School of Law

Postgraduate Research opportunities at the School of Law

The School of Law is based in the modern and purpose-built Richmond Building at the heart of the main University of Portsmouth campus. Facilities for students include a new state-of-the-art courtroom, ample computing facilities and a dedicated Law Librarian. We are committed to delivering high quality research that underpins our teaching and continues to improve on the thriving research culture of our law staff. This means that we can provide you with high quality support when you engage in your legal research at Portsmouth.

Our researchers sit on the editorial boards of prestigious journals and legal periodicals and write for publications such as European Journal of International Law, the International and Comparative Law Quarterly, the Journal of World Energy and Business Law, the Journal of World Investment and Trade Law, and The Police Journal. They regularly present innovative papers at major research conferences run by societies such as the Society of Legal Scholars, the Association of Law Teachers, The Socio-Legal Studies Association, The European Commission of Family Law and the International Academy of Comparative Law and Journal of International Private Law.

At the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2008, our Law researchers submitted their work with the Business and Management unit of assessment (UoA 36). Among the 90 UK universities submitting work in this UoA, the Portsmouth Business School (PBS) submitted the 15th largest number of research active staff and was 27th on a weighted quality-basis, placing it as the highest south coast university and the highest modern university in this category.

Key facts

Academic staff: 21
Postgraduate research students: 8

Internal links: The School has close links with the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies (ICJS) and the security cluster at the Centre for European Studies and International Research (CEISR) and the School of Social Work. Several members of our staff are also regular collaborators at the University of Portsmouth's Forensics Forum.

External links: The School of Law has strong affiliations with business and the community, with roots in practice and policy. Our law students work in partnership with community-based organisations such as the Citizens Advice Bureau, Trading Standards and Portsmouth Mediation.

The School houses the University of Portsmouth's Innocence Project, which is part of a network of student-led projects investigating miscarriages of justice (INUK). We have also established a live employment law clinic and we are developing a consumer law clinic in cooperation with the local Trading Standards Service.

Resources

We have recently opened a mock courtroom where our postgraduate research students undertake realistic court-based activities and gain more experience of advocacy within both civil and criminal procedure.

The £1m development is an exact replica of a crown court, complete with dock, witness box, public gallery, jury room and interview rooms. State-of-the-art audiovisual facilities allow court proceedings to be filmed and simultaneously fed into adjacent teaching rooms or recorded for future feedback sessions.

"Clients" can give video testimony and the jury retiring room is also fitted with video equipment so jury deliberations can be recorded and analysed. The School of Law invites members of the public to attend the mock courtroom to view role-play of the criminal and civil justice process. It is also available to law professionals who wish to use it for training and development purposes.

Research areas

International and International Business Law

Our researchers' legal advice and expertise on international law, international energy and natural resources law and dispute resolution has been sought by organisations such as the Commonwealth Secretariat, London, the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators, USA and governments of several countries.

If your research interests lie in this area, we can provide you with excellent supervision in the broad field of national and European business law and international law with special focus on world business.

These areas include specialisms in subjects such as:

• International commercial arbitration
• International contract law
• International economic development
• International alternative dispute resolution
• Protection of foreign investment in international law
• International energy and natural resources law and related contracts
• Global economic governance and the corporate responsibility of multi-national firms (especially for human right abuses)
• The law of war
• International human rights
• International humanitarian law
• Private international law and conflicts of law
• International sustainable development law

Corporate & Employment Law

The original Business Law Research Group had a wide range of interests in business and corporate law.

The Law School's current strengths includes corporate governance (including shareholders rights and directors' pay), company law, corporate manslaughter, and various aspects of employment law. Staff specialisms in this area range from individual employment rights; tribunal procedures and ADR; discrimination (especially on grounds of religion, age and disability).

Clinical Legal Education & Access to Justice

The School of Law has one of the most comprehensive range of clinical legal education in the UK, and this experience has resulted in the law school developing an expertise in the use of clinical education as part of the curriculum. New LLM courses such as the LLM in Employment Law seek to provide the opportunity for students to develop knowledge through practical experience. Several members of staff have research interests in this field with a particular strength being the use of reflection and advocacy skills.

The success of the School in developing relationships with outside agencies, together with the School being the only institution to offer an access to justice unit in the UK has resulted in the development of a wide range of expertise in this area. Supervision on public legal education; the advice sector; costs; civil and criminal procedures; miscarriages of justice; mediation and other forms of ADR; and the legal profession is available.

Members of staff can also provide supervision into particular groups affected by access to justice issues, including consumers, environmentalists and those suffering from discrimination.

If you are interested in conducting research in this area, we can provide you with excellent supervision on topics such as: Access to justice and clinical legal education; Data protection; Employment and discrimination law; Human rights; International European and comparative law.

Our researchers can also offer you supervision on specialised learning and teaching topics including the pedagogy of learning through experience and the theory of teaching students to reflect.

Human Rights

One of the strengths of the School of Law is the wide breadth of expertise in human rights. Specialists can offer expertise in many areas of international, European and domestic law related to this area. Staff are able to supervise dissertations in areas relating to international human rights conventions and declarations (including the European Convention on Human Rights), with special interests in the International Criminal Court; law and religion; human rights and the criminal justice system; terrorism and the law; euthanasia; comparative media law and ethics; discrimination and the law.

The School of Law has several specialists in data protection law, and related privacy issues such as surveillance, and an emerging interest in how these issues relate to the internet.

Family

The School has recently developed a knowledge cluster in this area. Staff in this research area have completed doctoral studies in comparative aspects of child care disputes and the international equivalence of legal definitions of marriage. Staff in this area are particularly interested in comparative law aspects of family law issues and have backgrounds in French, Irish and Swedish family law.

The Family law cluster has developed strong links with the local family courts provide some potential opportunities for empirical research. In the area of public child law a good working relationship has been developed with the School of Social Work which may aid students who are interested in a socio-legal approach to family law.

Civil Responsibility for Gross Human Rights Violations

Global market participation of multinational corporations often leads to a conflict of duties: the duty to customers and shareholders to “do business” and to generate wealth and profit versus the duty to protect the economic environment where these business operations take place. Today there exists a reality where gross human rights violations are not only committed by states, non state actors and individuals but increasingly by Multinational Corporations (MNCs) by means of collusion and/or aiding and abetting the actual perpetrators. The often overwhelming influence and role MNCs play in the states of the developing world is not always to the benefit of the host societies in question. Consequently, a strong system of Human Rights obligations and standards for MNCs safeguarding the protection of the affected societies (and ecology) is more important than ever before. You will be supervised by academics who have an established track record in this field.

International Criminal Law and the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC)

The School of Law has got experts in the field of Law of Armed Conflict and its ramifications in the field of Human Rights Law and International Criminal Law. Supervisors offer a practice centred approach to the research due to their professional background which is both military and academic.

Other research interests

Other members of staff specialise in intellectual property, constitutional law, environmental law, legal history, comparative law, crime and military law.

Contact

For more information on the research degrees we offer, to discuss research opportunities in more detail and for guidance on the proposal, please contact us.