The International Justice and Human Rights Centre is comprised of a small team of core Academic Members, who mostly specialise in international legal issues and human rights. In addition to these members, the Centre has Associate Members from departments across Edge Hill University, strong national and local connections, and distinguished external members. The team is supported by a our Graduate Teaching Assistants / PhD Candidates, who bring their new insights and creative approaches to our work.
Academic Members
Dr Mariagiulia Giuffré
Co-Director
Reader in Law
Dr Mariagiulia Giuffré (PhD, LLM) is a Reader (Associate Professor) in Law at Edge Hill University (UK), a Research Affiliate to the Refugee Law Initiative (RLI), School of Advanced Study, University of London, an Associate to ASGI (Italian Association for Juridical Studies on Immigration), and a Member of the Women in Refugee Law (WiRL) network.
Dr Patrick Butchard
Co-Director
Senior Lecturer in Law
Patrick is a Senior Lecturer in Law in the School of Law and Criminal Justice. He is also an International Law Researcher for the House of Commons Library in the UK Parliament. Patrick’s research interests generally are in conflict and security law, the law of armed conflict, and the use of force in international law.
Dr Jennifer Giblin
Associate Head of Department
School of Law and Criminal Justice
Dr Jennifer Giblin’s general research interests lie in the fields of conflict and security law, United Nations law, peacekeeping, and post-conflict situations. Jennifer’s current research examines international law and United Nations peacekeeping in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Associate Members
GTA/PhD students
Jessica Drew
Graduate Teaching Assistant, PhD Candidate
School of Law and Criminal Justice
Jessica is a PhD Researcher and Graduate Teaching Assistant in the School of Law and Criminal Justice. She obtained her LLB at Edge Hill University and LLM at the University of Liverpool. Her PhD research, which began in 2022, critically examines potential protections available for climate migrants who enter Europe. The project is titled ‘Climate Migration Policy and the European Crisis in Refugee Law’. The critical analysis of this research is also concerned with international law as a theory of crisis, looking at the influence of crisis thinking on policymaking.
Beyond the PhD, Jessica’s research is also concerned with the matter of statehood relating to climate change and the rising sea. Jessica’s research interests include refugee law, human rights law and critical approaches to international law. She is also a director of Support for Wigan Arrivals Project (SWAP), a charity that supports asylum seekers and refugees in the Wigan Borough.
Mrs Elizabeth Devine (GTA/PhD)
- Mrs Devine is a former Graduate Teaching Assistant (Law) and current PhD Candidate at EHU.
- Mrs Devine joined Edge Hill in October 2019 as a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) and is currently undertaking her PhD in Law entitled: ‘Exploitation of People and Planet: An international legal approach to the role of modern slavery in environmental destruction and climate change.’
Dr Holly Devlin (PhD)
- Ms Devlin is a former Graduate Teaching Assistant (Law) and PhD Candidate at EHU.
- Ms Devlin joined Edge Hill as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in October 2019 and successfully defended her doctoral research into the differing applications of the legality principle between international criminal tribunals and human rights bodies.
Student Opportunity Fund interns
Previous Interns
Mr Byron Austin
- As a Student Opportunity Fund Intern (2022), Ms Austin will assist Dr Giuffré in conducting research on externalisation of borders, State responsibility, and the readmission of migrants and asylum seekers.
Ms Georgina Lucy
- As a Student Opportunity Fund Intern (2022), Ms Lucy has assisted Dr Giuffré in conducting research on search and rescue at sea and the right to life.
Ms Tonika Stephenson
- As a Student Opportunity Fund Intern (2021), Ms Stephenson has assisted Dr Giuffré in conducting research on access to asylum and cooperation between European and African States to control migration.
External Members
Dr Jasmin Johurun Nessa
Lecturer in International Law
University Teach, University of Liverpool
Jasmin has been a Lecturer in International Law at Edge Hill University, and a University Teacher at the University of Liverpool. Her research focuses on the use of force, and international peace and security.
Jasmin is the General Co-Editor of the Digest of State Practice at the Journal on the Use of Force and International Law (JUFIL), published by Routledge.
Professor Jean Pierre Cassarino
- Prof. Cassarino teaches migration governance and international cooperation on the management of migration at the College of Europe (Natolin Campus). He is also a research associate at the Tunis-based Research Institute on the Contemporary Maghreb (IRMC).
- From February to July 2020, Prof. Cassarino directed the Chair in Migration Studies at the Institute for Advanced Studies IMéRA, Aix-Marseille University and was a visiting professor at the University of Tuscia, Italy.
- Prof. Cassarino is a member of the scientific committee of the Laboratory of Critical Studies on Forced Migration based at the University of Milan (Italy) and one of the coordinators of the research cluster “External dimension of EU migration and asylum policies” at the Academy of Law and Migration (ADiM).
- Prof. Cassarino’s research interests and publications focus on patterns of international cooperation and modes of norm diffusion and policy transfers in dynamic regional consultative processes, especially with reference to the “management” of migration and borders.
Dr Chiara Denaro
- Dr Denaro is a Postdoctoral researcher in Sociology at Trento University on the project ‘Debordering activities and citizenship from below of asylum seekers in Italy’.
- She has been a research assistant in two interdisciplinary projects led by Dr Giuffré at Edge Hill and funded by the GGRF (2019-2021) and by the ISRF (2022-2023).
- Dr Denaro is an experienced social worker and legal expert working with migrants and refugees. Her research focuses on asylum and migration policies in the Mediterranean space and on border control policies. She has extensively published in these subject areas.
- Dr Denaro has worked with different human rights organizations, including the UNHCR, Alarm Phone and ASGI.
Professor Nora Markard
- Prof. Markard holds the Chair of International Public Law and International Human Rights Law at the University of Münster, Germany. She studied Law and International Relations in Berlin, Paris and London, and has been a visiting fellow at the University of Michigan and at Columbia Law School.
- Prof. Markard research areas comprise International Law, Constitutional Law and Comparative Constitutionalism, Migration Law, and Legal Gender Studies, and she often adopts an interdisciplinary approach. She publishes widely on international and constitutional law issues, with a focus on inequalities and forced migration.
- Prof. Markard co-founded a human rights clinic and a refugee law clinic at Humboldt University and the University of Hamburg, is a co-founder and executive board member of the strategic litigation NGO “Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (GFF)” (Society for Civil Rights) and advises the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) on its migration and gender litigation.
Judge Professor Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque
- Judge de Albuquerque has been Judge of the European Court of Human Rights since 2011 authoring 157 opinions that have significantly contributed to the development of international human rights law. Judge de Albuquerque’s decisions are regularly cited by academic scholars and practitioners in human rights law, public international law, criminal law, migration and refugee law.
- Between 1992 and 2004 he sat on the bench of different courts in Portugal, and since 2015, he is Professor Catedrático at the Law Faculty of the Catholic University of Lisbon, where he teaches Criminal Law and Procedure, Penitentiary Law, Public International Law, International Law of Human Rights and Philosophy of Law.
- Judge de Albuquerque has published widely in these fields of law, including more than 20 books in English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Ukranian and over 60 articles and book chapters in those languages as well as Chinese and German
- Judge de Albuquerque has worked as an expert for the Council of Europe and the European Commission of the European Union.
- In 2019, Judge de Albuquerque was granted an Honorary Doctorate at EHU.