance public law analysis.

Mayfield, Ben
My research interests are in Land Law, Property Law and Public Policy, Access to the Countryside, Environmental Law and Legal History

Milman, David
My main research interest concerns the regulation of financial distress, both with regard to individual debtors and companies. There are many inter-related issues here including the development of debt relief procedures, mechanisms for assisting directors who manage distressed companies and tools to promote debtor rehabilitation.

Ost, Suzanne
My main research interests are law and medical ethics (particularly euthanasia), the legal and societal responses to child pornography and the sexual grooming of children, related aspects of criminal law and law and literature. I have writen a monograph that provides a critical analysis of the legal and social discourses surrounding child pornography and child sexual grooming entitled 'Child Pornography and Sexual Grooming: Legal and Societal Responses' (Cambridge University Press, 2009). I was involved in the ESRC funded Isis project (Lancaster University, Middlesex University and Swansea University), which developed an ethics-centred monitoring framework and tools for supporting law enforcement agencies in policing online social networks for the purpose of protecting children. For more information, see http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/isis/

Picciotto, Sol
International economic law and regulation, including corporate codes of conduct and their role and function in international law; the World Trade Organisation, including its dispute settlement procedures, and the interaction between regulation of international trade and investment and other areas such as intellectual property, telecommunications, environmental law, and food safety and other product standards.

Rowe, Peter
Professor Peter Rowe has worked for many years on the law governing military conflict and the armed forces. His main current research focuses on issues involving the relationship between international humanitarian law (law of armed conflict) and military law.

Seymour, David M.
My current research project, 'A Critique of the Rejection of Right in Contemporary Political Thought', offers a critical engagement with the work and legacy of Carl Schmitt as it appears in recent political thinking. I am co-editor of the series, Nomokoi: Critical Legal Thinkers My monograph "Law, Antisemitism and the Holocaust" was published in 2007 by Routledge-Glasshouse.

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Skogly, Sigrun
My research in international human rights law focuses on obligations, often with an emphasis on economic and social rights. My book The Human Rights Obligations of the World Bank and the IMF was published in 2001, and my most recent book (Beyond National Borders: States' Human Rights Obligations in International Cooperation (2006)) concerns states' extraterritorial human rights obligations. I co-ordinate a Human Rights Forum within the University, and the International Human Rights Obligations Network (IntHRON) established at Lancaster University in 2006. My most recent research concerns states' complicity in human rights violations and jurisdictional aspects of extraterritorial obligations.

Sugarman, David
• Responses to massive violations of human rights• Universal jurisdiction, especially with respect to senior state officials• The domestic and transnational struggle to bring General Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator, to justice, its impact and larger significance• Human rights struggles in Latin America, notably, Chile and Argentina • Transitional justice• Law and globalization• Law and society in England since 1780• Lawyers and Society• Visual images of law and lawyers• Law and politics• Legal education• Law and literature

Summers, James
Dr James Summers has conducted extensive interdisciplinary research in the field of peoples' rights, combining legal, political, historical and philosophical perspectives. His book Peoples and International Law (Brill, 2007) was cited by Judge Cancado Trindade in his Separate Opinion in the Kosovo Advisory Opinion (2010). His edited book, Kosovo: A Precedent? is published by Brill this summer. He is currently working on a second edition of Peoples and International Law