Human Rights, Society and Justice Research Group

The Human Rights, Society and Justice research group brings together a dynamic and diverse body of researchers across the intersecting disciplines of politics, criminology, sociology and law. The group focuses on NGO practice; development, environmental justice and rights; restorative justice; labour and employment rights; political participation, activism and protest; neo-liberalism; gender and women's rights.

The group also engages in critical criminological research in diverse, yet connected, areas: postcolonial and decolonial perspectives on criminal justice; gender, policing and the politics of protection; the role of law and society in constructing gender and sexual identities, and victimization; and species justice and green criminology.

The group has obtained funding from the Independent Social Research Foundation, the Political Studies Association, Animal Free Research UK, Programa Raices, the Leverhulme.

Together with the Centre for Human Rights, Solidarity and Practice, the group runs (jointly with CResCID and from 2021 in partnership with the Department of Global Studies and the Center for Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Studies at the University of North Carolina Charlotte, US) an annual Human Rights Festival open to the wider public. Staff members of this group collaborate closely with Kingston Race and Equalities Council (KREC).

The group is home to several PhD and postdoctoral researchers who are carrying out research within the field.

Current and recent funded projects

Covid-19 and democracy

Decolonising political thought: a reconsideration of political thinkers

Scientists' attitudes on science, values and animal-free research

Environmental access rights in Latin America and the Caribbean

"Universal Credit" and human rights

Marginal migrants: deportation of EU criminals and human rights in Brexit Britain (2018)

Marching with donkeys. protest tactics and industrial conflict in 20th century Italy

The Security Society

From "rights-based approaches" to alternative human rights models

Beyond "rights-based approaches"

Recent events

Human Rights Festival (22–26 February 2021): Human Rights in an Age of Polarisation and Disparities

Human Rights Festival (24–28 February 2020): Empire Legacies: Human Rights & Social Justice Perspectives

The Nation(s) Decide(s): UK General Election Eve Panel (December 2019)

Neoliberalism and mental health

Brexit and mental health

Human rights in 2019: reasons to be cheerful

Human rights after Brexit

Britain and its international ethical obligations: the case of genocide

Transcending capitalism: a journey to an independent economic lifestyle

Tom Brake MP on Brexit and the rights of EU nationals in the UK

Walter Rodney: pan-Afrikanism, Marxism and the next generation

International Women's Day: Balance for Better

International Women's Day event: women and war

Amadiba community fights for future

Marikana – voices from the front line

Social movements, fighting racism in the UK today

Film and talk: Britain's forgotten slave owners

Students, do you see yourselves reflected in the curriculum?

We, the people of Europe? In conversation with Etienne Balibar

Beyond 'rights-based' approaches? One-day workshop on: Critical research into transformative practice

Impact and public engagement

The Human Rights, Society and Justice Group's work has been of direct relevance to users, beneficiaries and audiences in a wide range of areas.

Dr Radu Cinpoes

Dr Joanna Jamel

Dr Andy Higginbottom

Dr Hannah Miller

Dr Darren McStravick

Dr Robin Pettitt

Professor Kay Peggs

Dr Belen Olmos Giupponi

Dr Michael Wynn

Contact us

Dr Hannah Miller
Department of Criminology, Politics and Sociology
H.Miller@kingston.ac.uk