Directory of Research and Expertise

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Research Summary and Profile

Research interests:

Civil Rights, Colonies & Colonization, emigration & immigration, Cultural memory, Globalization & Development, Human rights, International Law, International Relations, Journals, Law, Political Institutions, Politics, Social Sciences, Socialism, Communism, Anarchism

Research keywords:

Human Rights, Green Criminology, Indigenous Rights, Extreme Energy, Fracking, Environmental harm, Genocide, Settler Colonialism, Environmental Sociology, Sociology of Human Rights

Regions:

Australasia, North America, United Kingdom

Summary of research interests and expertise:

Professor Damien Short is Co-Director of the Human Rights Consortium (HRC) and a Professor of Human Rights and Environmental Justice at the School of Advanced Study. He has spent his entire professional career working in the field of human rights and environmental justice, both as a scholar and advocate. He has researched and published extensively in the areas of indigenous peoples’ rights, genocide studies, reconciliation projects and environmental human rights. He is currently researching the human rights impacts of extreme energy processes (e.g Tar Sands and Fracking - see our designated HRC website http://extremeenergy.org) . Professor Short is a regular academic contributor to the United Nation’s ‘Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples’ and an academic consultant for the ‘Ethical Trade Task Force’ of the Soil Association. He is also the Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Human Rights (Taylor and Francis) and Editor-in-chief of the Journal of Human Rights in the Commonwealth (University of London) and convenor of the British Sociological Association’s Sociology of Rights Study Group and an active member of the International Network of Genocide Scholars. Professor Short has also worked with a variety of NGOs including Amnesty International, War on Want, Survival International, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs; and with a range of campaign groups including Eradicating Ecocide, Biofuelwatch, Climate Justice Collective and the UK Tar Sands Network. He currently advises local anti-fracking groups in the UK and county councils on the human rights implications of unconventional (extreme) energy extraction processes such as fracking. 
 

 

Publication Details

Related publications/articles:

