Law (PhD / MPhil) - 2013/2014 entry

The Birkbeck School of Law has an excellent reputation. Its body of research students has grown dramatically over the last few years, and competition for places is high. Our research community now comprises people from around the globe, researching in diverse legal areas and with different methodologies. We encourage and assist researchers to publish articles. Many of our graduates have become professional academics after, and even during, their studies here.

PhD/MPhil students benefit from the supervision of internationally renowned experts, secondary supervisors, classes in legal theory and research and presentation skills, seminars and extensive library facilities. Moreover, we offer financial assistance for conference attendance where appropriate, a comprehensive programme of independent monitoring of each student's yearly progress, and postgraduate student representation on the School board. In addition, our present body of researchers constitutes a vibrant community that organises, with the support of the School, a series of workshops, reading groups and a work-in-progress group, as well as frequent social events.

We encourage applications for research in the areas listed below, but it is important to stress that we can only offer supervision in areas where members of the School are actively working.

Areas of research interest include: legal theory; public law; language and law; law and literature; law and film; law and development; gender, sexuality and law; socio-legal studies; environmental law; company law; legal history; medical law and ethics; criminology; European law; intellectual property; insurance law; media law; law and bioethics; constitutional theory and national identity; human rights; criminal justice; feminist legal theory; post-colonial theory; legal aesthetics; law and political economy; race and law; child law; access to justice; international economic law; international refugee law; law and multinational corporations.

The School of Law is an internationally recognised centre for critical and interdisciplinary legal research. It provides an exciting and innovative environment for a wide range of research with a strong theoretical and policy focus. The School publishes Law and Critique: The International Journal of Critical Legal Thought.

Study resources include an induction programme for all postgraduate students, which offers classes on methodology, and regular research seminars, workshops and conferences.

Birkbeck Library has an extensive collection of books, journals and electronic resources in law and related disciplines such as economics, politics and sociology. For example, it provides access to over 17,000 electronic journals, which are available online 24 hours a day. Students can also take advantage of the rich research collections nearby, including those of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Senate House Library, the British Library of Political and Economic Science (LSE Library) and the British Library.

Birkbeck is also home to the Institute of Criminal Policy Research (ICPR).

Research students in the School of Law are an important part of our research culture. We have succeeded in recruiting very high-quality research students and the number of UK and overseas PhD students has increased fivefold since 2001. This reflects the School's growing reputation as a training ground for early career academics working from critical and socio-legal perspectives.

The PhD programme is recognised by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the UK's leading research council addressing economic and social concerns. The PhD is tailored to students' needs and can include generic modules from our postgraduate Masters programmes such as Research Frameworks and Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methods. In-house seminars, the Bloomsbury Postgraduate Skills Network and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Interdisciplinary Research Training Network also provide additional training. Students have received awards from the AHRC, British Academy, Overseas Research Students Awards, ESRC, Natural Environment Research Council and internal Birkbeck and Law School Studentships.

Reading groups are encouraged, focusing on particular writers such as Agamben, Foucault and Deleuze as well as issues such as critical international law, feminist theory, Latin American culture and politics and Continental philosophy. There is an informal doctoral 'work-in-progress group' open to staff and research students, allowing the latter to develop their presentation skills and invite general comment on projects. There are a number of other events designed to support research students. Additionally, an annual postgraduate conferenc in held to showcase current doctoral research. The upgrade viva examination, whereby students progress from MPhil to PhD registration gives students experience of a more formal arena in which they have to defend their work to academic staff.

