Mr Malcolm Combe

Senior Lecturer

Law

Contact

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Personal statement

Malcolm joined the School of Law in December 2019. Prior to that, he was a Senior Lecturer at the University of Aberdeen (which he joined in March 2011), and before that he was a solicitor in private practice in a Scottish law firm. Whilst in practice, he specialised in capital projects/infrastructure, and spent eight months on secondment to the investment arm of a FTSE 100 company. He also gained experience in commercial property, rural property, and banking. He qualified as a solicitor in Scotland in 2008 and in England and Wales in 2009.

As an academic Malcolm's work has tended to have a property law focus, with particular interests being land law reform, public access to land, and landlord and tenant law. He also has an interest in access to justice and clinical legal education.

Malcolm acts as the School's dedicated, research-active Communications Director, a role that includes the curation of content for the Strathclyde Law Blog.

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Area of Expertise

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

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Teaching

Property law, land law (including land reform), commercial law, legal and professional skills, clinicial legal education, and access to justice.

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Professional Activities

Who Gets to Own Scotland?
Interviewee
26/2/2025
Can a company enter into a PRT as a tenant? Rangers FC sportingly put this to the test
Blogger
25/1/2025
Heritage in War and Peace IV "Heritage and Human Rights Perspectives through Past, Present and Future"
Participant
5/12/2024
What does activist ban mean for salmon farms and public?
Contributor
26/11/2024
Rent control battle comes to Britain - but do they work?
Contributor
20/11/2024
The Renters’ Rights Bill – what will it mean for Scottish renters?
Blogger
23/9/2024

More professional activities

Projects

Paterson Festschrift
Combe, Malcolm (Principal Investigator)
30-Jan-2024 - 31-Jan-2025
Scotland’s Land Reform Futures
Combe, Malcolm (Researcher)
The project ‘Scotland’s Land Reform Futures’ will support Scottish Government policy development regarding land reform, community land ownership and engagement in land use decision-making, as well as increase understanding of the role of land ownership and land reform in achieving net zero emissions and reversing biodiversity decline in Scotland. The project will build knowledge of Scottish land reform processes and outcomes that can contribute to wider global land issues requiring urgent attention. It will seek to advance social theory on community empowerment, social justice, and the potential for progressive property rights in Scotland. The research team comprises researchers from the James Hutton Institute and Scotland’s Rural College. It is part of the Scottish Government’s Strategic Research Programme 2022-2027.
29-Jan-2022
(UN)EARTHING NEW PATHWAYS FOR A JUSTICE TRANSITION: CULTIVATING HOPE AND FOOD ON CONTESTED TERRAINS IN SCOTLAND, AMAZON AND THE ARCTIC
Garvey, Brian (Principal Investigator) Combe, Malcolm (Co-investigator) Shapovalova, Daria (Co-investigator)
The programme brings together a multidisciplinary team of researchers from Law, Geography, Sociology of Work and Political Economy with leading figures from crofting, smallholding and indigenous communities in Scotland, the Amazon and Arctic.

This project aims to collectively produce and share both ancestral and new academic knowledge across a nexus that is critical to a just transition: the globalised financialisation of land for both the carbon and green economy, smallholder and community access to land, and sustainable production of food. These dimensions come to ground, literally, in arable land that has been an increasingly prized destination for corporate finance, with subsequent rising land prices and a deepening of contestation between commodity and food production. The programme is attentive to new policy instruments in Scotland including land reform, transparency and local empowerment and the plural ways in which other communities negotiate tensions between land asset capture for speculation, monocultures and energy forms on one hand; and rural or forest based livelihoods on the other.

The programme hinges on a hopeful dialogue across these frontiers in order to i) unearth commonality in values, experiences and aspirations for socially and ecologically committed cultivation of land; ii) investigate legal instruments within and across borders for their realisation; iii) make recommendations for effective policy implementation in Scotland.
01-Jan-2022 - 03-Jan-2022
(UN)EARTHING NEW PATHWAYS FOR A JUSTICE TRANSITION: CULTIVATING HOPE AND FOOD ON CONTESTED TERRAINS IN SCOTLAND, AMAZON AND THE ARCTIC
Garvey, Brian (Principal Investigator) Combe, Malcolm (Co-investigator)
The programme brings together a multidisciplinary team of researchers from Law, Geography, Sociology of Work and Political Economy with leading figures from crofting, smallholding and indigenous communities in Scotland, the Amazon and Arctic.

This project aims to collectively produce and share both ancestral and new academic knowledge across a nexus that is critical to a just transition: the globalised financialisation of land for both the carbon and green economy, smallholder and community access to land, and sustainable production of food. These dimensions come to ground, literally, in arable land that has been an increasingly prized destination for corporate finance, with subsequent rising land prices and a deepening of contestation between commodity and food production. The programme is attentive to new policy instruments in Scotland including land reform, transparency and local empowerment and the plural ways in which other communities negotiate tensions between land asset capture for speculation, monocultures and energy forms on one hand; and rural or forest based livelihoods on the other.

The programme hinges on a hopeful dialogue across these frontiers in order to i) unearth commonality in values, experiences and aspirations for socially and ecologically committed cultivation of land; ii) investigate legal instruments within and across borders for their realisation; iii) make recommendations for effective policy implementation in Scotland.
01-Jan-2022 - 31-Jan-2022
Land and Human Rights Advisory Forum
Combe, Malcolm (Academic)
The Land and Human Rights Advisory Forum (LAHRAF) is an expert forum that discusses the relationship between property rights and wider economic, social, and cultural rights.

The Scottish Land Commission set up the forum through a partnership with the University of Strathclyde to explore how human rights can be a facilitator for progressing land reform in Scotland.

The LAHRAF brings together leading legal thinkers with expertise in land, property and human rights, from academia and practice, to provide independent, impartial advice to the Commission on the human rights implications of policy proposals and ideas.
28-Jan-2021 - 20-Jan-2024
Creative Landscape Futures: Making Decisions with the Arts and Humanities
Combe, Malcolm (Researcher) Vergunst, Jo, Lee (Co-investigator) Bevan, Anne (Co-investigator)
Creative Landscape Futures: Making Decisions with the Arts and Humanities (2020-22)

As part of a wider AHRC RCUK programme on landscape decision-making, this research network is exploring the ways that research in the arts and humanities can contribute to how decisions are made about landscape in rural Scotland. It involves a range of network partners and stakeholders.
25-Jan-2019

More projects

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Contact

Mr Malcolm Combe
Senior Lecturer
Law

Email: malcolm.combe@strath.ac.uk
Tel: Unlisted