Dr Beth Kamunge-Kpodo

Dr. Beth Kamunge-Kpodo joined the University of Leicester as a Lecturer in Law in September 2023. Her research sits at the intersection of  International Human Rights Law, environmental protection, Black feminist philosophy, and public/global health justice. As such her work is necessarily transdisciplinary and draws heavily from socio-legal approaches.  An overarching question in her qualitative inquiry is the critical examination of whether legal frameworks can advance social and environmental justice, as well as tackle racialised and environmental determinants of health. Her qualitative inquiry is often through the lens of the lived experiences and perspectives of Black women.

Before joining academia, Dr Kamunge-Kpodo qualified as an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya (currently non-practising) and practiced for 5 years on issues related to strategic litigation particularly within the contexts of the protection of the rights of girls and women’s rights in East Africa, and later with regard to the protection of Indigenous communities who had been displaced from their land  by multi-national corporations and governments for ‘development’ and other projects. She continues to bring decolonial and Indigenous insights from her time in practice and from PhD studies into her feminist-informed scholarship and teaching, and retains a strong commitment to addressing structural inequalities in law, academia and society. Dr Kamunge-Kpodo holds a PhD, LLM (Public International Law, Human Rights pathway) and LL.B (Hons.) from the University of Sheffield and is also recognised as a Fellow of Advance HE  (FHEA) and a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health (FRSPH). She is also a member of the SLSA Board (Precarity Representative, 2025-present). She previously was also a committee member of the White Rose Critical Race and Ethnicities Network (CREN). Her current research broadly explores the interaction of  global health justice and the right to a clean and healthy environment.

I primarily engage in empirical, socio-legal research. My research is emancipatory and seeks to centre the perspectives and lived experiences of marginalised and underserved groups. I have a keen interest in black women’s lived experiences of food poverty, health and environmental inequalities and harms, and the (in)effectiveness and  of the law in bringing about social change. During the COVID-19 pandemic I was a Senior Research Assistant in the Centre for Health Law and Society, at the University of Bristol’s School of Law. There I worked with Prof John Coggon on a £1.4 million UKRI funded collaborative research project between the Universities of Oxford, Bristol, Edinburgh, University College London, and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, in the Public Health and Health Inequalities workstream. I have extensive experience of public engagement in various contexts within and beyond academia, including disseminating research on the ethics of racialised public health inequalities in a forum in Westminster (May 2022).

• John Coggon & Beth Kamunge-Kpodo, ‘Health Inequalities, Law and Society’ in Elizabeth Chloe Romanis, Sabrina Germain and Jonathan Herring (eds), Diverse voices in Health Law and Ethics : Important Perspectives (Bristol University Press, forthcoming 2025)
• Beth Kamunge-Kpodo, ‘The interaction of human rights and environmental protection in African jurisprudence: a case study of the landmark Ogiek case’. 115th Society of Legal Scholars Conference, University of Bristol School of Law, (2024, 4th September).
• Beth Kamunge-Kpodo, ‘Climate change implications for Land Law research’ (Society of Legal Scholars Researching Property and Trusts Workshop, University of Durham, 2024, June 5th)
• Folúkẹ́ Adébísí and Beth Kamunge-Kpodo, ‘What does it mean to dream of new anticolonial worlds from within the law school?’ Critical Legal Thinking. (2023, November 17th) Available at: https://criticallegalthinking.com/2023/11/17/what-does-it-mean-to-dream-of-new-anticolonial-worlds-from-within-the-law-school/
• John Coggon, Beth Kamunge-Kpodo, The legal determinants of health (in)justice, Medical Law Review, Volume 30, Issue 4, Autumn 2022, Pages 705-723.https://doi.org/10.1093/medlaw/fwac050
• Kamunge, B (2022). Place and health inequalities: An ethical framework for developing and evaluating policy. UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator. Available online
• Kamunge, B. (2021b) Intersectional approaches to tackling pandemic inequalities. UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator. Available online
• Kamunge, B. (2021a) Response to ‘An Equal Recovery’ Inquiry by the Treasury Committee, UK Parliament. Report submission number AER0039. Available online
• Johnson, A., Joseph-Salisbury, R., & Kamunge, B. (Eds.) (2018). The Fire Now: anti-racist scholarship in times of explicit racial violence. London: Zed Books.
• Kamunge, B. (2018). Intersectional approaches to food and gender politics in Kenya. Cha Kula, Route to Food: Nairobi. Available online (pp.16-20)
• Kamunge, B., Joseph-Salisbury, R., & Johnson, A. (2018). Changing our fates in The Fire Now. In A. Johnson, R. Joseph-Salisbury, & B. Kamunge (Eds.), The Fire Now: Anti-racist scholarship in times of explicit racial violence. London: Zed Books. (pp. 1-12)
• Kamunge, B. Mwangi, W. and Ali, O. (2018). Writing in the Fire Now: Beth dialogues with Wambui and Osop in A. Johnson, R. Joseph-Salisbury, & B. Kamunge (Eds.), The Fire Now: Anti-racist scholarship in times of explicit racial violence. London, UK: Zed Books (pp.189-197).

I welcome PhD thesis proposals in areas broadly including, but not limited to:

• Epistemic oppression and the law
• Food and environmental justice
• Black women’s participation in environmental decision-making

Undergraduate

• Constitutional and Administrative Law (LW1120)
• Advanced Land Law (LW3392)
• Bioethics (LW3550)
• Environmental, Climate Change and Sustainability Law (LW3631)
• Dissertation supervisor (LW3360)

Postgraduate

• Healthcare and Human rights (LW7096)
• Health Law and  Inequalities (LW7298) Module leader

I have previously taught at undergraduate level Law Justice and Society, Land Law and Company Law. At postgraduate level Company Law and Health Inequalities, Law and Society.

• food and environmental justice;
• racialised health inequalities;
• black women’s lived experiences of law and social injustice.

• LLB (The University of Sheffield)
• LLM (The University of Sheffield)
• Bar Training Course (Kenya School of Law- Advocate Training Programme)
• Advocate of the High Court of Kenya (currently non-practicicing)
• PhD (The University of Sheffield)
• PgCAPP (University of Leicester)
• Fellow-Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
• Fellow- Royal Society of Public Health