Professor Kasey McCall-Smith

Professor of International Law and Human Rights

Personal Chair of International Law and Human Rights

BA, JD, LLM, PhD

Tel: 0131 651 4524

Email: kasey.mccall-smith@ed.ac.uk

SSRN: Papers

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Professor McCall-Smith holds the Chair of International Law and Human Rights and is programme director for the LLM in Human Rights. She joined the Law School on a permanent basis in 2014. She is a US qualified lawyer and holds a BA and a Juris Doctor from the University of Arkansas. She also holds an LLM and PhD from the University of Edinburgh.

Her research focuses on international human rights law, treaty law and she is interested in how different actors contribute to the development of international law, including the role of treaty bodies as interpreters and generators of law. For several years she has been exploring best practice in relation to incorporating human rights treaties into national law with a focus on how different actors negotiate the vertical relationship between international and national law. Prof McCall-Smith works alongside numerous civil society organisations and channels this practical experience into her teaching and programming on the LLM in Human Rights. She also has carried out extensive research on the issues of torture and fair trial in the US military commissions in Guantanamo and the conditions of detention, including how detention relates to the prohibition against torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Her recent publications focus on reservations to treaties, human rights incorporation, and human rights interpretation, which will be the focus of her inaugural lecture.

She is the Director of the Global Justice Academy. From 2017-2023 she was the Executive Chair of the Association of Human Rights Institutes (AHRI). Since 2020, she has served in different advisory capacities on incorporation of human rights in Scotland, including the Academic Advisory Panel to the Scottish Government’s Human Rights Task Force and the Expert Advisory Group on UNCRC Incorporation. She has been a visiting/adjunct professor at the University of Arkansas (USA) and KU Leuven (Belgium). She is also a series editor of the Association of Human Rights Institutes Book Series, published by Edward Elgar Publishing.

BlueSky: @kmccallsmith.bsky.social