Date	Details
06-Oct-2024	Proximity to anti-fracking protests: public attitudes about disruption and hydraulic-fracturing risks Journal articles Palmer, R., Stretesky, P., Stephenson, C., & Short, D. (2024). Proximity to anti-fracking protests: public attitudes about disruption and hydraulic-fracturing risks. Social Movement Studies, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2024.2410328
10-Sep-2024	Commentary on Ecocide in the International Criminal Court: The Prosecutor v Mr X (Reparations Order) Chapters UK Earth Law Judgments: Reimagining Law for People and Planet Helen Dancer , Bonnie Holligan and Helena Howe (eds)
12-Mar-2024	Indigenous rights and reconciliation: lessons from Australia Chapters Handbook of Indigenous Public Policy Handbooks of Research on Public Policy series Edited by Sheryl Lightfoot, Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia, Canada and Sarah Maddison, Director of the Australian Centre and Professor of Politics, University of Melbourne, Australia Publication Date: 2024 ISBN: 978 1 80037 700 4 Extent: 424 pp
03-Sep-2023	The Role of Institutional Trust in Industry, Government, and Regulators in Shaping Perceptions of Risk Associated with Hydraulic Fracturing in the United Kingdom Articles Sociological PerspectivesVolume 66, Issue 3, June 2023, Pages 496-522
02-Sep-2023	Greenwashed relations of genocide Chapters Handbook on Inequality and the Environment 2023 | Book chapter EID:  2-s2.0-85165577270 CONTRIBUTORS: Crook, M.; Short, D.
01-Sep-2022	‘We're going all out for shale:’ explaining shale gas energy policy failure in the United Kingdom Articles Energy Policy 2022 | Journal article DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113132 EID:  2-s2.0-85133900786 Part of ISSN: 03014215 CONTRIBUTORS: Bradshaw, M.; Devine-Wright, P.; Evensen, D.; King, O.; Martin, A.; Ryder, S.; Short, D.; Sovacool, B.K.; Stretesky, P.; Szolucha, A. et al.
10-Sep-2021	Developmentalism and the Genocide–Ecocide Nexus Articles Journal of Genocide Research 2021 | Journal article DOI: 10.1080/14623528.2020.1853914
01-Sep-2021	Introduction Articles Special Issue - JGR
02-Sep-2020	A Paradox of ‘Sustainable Development’: A Critique of the Ecological Order of Capitalism Chapters Contributors McDonnell, J.E. Abelvik-Lawson, H. Short, D. Citation (bibtex)
01-Sep-2020	Energy harms: ‘Extreme energy’, fracking and water Routledge International Handbook of Green Criminology 2020 | Book chapter
17-Jul-2020	The genocidal pressures on indigenous peoples Capitalism’s cultural and environmental violence Chapters In the years prior to serious sociological and revisionist historical engagement with genocide studies, the discipline was dominated by a focus on the Holocaust, which came to be seen as a paradigmatic example or even the only true example of genocide.1 This bias towards the Holocaust, combined with a legal scholarly focus on the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide 1948 (The UN Convention), produced a dominant view of genocide that focused on intentional mass killing of certain groups under the direction of the state.2 Nevertheless, as with the study of human rights,3 over time sociologists and historians, with an interest in colonisation in particular, began to make important contributions to genocide studies. Much of this focus turned to the colonial dimensions of genocidal practices and the cultural method of genocide, which, during the negotiated drafting process, had been largely written out of the final UN Convention.4,5 Indeed, the narrowed down final text of the UN Convention was the product of the balance of power between political interests and the exhaustive work of one highly significant individual – the term’s inventor Raphael Lemkin – in an attempt to retain as much of his original conception as possible.6 During the UN debates over the contents of the draft UN Convention, cultural genocide proved to be one of the more contentious elements.7 It elicited strong defensive responses from the colonial powers sensitive to criticism of their policies in non-self governing territories,8 such that the protection of cultural groups was ultimately left to conventions on human rights and minority rights.9 This outcome, as we shall see, dismayed Raphael Lemkin, as it removed a key method of genocidal practice. It was also a seriously unfortunate position for indigenous peoples worldwide because their unique status is not adequately covered by international minority rights protections, which is why they pushed for their own international rights declaration for so long.
