I am an academic lawyer with a particular interest in human rights. This spans international human rights law, and comparative and domestic constitutional law. My scholarship is primarily concerned with the role, operation and impacts of rights in complex policy areas.
I have undertaken a substantial amount of funded work, including a project funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme on judicial review in counter-terrorist contexts and a project sponsored by the European Commission on the concepts and measurement of impact, legitimacy and effectiveness in EU counter-terrorism). In recent years I have undertaken funded work on China’s national security in Hong Kong (funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme small grants and done with Cora Chan of HKU) and the structures and operation of counter-terrorism review in the UK (funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and undertaken with Jessie Blackbourn of Oxford and Lydia Morgan in Birmingham). These projects, which ran 2017-2019, resulted in two books: China’s National Security: Endangering Hong Kong’s Rule of Law? (with Cora Chan, Hart Publishing) and Accountability and Review in the Counter-Terrorist State (with Jessie Blackbourn and Lydia Morgan, Bristol University Press). From November 2020 to May 2022 I was the PI of the COVID-19 Review Observatory, funded by the UKRI: Arts and Humanities Research Council.
In 2017 I was awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize in law, which I will use until the end of 2023 to support my research into the role of rights in abortion law reform processes and my growing work on transnational counter-terrorism. The most recent major output from that work is my monograph, The Practice and Problems of Transnational Counter-Terrorism (2022; CUP).
I am based in the University of Birmingham where I hold the Chair in Global Legal Studies and am Deputy Head of Research for the College of Arts and Law (focusing on impact and engagement). I am also an Honorary Professor at the College of Law of the Australian National University. I have undertaken human rights law and policy consultancy work for government departments, independent statutory bodies, and international organisations. I have also undertaken political consultancy work on human rights and constitutional matters in my Ireland. In terms of ‘impact’ I have worked closely with governments, individual politicians, activists, advocacy groups, and NGOs across different projects seeking to secure social, legal or political change.
I regularly commentate in the newspapers and on radio and television on rights-related matters.
External Work
I am an associate of the Oxford Human Rights Hub at the University of Oxford, research associate of the Munk School of Global Affairs in the University of Toronto, and global affiliate of the Vulnerability and the Human Condition Initiative at Emory University in Atlanta GA. I am a member of the external advisory board the School of Law University College Cork. I am on the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee of the Society of Legal Scholars, and in September 2021 I was elected to the Executive Committee of the Society for a 3-year term. I am a member of both the peer review and strategic colleges of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. In 2020 I was appointed by HEFCE as an outputs assessor to the Law Sub-panel for the UK’s periodic research excellence assessment, REF2021.
Editorial Work
From 2021 I am co-editor of the Human Rights Law Review. I co-edited the Irish Yearbook of International Law until 2021, and edited Legal Studies from 2011-2016. In addition to these editorial roles, I am a member of the international advisory committee of Irish Studies in International Affairs (2014-), the ECHR Law Review (2019-) and the International Journal of Law in Context (2019-), of the editorial board of the University of Wales Press series on International Law (2015-), and of the advisory boards of the book series Diverse Voices and Law, Society, Policy both published by Bristol University Press.
Contact Details
I can be contacted by email at f.delondras @ bham.ac.uk
Professor Fiona de Londras 