Law PhD

Overview

Our Department hosts eleven Research Clusters, which are crucial in supporting the building of external partnerships, providing a platform for knowledge exchange, and coordinating timely responses to current legal and policy developments.

The Charity Law and Policy Unit (CLPU) carries out research into the legal issues facing charities and third sector organisations, often with a strong empirical element and leading to proposals for legal and regulatory reform, which have made important contributions to policy change in this field. Examples are the unit's path-breaking work on charity mergers, disputes in the charitable sector, the legal structure of charities, housing the mentally vulnerable, and charities and equality legislation.

Corporations, Law, and Society (CLAS) research unit brings together academics, researchers, policy-shapers, and corporate experts to rethink the key legal principles and assumptions governing the relationship between corporations and society.

Critical Approaches to International Criminal Law (CAICL) focusses on international criminal law, as the subject has become one of the most prominent aspects of international law. The International Criminal Court and other tribunals have captured the imagination of the public, and international criminal justice has become a much commented-upon scholarly topic.

EU Law at Liverpool is committed to driving forward a critical understanding of the European Union. The research cluster offers a broad range of expertise across diverse areas of EU law and policy alongside significant impact, knowledge exchange, and public engagement activity as regards EU constitutional and institutional law.

The European Children's Rights Unit (ECRU) works alongside many external members from a range of academic, non-governmental and other research-driven organisations, to pursue a participatory, interdisciplinary research ethos into children's rights. Its focus is on the European (including comparative) dimension and is particularly distinctive in exploring the interplay between different levels of governance and the impact of those interactions on children's rights.

European Criminal Law Academic Network (ECLAN) coordinates with the Université de Bruxelles and the University of Luxembourg. The network brings together academics from 32 countries from Europe and beyond.

Feminist Legal Research and Action Network (FRAN) builds on the history of the Feminist Legal Research Unit at the University of Liverpool, as a group of legal scholars who take an intersectional approach to feminist research, teaching, and scholarship.

The Health Law and Regulation Unit (HLRU) brings together a range of experts pursuing impactful research into current legal, regulatory and policy dilemmas in healthcare, including areas such as medical malpractice, patient capacity and consent, reproduction, research ethics, and mental health.

International Law and Human Rights Unit (ILHRU) provides a hub for researchers who coalesce around a number of themes including European System of Human Rights Protection; Conflict, Post-Conflict and Security; International Courts and Tribunals; Law of the Global Economy; Migration; Minority Protection; Self-Determination and Natural Resources.

Law and Non-Communicable Disease Unit conducts research into how legal instruments can be used as tools for the prevention of NCDs, and how robust evidence-based policy interventions can be designed to support effective prevention of NCD risk factors including unhealthy diets, alcohol, and tobacco.

Liverpool Public Law Unit (LPLU) draws together wide-ranging expertise in public law, in and between global, European and UK contexts. This unit focusses on analyses on analyses of institutional power, theory, and multi-level governance. It covers traditional realms of public law, but also explores how other areas of law can regulate public life, and what constitutes public law and why, exploring Marxist, critical, and feminist perspectives.