14-Jul-2020	Shale Gas Development and Community Distress: Evidence from England Articles This research examines psychosocial stress associated with shale gas development through the narratives of residents and the Revised Impact of Event Scale (IES-R). We carried out our research in three of England’s communities impacted by shale gas development. To gather data, we conducted qualitative interviews and engaged in participant observation in all three communities and conducted a quantitative survey of residents. From our qualitative interviews it was apparent that the residents we spoke with experienced significant levels of stress associated with shale gas development in each community. Importantly, residents reported that stress was not only a reaction to development, but a consequence of interacting with industry and decision makers. Our quantitative findings suggest that a significant portion of residents 14.1% living near the shale gas sites reported high levels of stress (i.e., scoring 24 or more points) even while the mean IES-R score of residents living around the site is relatively low (i.e., 9.6; 95% CI 7.5–11.7). We conclude that the experiences, of the three English communities, reported in the qualitative interviews and quantitative survey are consistent with the reports of stress in the United States for those residents who live in shale gas communities. We therefore suggest that psychosocial stress is an important negative externality, which needs to be taken seriously by local planning officers and local planning committees when considering exploration and development permits for shale gas.
14-Apr-2020	Energy harms: ‘Extreme energy’, fracking and water Chapters This chapter discusses the social and environmental harms that are driven by humanity’s reliance on fossil fuels. In particular, it examines the consequences of ‘the process of extreme energy’ and its use of one of the most precious resources—water. This chapter highlights the causal drivers and the environmental, political and social connections between the global capitalist economy, the limits to a growth economy, resource depletion, corporate ‘externalities’, political corruption, community collective trauma and the criminalisation of protest. It begins with a summary of the limits to growth, before turning to an explanation of the process of ‘extreme energy’ and the role of so-called ‘unconventional energy’ development, including its repercussions for societal use of key resources, such as water, which is vital for life as we know it.
28-Aug-2019	The Human Right to Water and Unconventional Energy Articles Access to water, in sufficient quantities and of sufficient quality is vital for human health. The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (in General Comment 15, drafted 2002) argued that access to water was a condition for the enjoyment of the right to an adequate standard of living, inextricably related to the right to the highest attainable standard of health, and thus a human right. On 28 July 2010 the United Nations General Assembly declared safe and clean drinking water and sanitation a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights. This paper charts the international legal development of the right to water and its relevance to discussions surrounding the growth of unconventional energy and its heavy reliance on water. We consider key data from the country with arguably the most mature and extensive industry, the USA, and highlight the implications for water usage and water rights. We conclude that, given the weight of testimony of local people from our research, along with data from scientific literature, non-governmental organization (NGO) and other policy reports, that the right to water for residents living near fracking sites is likely to be severely curtailed. Even so, from the data presented here, we argue that the major issue regarding water use is the shifting of the resource from society to industry and the demonstrable lack of supply-side price signal that would demand that the industry reduce or stabilize its water demand per unit of energy produced. Thus, in the US context alone, there is considerable evidence that the human right to water will be seriously undermined by the growth of the unconventional oil and gas industry, and given its spread around the globe this could soon become a global human rights issue.
