Human Rights Law
This research cluster considers all aspects of the law relating to human rights, at the domestic, European and international levels.
The members of the Human Rights cluster have disparate interests within this general area. These include, but are not limited to, specific substantive fields for the protection of human rights (for example, the right to life, the right to respect for private life, freedom of religion, the extra-territorial protection of human rights, human rights and immigration, plus many others) and the means and regimes by which human rights are protected (for example, the HRA, the ECHR and work of the European Court of Human Rights, the ICCPR and the work of the Human Rights Committee, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, and the role of NGOs).
Current research
Alan Desmond’s main research interests concern migrants’ rights, particularly in the context of the Council of Europe (especially the ECHR) and the UN (especially the UN Migrant Workers Convention). He is particularly interested in migrant exceptionality, namely, the ways in which states and courts attenuate the protection potential of human rights law in relation to non-citizens. Alan is currently preparing a special issue of the International Journal of Law in Context on the UN Global Compact for Migration and its implications for the protection of migrants in international human rights law.