• Maria Aristodemou, LLB, LLM: Law and literature; feminist legal theory; international law.
• Jose Bellido, LLB, LLM, PhD: Intellectual property law; defamation; privacy and comparative law.
• Professor Bill Bowring, BA, Barrister: Human rights; minority rights; international law; legal theory; public law; comparative law; Soviet and post-Soviet law.
• Eddie Bruce-Jones, BA, MA, JD, LLM: Comparative anti-discrimination law; human rights law; refugee law; legal theory; prison policy; legal anthropology.  
• Marinos Diamantides, BA, LLM, PhD: Legal theory; political philosophy, theology and comparative constitutional law; history and politics of law in Muslim-majority countries; moral and legal reasoning; ethics of alterity; public international law.
• Professor Costas Douzinas, LLB, LLM, PhD: Critical jurisprudence; human rights; radical political philosophy; aesthetics, psychoanalysis and law; critical social theory; political and legal theology; empire, cosmopolitanism and human rights.
• Professor Michelle Everson, LLB, PhD: EU law; regulatory theory; insurance; administrative law.
• Professor Peter Fitzpatrick, LLB, LLM, Solicitor: Post-structural and post-colonial theory; international law and the new imperialism; sovereignty and indigenous rights; political philosophy.
• Adam Gearey, BA, MA, PhD: Political philosophy; deconstruction; justice.
• Zeina Ghandour, BA, LLM: Cultural property; post colonial theory; Palestine; legal education.
• Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, LLB, LLM, PhD: Comparative public law; comparative history and philosophy of human rights; political economy and development; decolonial Marxism and critique; human rights, theatre and cinema; politics in the Americas; political philosophy and legal theory; law and globalisation.
• Piyel Haldar, LLB, PhD: Evidence law; legal history; law, post-colonial theory and orientalism; legal aesthetics; law, visuality and semiotics; court room architecture; animals and the law.
• Professor Patrick Hanafin, BA, PhD: Bioethics (particularly reproductive politics, genetics and end-of-life issues); law and political identity formation; law and literature; law and gender; comparative medical law (particularly Ireland and Italy).
• Professor Mike Hough, BA, MA: Co-Director of the Institute for Criminal Policy Research (ICPR): procedural justice theory and public trust in justice; public perceptions of crime and justice; policing and police legitimacy; sentencing and sentencing guidelines; offender rehabilitation and desistance (and its evaluation).
• Sarah Lamble, BA, MA: Criminal justice and imprisonment; law, gender and sexuality; law and social movements; feminist, critical race and queer theory.
• Elena Loizidou, BA, LLM, PhD: Legal theory; criminal law; gender, sexuality and law; citizenship.
• Professor Fiona Macmillan, LLB, LLM: Intellectual property law; international economic law; political economy and law.
• Professor Patrick McAuslan, BA, BCL: Law and development; comparative land law and policy with special reference to developing countries; post-conflict state-building and land administration.
• Daniel Monk, LLB, LLM, Solicitor: Children and the law; education law; family law; criminal law; gender and sexuality.
• Nathan Moore, LLB, PhD: Governmentality; biopolitics; space and power; surveillance; Gilles Deleuze; actor network theory; law and film; Paul Virilio; contract law; property law; anti-social behaviour law.
• Professor Leslie Moran, LLB, MA, PhD, Solicitor: Gender, sexuality and law; hate crime; judicial studies; law and visual culture. 
• Stewart Motha, LLB, LLM, PhD: Postcolonial sovereignty; constitutionalism; reconciliation.
• Victoria Ridler, BA, MA: Legal theory; constitutional theory.
• Anton Schutz, DEA, JD: Jurisprudence; legal history; European legal systems; religion and law; autopoiesis and law; comparative legal perspectives in Europe.
• Patricia Tuitt, BA, LLM, Barrister: Refugee law; race and legal theory; critical legal practice.
• Paul Turnbull BSc, MSc: Senior Research Fellow and Co-Director of the Institute for Criminal Policy Research (ICPR): The quality and effectiveness of services within the criminal justice system and intervention targeted at offenders; drug law enforcement.
• Thanos Zartaloudis, LLB, PhD: Jurisprudence; philosophy; legal history; law and film; immigration, refugee and asylum law; international environmental law; theories of property; European legal systems; planning, architecture and law.
• Professor Matthew Weait, BA, MPhil, DPhil: HIV/AIDS and law; criminal law; public health and human rights.

• specialise in distinctive and innovative research
• establish and foster critical and multidisciplinary scholarships by building links with other disciplines and by introducing the scholarly values and methods of the humanities and social sciences into the discipline of law
• promote a culture of joint research, publications and other forms of collaboration among our staff and to pursue a programme of national and international links.

The unifying themes of the School's research are social and legal theory and interdisciplinary study. Accordingly, the School welcomes applications both from lawyers and non-lawyers who wish to undertake research within the broad range of substantive areas of national, European and international law.

Examples of current research topics

• Real-world dynamics of commercial–contractural relationships
• The orthodox, neo-liberal approach to land tenure reforms in sub-Saharan Africa
• The history of copyright law in Latin America
• A critical defence of the Rule of Law
• The quest for legitimate governance and social justice: the emerging trend in post-colonial African political philosophy
• Pharmaceutical ethics
• The ephemeral art form of dance and copyright law.

• You can apply throughout the year.
• In order to ensure that we are able to provide appropriate supervision for your area of research interest, we ask that you complete an Expression of Interest form in the first instance. Once this has been received and reviewed we will let you know if we are able to provide supervision and then ask you to complete a full application for the programme.