13-Jun-2019	A Political Economy of Genocide in Australia: The Architecture of Dispossession Then and Now Chapters Most of the scholarly works that consider the question of genocide in Australia focus on the “dispersal” extermination campaigns of the 1800s and/or the issue of the “Stolen Generations.”1 Such studies often dwell on the seemingly ubiquitous problem of genocide scholarship – a preoccupation with positive and provable genocidal intent. In the Australian case this is perhaps understandable since many indigenous fatalities were not the direct consequence of an intended policy of extermination. Unknown illnesses such as smallpox accounted for the greatest number, while alcohol, malnutrition, demoralisation and despair played their fatal part. Moreover, it could be argued that the intent was to take over a land, not to eradicate an ethnic or religious group. In this sense we could say that territoriality is settler colonialism’s specific, irreducible element.2 Yet, the British desire to plant colonies in Australia meant supplanting,3 and as Patrick Wolfe observes “land is life – or, at least, land is necessary for life (and) thus contests for land can be – indeed, often are – contests for life.”4 Where culturally distinct indigenous or “placed-based” peoples are concerned, the basis of their culture is the land. When indigenous people struggle to preserve their cultural and spiritual distinctiveness, they are fighting to maintain control of their land5 because their land embodies their “historical narrative.”6 This means their “practises, rituals and traditions,” as well as their political and economic cohesion, in other words their mode of production (MOP), is insolubly bound up with the land and the concomitant ecosystems which constitute the essential foundations of most, if not all, indigenous groups. The ensuing land grab involved such significant amounts of violence and, what some now term, “ethnic cleansing” against indigenous groups; when considered alongside the effects of illness and malnutrition, it seemed “inevitable” that the indigenous peoples of Australia would die out and disappear.7 In a seminal essay, which takes issue with an overly intentionalist take on the question of genocide in Australian history, Tony Barta suggests that “it is not too simplistic to see in this dominant opinion the most comfortable ideological reflection of a relationship which could only be recognised in good conscience for what it was – a relationship of genocide.”
30-Aug-2018	Ecocide, genocide, capitalism and colonialism: Consequences for indigenous peoples and glocal ecosystems environments Articles Continuing injustices and denial of rights of indigenous peoples are part of the long legacy of colonialism. Parallel processes of exploitation and injustice can be identified in relation to non-human species and/or aspects of the natural environment. International law can address some extreme examples of the crimes and harms of colonialism through the idea and legal definition of genocide, but the intimately related notion of ecocide that applies to nature and the environment is not yet formally accepted within the body of international law. In the context of this special issue reflecting on the development of green criminology, the article argues that the concept of ecocide provides a powerful tool. To illustrate this, the article explores connections between ecocide, genocide, capitalism and colonialism and discusses impacts on indigenous peoples and on local and global (glocal) ecosystems.
17-Mar-2017	Geoforum: 'Fracking Lancashire: The planning process, social harm and collective trauma' Journal articles  Damien Short and Anna Szolucha, 17th March 2017
05-Dec-2016	Greening Criminology in the 21st Century: Contemporary Debates and Future ... Edited Book  edited by Matthew Hall, Angus Nurse, Tanya Wyatt, Nigel South, Jennifer Maher, Gary Potter
15-Jun-2016	Redefining Genocide: Settler Colonialism, Social Death and Ecocide Monographs In this highly controversial and original work, Damien Short systematically rethinks how genocide is and should be defined. Rather than focusing solely on a narrow conception of genocide as direct mass-killing, through close empirical analysis of a number of under-discussed case studies – including Palestine, Sri Lanka, Australia and Alberta, Canada – the book reveals the key role played by settler colonialism, capitalism, finite resources and the ecological crisis in driving genocidal social death on a global scale.
11-May-2015	Extreme Energy, Fracking and Human Rights: A New Field for Impact Assessments? Articles with J Elliot, K Norder, E Lloyd-Davies and J Morley, International Journal of Human Rights, 11th May, 2015. DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2015.1019219
30-Jun-2014	Burying Genocide: Official Remembrance and Reconciliation in Australia Chapters  in Remembering Genocide - Remembering the Modern World, N. Eltringhan and P. Maclean (eds) Routledge, June, 2014.
