GTA Studentships
Closed: Fully-funded Graduate Teaching Assistant PhD Studentship (September 2022)
Leicester Law School is offering a four-year fully-funded Graduate Teaching Assistant PhD Studentship starting in September 2022.
Applicants may apply with their own PhD proposal or pursue one of the following projects.
- Consent to bodily injury and the criminal law
- Who belonged to Britain in the time of decolonisation?
- Addressing the barriers to securing access to medical cannabis in the UK in law, policy, and practice
- Valuing difference: Conversion therapy in an international human rights framework
Applicants for these projects should complete the regular PhD application proposal form with the relevant project details. Their personal statement (maximum 1000 words) should explain why they are attracted to the specific project and how their background and experience will suit it.
Applications are considered on their own merits and no preference will be given to those associated with the listed projects.
Informal enquiries in relation to this post may be made to Dr Ed Bates (PGR Tutor) ed.bates@le.ac.uk or one of the proposed project supervisors directly.
Terms and conditions, and more details on the application process.
Consent to bodily injury and the criminal law
Proposed supervisors: Professor Sally Kyd and Dr Daniel Bansal
The project will critically review the legal framework on consent to bodily injury in English criminal law and suggest reform proposals. It will provide a doctrinal analysis of the historical and current legal framework on consent to bodily injury in English and Welsh criminal law; it will draw on other jurisdictions to inform our understanding of what the law ought to be in England and Wales; it may suggest proposals for Parliamentary reform.
Further project details (PDF, 112KB)
Who belonged to Britain in the time of decolonisation?
Proposed supervisors: Prof Bernard Ryan (Law) and Dr Zoë Groves (History)
The project will examine the legal and policy interpretation of ‘belonging’ to the United Kingdom during the decolonisation process of the 1950s and 1960s.
It will contribute to legal history of decolonisation, and to understanding of restrictions on Commonwealth migration to United Kingdom. It will also contribute to scholarship on race, migration and belonging in post-war Britain. The project will involve a supervisor from Law, and from History, but the student will be based (and teach) in the Law School.
Further project details (PDF, 165KB)
Addressing the barriers to securing access to medical cannabis in the UK in law, policy, and practice
Proposed supervisors: Dr Melissa Bone and Dr Nataly Papadopoulou
The project will explore barriers to accessing medical cannabis in law and possible ways to address this through employing human rights arguments.
The project will consider the proportionality of sentences for cannabis offences, the impact of criminalisation, and ways to address this by reviewing alternative regulatory proposals.
It will explore barriers to access in practice and the reasons why there is a reluctance to prescribe medical cannabis. Possible ways forward could include reflecting on ways to improve existing procedural mechanisms for NHS prescribing, and addressing the stigma associated with cannabis through training/educational initiatives.
Further project details (PDF, 112KB)
Valuing difference: Conversion therapy in an international human rights framework
Proposed supervisors: Dr Alexander Maine and Dr Loveday Hodson
Will explore the international human rights framework concerning the practice of ‘conversion therapy’. It will consider feminist and queer theoretical perspectives on the practice and its ramifications. It will address the effectiveness of these frameworks and legal ‘bans’ on them will also be assessed, which is particularly important as many countries (including the UK Government) are currently introducing proposals outlaw the practice.