Research

Our research addresses major socio-political, cultural and economic questions that we face in the world today.

Primary page content

Legal expertise, harnessed for the public good, has never been more important across a range of fields including technology, the criminal justice system, human rights, commerce, and the creative industries.

Research themes

Our research takes a strong interest in the impact of modern technological developments on human rights, the use of AI in the criminal justice system and the use of technology to unearth human rights violations.

We interact with experts from a wide range of research, policy and professional centres of excellence and think tanks, including:

Our visiting Professor in Law, Martha Spurrier, director of Liberty

Events

Our research events have included:

One-day symposium on technology and human rights
Visit from the Council of Europe’s Head of the Internet Governance Unit and the Expert Committee on Human Rights Dimensions of Automated Data Processing and Different Forms of Artificial Intelligence (MSI-AUT)
High profile symposia at the British Academy and the Royal Society of Arts on the impact of the European Convention on Human Rights in the UK
Our annual criminal justice lecture, delivered by Stanford Law School’s Prof David Sklansky, and our annual criminal justice symposium at the British Academy, with a keynote delivered by former Justice at the UK Supreme Court, Lord Hughes of Ombersley

Panel debates:

The UK’s complicity in torture post 9/11 (led by the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Select Committee, Dominic Grieve QC MP)
The ‘state we’re in with Brexit’, where leading economic and political commentator Will Hutton was in conversation with Goldsmiths’ Britain in Europe experts

Visiting experts

Our world-leading research has relevance and impact and is deeply enriched by our close collaboration with eminent legal experts who act as visiting professors, including Kirsty Brimelow QC, Martha Spurrier, and Sir Geoffrey Nice QC.

Former Justice at the UK Supreme Court, Lord Hughes, discussing how criminal law thinks of international human rights

Britain in Europe think tank

Goldsmiths hosts the Britain in Europe (BiE) thinktank, which was founded in October 2015 by our Head of Law, Prof Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos.

Britain in Europe’s dynamic membership comprises Goldsmiths academics from Law and other disciplines, academic scholars from across the UK and Europe, barristers, solicitors, judges, politicians, members of international human rights organisations and other third sector experts from across Britain and Europe. Britain in Europe members produce original research and influence public policy, offering a platform for evidence-based evaluations of Britain’s interactions with the EU and its institutions. The thinktank’s strengths lie in the area of European Union law, criminal justice and human rights, and extend to key areas of European Policy research.

Britain in Europe research benefits from a wide range of dynamic external collaborations, including with Liberty, Justice, the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, the New Europeans, Fair Trials International, the European Criminal Bar Association, the Hellenic Criminal Bar Association and others.

BiE develops its main research activity in the UK, but also extends its research initiatives to Brussels and Strasbourg, particularly at the European Parliament, in close collaboration with civil rights organisations and British MEPs active there.

Our aims:

To analyse the socio-legal, economic, and political effect of Brexit in the UK and Europe.
To provide a research platform that will contribute to the construction of a future relationship between the UK and the European Union.
To ensure that the UK and European countries will remain fully aligned on the protection of human rights after Brexit.

Find out more about the think tank - www.brineurope.com

Goldsmiths’ Professor of Law, Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos, at the launch of Britain in Europe

Knowing our Rights

The ‘Knowing our Rights’ research project aims to provide analysis, and to deepen and increase understanding, of the application of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in the UK, based on academic scholarship and engagement with the public, young people in particular.

The project is concerned to ensure that the public in the UK obtains a balanced, research-based view of rights in the European Convention, as applied in the UK through the Human Rights Act 1998.

The project also aims to raise public awareness of how the European Court of Human Rights operates, how its case law is accommodated in the UK, and the consequences for our human rights that would derive from the UK potentially withdrawing from the Convention or watering down relevant rights.

The project explores these critical issues in the context of post-Brexit withdrawal from the human rights protections contained in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, and of the ECHR protections incorporated in EU law as well as in the context of continuous uncertainty about the potential to replace the Human Rights Act with a UK Bill of Rights.

Delivery of the project involves multiple research and public engagement activities, such as: research colloquia on diverse and innovative issues, for example research addressing the body and human rights, terrorism and human rights, the refugee crisis, journalism and human rights, or the future of the Human Rights Act after Brexit; film screenings; book launches, debating and mooting competitions; widening participation initiatives; and human rights workshops delivered to Yr 10-11 students across London and the UK (with around 1,800 students having participated in such workshops so far).

Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos is the lead investigator in the project. Sir Geoffrey Nice QC is the spokesperson for the project.

Find out more about the project - www.knowing-our-rights.com