23-Jun-2014	Marx, Lemkin and the Genocide-Ecocide Nexus Articles with Martin Crook, International Journal of Human Rights, Special Issue, 'Genocide and Climate Change', Jurgen Zimmerer (ed) Vol. 18, No. 3, 298–319, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2014.914703
02-Jun-2014	Burying Genocide: Official Remembrance and Reconciliation in Australia Chapters  ‘Burying Genocide: Official Remembrance and Reconciliation in Australia’, in Remembering Genocide - Remembering the Modern World, N. Eltringhan and P. Maclean (eds) Routledge, June, 2014.
01-May-2014	Nakba Memoricide: Genocide Studies and the Zionist/Israeli Genocide of Palestine Articles with Haifa Rashed and John Docker, Holy Land Studies. Volume 13, Issue 1, Page 1-23, ISSN 1474-9475
22-Apr-2014	Ecocide and the polluter pays principle Articles with K. Hulme, Environmental Scientist
01-Jan-2013	The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation Chapters Encyclopedia of Transitional Justice Cambridge University Press
01-Jan-2013	Protecting the Planet: a Proposal for a Law of Ecocide Journal articles with Nigel South and Polly Higgins, Crime Law and Social Change,
01-Jan-2012	Special Issue: The Sociology of Human Rights - Editorial Forward Journal articles with Patricia Hynes, Michele Lamb and Matthew Waites Sociology October 46: 787-79
01-Jan-2012	Genocide and settler colonialism: can a Lemkin-inspired genocide perspective aid our understanding of the Palestinian situation? Journal articles with Haifa Rashed, International Journal of Human Rights, Vol 16, Issue 8
01-Jan-2012	‘When sorry isn’t good enough: Official remembrance and reconciliation in Australia’ Journal articles Memory Studies, Volume 5, Issue 3 - July 2012
01-Jan-2012	‘A slow industrial genocide’: tar sands and the indigenous peoples of northern Alberta Journal articles with Jennifer Huseman, The International Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 16, No. 1, January 2012, 216–237
01-Jan-2011	‘Rejoinder to Tim Rowse, “The Reforming State, the Concerned Public and Indigenous Political Actors Journal articles   Australian Journal of Politics & History, Volume 57, Issue 2, pages 262–266, June
01-Jan-2011	State of the art in genocide studies Review Patterns of Prejudice, Volume 45, Number 3, July 2011
01-Jan-2011	Sociology and Human Rights: New Engagements Edited Book   The first collection to focus on the contribution sociological approaches can make to analysis of human rights. Taking forward the sociology of human rights which emerged from the 1990s, it presents innovative analyses of global human rights struggles by new and established authors. The collection includes a range of new work addressing issues such as genocide in relation to indigenous peoples, rights-based approaches in development work, trafficking of children, and children’s rights in relation to political struggles for the decriminalisation of same-sex sexual activity in India. It examines contexts ranging from Rwanda and South Korea to Northern Ireland and the city of Barcelona. The collection as a whole will be of interest to students and academics working in various disciplines such as politics, law and social policy, and to practitioners working on human rights for various governmental and non-governmental organisations, as well as to sociologists seeking to develop understanding of the sociology of human rights.   Edited by Patricia Hynes, Michele Lamb, Damien Short, Matthew Waites Sociology and Human Rights: New Engagements
01-Jan-2010	Cultural genocide and indigenous peoples: a sociological approach The International Journal of Human Rights Vol. 14, Nos. 6–7
01-Jan-2010	Australia: a continuing genocide? Journal of Genocide Research 12 (1–2)
01-Jan-2009	Sociological and Anthropological Approaches’ Single authored Human Rights Politics and Practice, Oxford University Press
01-Jan-2008	Reconciliation and Colonial Power: Indigenous Rights in Australia Monographs Ashgate 2008
01-Jan-2007	‘The Social Construction of Indigenous ‘Native Title’ Land Rights in Australia' Journal articles Current Sociology, Volume 55, number 6 (Nov 2007)
01-Jan-2006	‘Reconciliation as Education: the Council and the ‘People's Movement’ Journal articles Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues, Vol 8. No 1 2006.
01-Jan-2005	‘Reconciliation and the Problem of Internal Colonialism’ Journal articles Journal of Intercultural Studies, Special Edition on Reconciliation, Vol. 26 Number 3 August 2005.
01-Jan-2003	‘Reconciliation, Assimilation and the Indigenous Peoples of Australia’ Journal articles International Political Science Review, Volume 24, Number 4, October 2003.
01-Jan-2003	Australian ‘Aboriginal’ Reconciliation: The Latest Phase in the Colonial Project Journal articles Citizenship Studies, Volume 7, No.3, September 2003.

