Overview

Our Department hosts eight Research Clusters, which are crucial in supporting the building of external partnerships, providing a platform for knowledge exchange, and coordinating timely responses to current legal and policy developments.

The Charity Law and Policy Unit (CLPU) carries out research into the legal issues facing charities and third sector organisations, often with a strong empirical element and leading to proposals for legal and regulatory reform, which have made important contributions to policy change in this field. Examples are the unit's path-breaking work on charity mergers, disputes in the charitable sector, the legal structure of charities, housing the mentally vulnerable, and charities and equality legislation.

International Criminal Law (ICL) has become one of the most prominent aspects of international law. The International Criminal Court and other tribunals have captured the imagination of the public, and international criminal justice has become a much commented-upon scholarly topic. However, more recently, the engagement with international criminal law has also been marked by a sense of disillusionment. Increasingly, scholars, activists and practitioners are drawing attention to international criminal law’s biases and blind spots, as well as its role in perpetuating unequal global power relations.