PhD opportunity (May 21 deadline)

Fully-funded PhD with Strathclyde’s Professor Katie Boyle and Dr Saskia Vermeylen

SGSAH AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Studentships 2024/25: Justice, Rights and Remedies: empowering Gypsy Traveller communities using oral traditions to influence the right to an effective remedy in Scotland

This PhD is a fully funded SGSAH studentship including fees and stipend. The UK has signed up to international human right treaties that protect the economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) of everyone in the UK including the rights to housing, health, food and an adequate standard of living. Scotland is incorporating ESCR into devolved law in a new Human Rights Bill. Research demonstrates that the justice system is not yet equipped to provide effective remedies for ESCR violations. This means that when any human rights reform comes into force, it is not clear how justice will be delivered when something goes wrong. This is a significant gap. The collaborative partner, JustRight Scotland (JRS), is an organisation that addresses the legal needs of disenfranchised communities. It has identified access to justice as a strategic priority, in particular for groups who experience structural injustice, including the Gypsy Traveller communities (GTC). JRS have publicly called for the right to an effective remedy for a violation of ESCR to be available under the new Scottish framework. This PhD uses emancipatory arts based methodologies to situate the voices of GTC in legal and policy reform. It asks what an effective remedy means in law and whether indigenous oral traditions provide new insights that counter dominant framings of justice in practice. 

This PhD is supervised by a team of experts who specialise in access to justice for economic, social and cultural rights (Boyle); research methods (Ferrie); legal anthropology (Vermeylen) established in partnership with JustRight Scotland as a co-supervisor collaborating organisation where the student will have the opportunity to undertake an internship.

For further information and to complete an application see here: https://www.strath.ac.uk/studywithus/postgraduateresearchphdopportunities/humanitiessocialsciences/law/sgsahahrccollaborativedoctoralstudentships202425/

Deadline: Tuesday 21 May 2024, 5pm

Duration: 3.5 years full time beginning 1 October 2024.

Funding: SGSAH CDA (Collaborative Doctoral Award) for Home Fees & Stipend