Publications available on SAS-space:

Date	Details
Jul-2012	Ecocide is the missing 5th Crime Against Peace NonPeerReviewed The term ecocide was used as early as 1970, when it was first recorded at the Conference on War and National Responsibility in Washington, where Professor Arthur W. Galston “proposed a new international agreement to ban ‘ecocide’”2. Ecocide as a term had no strict definition at that time: “although not legally defined, its essential meaning is well-understood; it denotes various measures of devastation and destruction which have in common that they aim at damaging or destroying the ecology of geographic areas to the detriment of human life, animal life, and plant life”. What was recognised was that the element of intent did not always apply. “Intent may not only be impossible to establish without admission but, I believe, it is essentially irrelevant.” Richard A. Falk, in his draft (1973) Ecocide Convention, explicitly states at the outset to recognise “that man has consciously and unconsciously inflicted irreparable damage to the environment in times of war and peace”. By the end of the 1970s the term itself seems to have been well understood. So how was it that an international crime whose name was familiar to many who were involved in the drafting of the initial Crimes Against Peace was completely removed without determination? Documents that have only now been examined and pieced together shed a whole new light on a corner of history that would otherwise be buried forever. What is so remarkable is that the collective memory has erased this crime in just 15 years, and yet documents tell a story of engagement by many governments who supported the criminalisation of ecocide in peacetime as well as in wartime. Extensive debate over 40 years, with committees of experts specifically tasked to undertake examination of ecocide and environmental crimes, documented in the paper trail left behind tells us that this was well-considered law; early drafts, which have been referred to in some of the papers that have been uncovered, provide definitive reference to ecocide as a crime which was to stand alongside genocide as a Crimes Against Peace – both during peacetime as well as wartime.
	Extreme Energy As Genocidal Method: Tar Sands and the Indigenous Peoples of Northern Alberta PeerReviewed In this paper we discuss the impact of the tar sands development in northern Alberta on the indigenous communities of the Treaty 8 region.[i] While the project has brought income to some, and wealth to the few, its impact on the environment and on the lives of many indigenous groups is profoundly concerning. Their ability to hunt, trap and fish has been severely curtailed and, where it is possible, people are often too fearful of toxins to drink water and eat fish from waterways polluted by the ‘externalities’ of tar sands production. The situation has led some indigenous spokespersons to talk in terms of a slow industrial genocide being perpetrated against them. We begin the paper with a discussion of the treaty negotiations which paved the way for tar sands development before moving on to discuss the impacts of modern day tar sands extraction and the applicability of the genocide concept.
	Ecocide is the missing 5th crime against peace NonPeerReviewed The term ‘ecocide’, the extensive destruction of ecosystems, has been around since the 1970s when it was first recorded at the Conference on War and National Responsibility, Washington in February of that year. From the 1970s onwards many academics and legal scholars argued for the criminalisation of ecocide and debated the elements required for such an international crime. During the 1970s, 80s and 90s making ecocide an international crime was also considered by the United Nations International Law Commission (ILC) for inclusion in the Code of Crimes Against the Peace and Security of Mankind (‘the Code’), which later became the Rome Statute,1 and by the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities for inclusion in the extension of the Convention on Genocide.2 A number of questions kept arising: Should ecocide be a crime in peacetime and wartime? Does the offender’s intent to commit the crime matter or are the consequences of extensive destruction of ecosystems severe enough to warrant ecocide being a crime of strict liability regardless of the offender’s intent? This report pieces together and examines the history of the Law of Ecocide, shedding a whole new light on a corner of history that would otherwise have remained buried. Perhaps one of the most interesting issues highlighted by this report concerns the manner in which ecocide, a concept that was familiar and supported by many as one that should be enshrined in international law, was dropped by the ILC in 1996.
	Throwing petrol on a fire: the human and environmental cost of tar sands production PeerReviewed In this opinion piece, independent researcher Jennifer Huseman and Senior Lecturer in Human Rights in the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Dr Damien Short, examine Canada’s tar sands oil industry and its effect on indigenous communities. They describe how the industry ‘externalities’ of environmental degradation and pollution are seriously affecting the health of indigenous communities and threatening their physical and cultural survival. Furthermore,due to the enormous carbon footprint associated with the exploitation of the tar sands, the authors argue that they are a danger to us all. They call for a halt to tar sands expansion, the instigation of effective environmental clean-up procedures and measures to address the health issues facing indigenous peoples as a result of tar sands operations. They also call on national and international financial institutions to immediately withdraw funding from the tar sands expansion and operations.
Nov-2015	Researching and studying human rights: interdisciplinary insight PeerReviewed Since 1948, the study of human rights has been dominated by legal scholarship that has sought to investigate the development of human rights law, emerging jurisprudence, regional systems, the decisions and recommendations of human rights mechanisms and institutions and to a lesser extent the ‘compliance gaps’ between state commitments and actions. Even so, in all of these spheres there are elements that cannot be fully understood through a purely legal lens, moreover, if we understand ‘human rights’ more broadly, and look into the practical world of human rights work and human rights discourse, advocacy and activism, then we need to go beyond legal analysis. Indeed, to understand the world of human rights in both theory and practice requires interdisciplinary insight, as it covers an enormous range of social, political, economic and environmental issues. In this chapter, I will outline the contributions of two disciplines that were slow to contribute to the field of human rights but which offer vitally important insights that can guide both academic research and human rights advocacy.
May-2015	Extreme energy, ‘fracking’ and human rights: a new field for human rights impact assessments? PeerReviewed This article explores the potential human rights impacts of the ‘extreme energy’ process, specifically focussing on the production of shale gas, coal-bed methane (CBM) and ‘tight oil’, known colloquially as ‘fracking’. The article locates the discussion within a broader context of resource depletion, the ‘limits to growth’ and the process of extreme energy itself. Utilising recent secondary data from the United States and Australia, combined with the preliminary findings of our ethnographic fieldwork in the United Kingdom, the article outlines a prima facie case for investigating ‘fracking’ development through a human rights lens. Indeed, based on considerable emerging evidence we argue that ‘fracking’ development poses a significant risk to a range of key human rights and should thus form the subject of a multitude of comprehensive, interdisciplinary human rights impact assessments (HRIAs) as a matter of urgency. Finally, given the close relationships between government and extractive industries, we argue that these impact assessments must do more than bolster corporate social responsibility (CSR) statements and should be truly independent of either government or industry influence.

