Two New funded PhD positions available at the School 

Katie Boyle and Prof. Simon Halliday are looking for PhD candidates 

Two new PhD positions have now become available at the School, with applications accepted until April 19, 2024. 

The first, advertised by Prof. Katie Boyle, is related to the project ‘Addressing systemic and clustered injustice in the realisation of the right to independent living in Scotland’: 

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, an adequate standard of living and the right to independent living (Article 19, UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities). However, the UK has not incorporated these rights into domestic law, meaning there is no legal recourse to a remedy. The clustered and systemic violation of rights further exacerbates this accountability gap. People experience a multitude of overlapping problems relating to housing, welfare provision, health etc. (clustered injustice) and the pervasiveness of violations are often system-wide (systemic injustice) for example, through repeated errors in decision-making or support services that are not fit for purpose. In Scotland, the Scottish Government is incorporating ESCR into domestic devolved law in order to close this accountability gap. This offers the opportunity to explore potential solutions to the justice gap in a jurisdiction that is committed to addressing clustered and systemic injustice but does not yet have the supporting evidence and research on how best to achieve this. The collaborative partner, the Scottish Human Rights Commission, has identified the right to live independently in the community as a priority area where clustered and systemic injustice is pervasive. This research project aims to directly address this gap. The student will engage with front line complaint handlers using critical discourse analysis to examine how power operates to facilitate or restrict complaint resolution, and thus the right to an effective remedy. The student will be supported by a team of world-leading experts whose combined expertise in human rights research and practice has informed national and international human rights reform across the areas of ESC rights, dignity, research methods and access to justice. A lived experience advisory group will operate throughout the project to examine the evidence for authenticity, allowing experience of truth, to counter narratives of power.

See more information on Prof Boyle's project here. 

You may see Prof. Boyle’s profile here. 

The second, advertised by Prof. Simon Halliday, is related to the project ‘Time, Public Perceptions of Procedural Fairness, and Legal Theory’: 

The state requires the public to engage with a broad range of administrative agencies that make decisions about their entitlements, needs and obligations.

The procedural fairness of these decision-making processes is a major concern of legal doctrine and legal theory. Yet, two important issues remain neglected within legal work on procedural fairness: (1) time’s relationship to fairness; and (2) public perceptions of fairness’ relationship to legal theory. This project addresses these issues.

A major challenge facing administrative agencies concerns the time taken to make decisions. On the one hand, there is the problem of perceived delay within public administration, causing distress and anxiety for service users. On the other hand, under pressure of time, decision-making processes can also be deemed too quick, raising concerns that service users’ situations have not been properly considered.   This project will conduct empirical research with people who have undergone administrative processes about the significance of time for their perceptions of procedural fairness with a view to informing an assessment of the significance of time for legal accounts of procedural fairness. It will then conduct a critical assessment of the role of public perceptions for legal theory around procedural fairness. 

See more information on Prof Halliday's project here. 

You may see Prof. Halliday’s profile here.