Medico-legal
This research cluster considers all aspects of the law relating to medical treatment.
The members of the cluster have disparate interests within this general area. These include, but are not limited to, ethical issues, professional regulation, clinical negligence, medical treatment and the family, parental rights, human rights and healthcare, body ownership, reproductive rights, law and technology and autonomy.
Members and research
Dr Tracey Elliott is currently working on a Wellcome Seed funded project with Jose Miola, looking at health care professionals' perceptions of barriers to medical innovation. Between January-March 2019, Tracey was a Visiting Researcher at the University of Otago, conducting research into the New Zealand Code of Patient's Rights. In May 2019 Tracey will be a Visiting Scholar at the Hastings Center, Garrison, New York, examining ethical issues in relation to Jehovah's Witnesses and bloodless transplants.
Clark Hobson's main research interests lie in the crossover between jurisprudence and ethics, in looking at judicial decision-making in cases with an inherent ethical content. Clark is currently analysing end of life issues through the context of the judgments in Conway and Omid T, building on his work published in Medical Law Review and Medical Law International. He is looking at whether the concepts of judicial responsibility and legality can be used to detail a better relationship between Parliament and the judiciary in ethically sensitive and controversial end of life issues.
Nataly Papadopoulou researches medical law and human rights, particularly their interaction at the end-of-life. Currently she is working on: a proposal to turn her PhD into a monograph (Hart); the impact the Canadian case of Carter has had on the legal challenges of the prohibition of assisted suicide in England and Wales for a Medical Law Review article; an article for Medical Law International assessing advance euthanasia requests from a comparative perspective; a short commentary on the impact Covid-19 has had, and may have for assisted dying for a special issue of Medical Law International.
Professor Liz Wicks main research expertise is on issues of human rights in the health care context, especially in relation to end of life decision-making, as well as on broader issues of bodily autonomy and the right to life. She has written four monographs published by OUP and Hart and is currently writing a new book on the topic of suicide and the law. Her current work also includes writing articles on reframing the assisted dying debate in the context of the English law on suicide, and the role of the right to life in deaths caused by the negligence of public bodies.