Additional Publications

Publications available in Senate House Libraries

Government/policy work:

Date	Details
2011	United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Academic contributor

Research Projects & Supervisions

Research projects:

Details
Indigenous Peoples' and Minority Rights Human Rights Consortium Project period: 01-Oct-2012 - 31-Mar-2015 Research interests: Civil Rights, Communities, Classes, Races, Human rights
Extreme Energy Initiative Human Rights Consortium Project period: 01-Oct-2012 - 17-Mar-2014 Research interests: Communities, Classes, Races, Human rights
Indigenous Peoples and Extreme Energy This project investigates the effects on local indigenous communities of the new rush for 'extreme energy' - the Alberta 'Tar Sands' and 'Gas Shale Fracking'.
The social construction of unconventional gas extraction: Towards a greater understanding of Socio-economic impact of unconventional gas development  Led by Northumbria University

Current PhD topics supervised:

Dates	Details
From: Until: 01-Apr-2012	Reconciliation in Rwanda Jenifer Melvin
From: Until:	Corporate Power and Human Rights Nick Connolly

Past PhD topics supervised:

Dates	Details
From: Until:	Oil and Ethnic Conflict in Nigeria Nelson Takon
From: Until:	The Rights Framed Approaches of NGOs Hannah Miller

Available for doctoral supervision: Yes

Professional Affiliations

Professional affiliations:

Name	Activity
Transitional Justice Network	Numerous seminars held in London, Oxford and Essex throughout the year
British Sociological Association, Sociology of Rights Study Group	Group Convenor. Bids coordinator, researcher and author.
International Network of Genocide Scholars	Conference Organising Committee Executive.

Collaborations:

Name	Type	Activity	Start date	End date
Handbook on Indigenous Rights	Routledge Publication	Co-editing with Dr Corinne Lennox	01-Apr-2011	01-Oct-2012

Relevant Events

Related events:

Date	Details
01-Jan-2011	Conference Speaker and 'Rights' Stream Coordinator Co-convened the 'Rights' stream at the 60th Anniversary conference of Sociology at LSE and presented a paper
01-Jan-2011	BSA Rights Study Group workshop paper 'Some reflections on Turner' Co-convenor (and speaker) of one day event in collaboration with collegues at Liverpool John Moores University
01-Jan-2011	Tar Sands and Indigenous Peoples Sussex University Paper presentation
01-Jan-2010	ICS Workshop: Conflict in Sri Lanka Workshop Paper presentation: 'What is Genocide?'
01-Jan-2010	Genocide and Indigenous Peoples Workshop, Bath University, October 2010
01-Jan-2010	Keynote Address - What is Genocide? Utrecht University, December 2010
01-Jan-2009	Keynote speaker at conference Paper 'Genocide in Reconciliation Studies' Conference at Utrecht University
01-Jan-2009	Radio Interview BBC World Service: Interview requested in one of my research areas: Indigenous rights in Australia. The UN special rapporteur had recently visited Australia.
01-Jan-2009	Review journal submission SUR: International Journal of Human Rights

Other editing/publishing activities:

Date	Details
2012	International Journal of Human Rights: Special Issue - Indigenous Peoples' Rights Editing a speicial issue on indigenous peoples rights which grew out of an ICS workshop in October 2010.
2012	Sociology: Special Issue - Sociology and Human Rights Co-editing a special issue of the leading international journal 'Sociology' on the topic of human rights. The issue has recieved a record number of submissions.
2012	Memory Studies, special issue - Reconciliation and Memory Co-editing a special issue of the leading journal in the field of memory studies on the topic of reconciliation.
2011	Assistant Editor Appointed Assistant Editor of The International Journal of Human Rights
2011	International Journal of Transitional Justice Frequent article reviewer
2011	American Journal of Sociology Frequent reviewer of academic paper submissions and books
2011	International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies Frequent reviewer of academic submissions

Consultancy & Media

Available for consultancy:

Yes

Media experience:

Yes

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