Professor Kasey McCall-Smith

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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

View my publications

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

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Professor Lesley McAra

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Emeritus Professor of Penology

CBE FRSE MA PhD

Tel: +44 (0)131 650 2036

Email: Lesley.McAra@ed.ac.uk

View my publications

Lesley McAra is an alumna of the University of Edinburgh and of the Open University. She began her career as a researcher in the Scottish Office where she led a major programme of research evaluating social work criminal justice services. In 1995, she joined the University of Edinburgh as Lecturer in Criminology, was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2005, and to the Chair of Penology in 2009. Her inaugural lecture can be listened to here.

Lesley is currently the Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH). She is also Assistant Principal Community Relations -  academic lead for the local impact  component of University of Edinburgh strategy.

Lesley was the inaugural Director of the Edinburgh Futures Institute, a new cross-University initiative committed to radical forms of inter-disciplinarity (bringing together the arts, humanities and social sciences with data science, engineering, the natural sciences and medicine), co-design and coproduction (empowering and working in partnership with communities, as well as collaborating with industry and governments), and data driven innovation.

A former Dean of the School of Law, Lesley was the first woman to be appointed to that post. In 2014 she founded (with alumna, Karina McTeague) the Leadership Foundation for Women in Law. She was also the founder of the Empirical Legal Research Network, a cross-University forum aimed at facilitating partnership-working across different disciplines, pooling expertise and functioning as a resource bank for researchers at all levels of career

In 2018, Lesley was elected as President of the European Society of Criminology and, following her term of office, she continued to play a major role in the Society as part of its Executive Board (in 2021) and as a member of the working groups on Juvenile Justice and Crime, Criminal Justice and the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Lesley’s research interests lie in the general areas of the sociology of punishment and the sociology of law and deviance. Particular interests include: youth crime and juvenile justice; gender justice and community well-being; the politics of crime control; and comparative criminal justice. She is Co-Director (with Susan McVie) of the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime, a prize-winning longitudinal programme of research on pathways into and out of offending for a cohort of around 4,300 young people. Funded by grants from the ESRC (R00237157, R000239150), the Nuffield Foundation and the Scottish Government, Study findings have been utilised in penal reform campaigns both nationally and internationally and have formed the principal evidence base for a range of youth justice policies in Scotland, including the ‘Whole System Approach’ and the decision to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility.  Lesley is currently a member of the Scottish Government’s Advisory Group on Anti-social Behaviour and the Community Confidence Group, set up as part of the Scottish Government’s review of the age of criminal responsibility in Scotland. She has also been a member of the Youth Justice Board’s Academic Liaison Network (Ministry of Justice, UK Government). A former Editor-in-Chief (with Ursula Kilkelly) of the journal Youth Justice, Lesley is currently Co-Editor (with Alison Liebling and Shadd Maruna) of the Oxford Handbook of Criminology.

In 2013, Lesley was a joint winner (with Susan McVie) of the Howard League for Penal Reform Research Medal which celebrates high quality research from ‘new thinking’ and ‘radical researchers’ who have changed penal policy and practice. This was followed in 2016 with the Chancellor’s award for research impact which honours colleagues at the University of Edinburgh whose outstanding research has made a demonstrable contribution to society. And in 2019, she was the winner (with Susan McVie) of the ESRC prize for Outstanding Public Policy Impact.  She was awarded a CBE, in the New Year's Honours List 2018, for services to Criminology and elected as Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2021.

Lesley’s previous teaching experience has covered several criminology courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level including the MSc in Criminology and Criminal Justice. She welcomes applications from doctoral candidates in any area of her expertise.

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Accessibility Statement

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Accessibility statement for Edinburgh Law School Website 

Website accessibility statement inline with Public Sector Body (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018

This accessibility statement applies to https://www.law.ed.ac.uk/

This website is run by Edinburgh Law School, University of Edinburgh. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this application. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • Using your browser settings, change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • zoom in up to 200% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of Job Access with Speech (JAWS), NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) and VoiceOver)
  • use the website even if JavaScript is turned off

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand. However, some of our content is technical, and we use technical terms where there is no easier wording we could use without changing what the text means.

Customising the website

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability. This is an external site with suggestions to make your computer more accessible:

AbilityNet - My Computer My Way

With a few simple steps you can customise the appearance of our website using your browser settings to make it easier to read and navigate:

Additional information on how to customise our website appearance

If you are a member of University staff or a student, you can use the free SensusAccess accessible document conversion service:

Information on SensusAccess

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

  • Not all no text content has alt text
  • Most older PDF documents aren’t fully accessible to screen reader software
  • Some videos don’t have captions
  • accessing all content may not be possible by using the keyboard alone, where online forms can be difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
  • It can be difficult to tell where you have navigated to using keyboard only
  • Pop ups open without warning the users
  • Not all colour contrasts meet recommended guidance
  • Not all hyperlinks are meaningful hypertext
  • Not all buttons are correctly labelled meaning there are compatibility issues with screen readers
  • There may not be full compatibility with voice recognition software such as Dragon

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format, including accessible PDF, large print, audio recording or braille:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page, or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days.

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint please contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) directly:

Contact details for the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS)

The government has produced information on how to report accessibility issues:

Reporting an accessibility problem on a public sector website

Contacting us by phone using British Sign Language

British Sign Language service 

 Contact Scotland BSL runs a service for British Sign Language users and all of Scotland’s public bodies using video relay. This enables sign language users to contact public bodies and vice versa. The service operates from 8am to 12 midnight, 7 days a week. 
Contact Scotland BSL service details

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The University of Edinburgh is committed to making its websites and applications accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance Status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

The full guidelines are available at:

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard

Non accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Noncompliance with the accessibility regulations

The following items to not comply with the WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria:

  • Not all non-text content presented to users has alternative text.
  • Captions are not provided for all prerecorded audio/video content in synchronized media, except when the media is a media alternative for text and is clearly labelled as such.
  • Audio description is not provided for all prerecorded video content in synchronized media.
  • The heading structure is not always logically nested. One or more heading levels are skipped or used out of order. Also heading tags found with no content.
  • The way the content is presented affects its meaning, and a correct reading sequence is not programmatically determined.
  • There may not be sufficient colour contrast between font and background colours, especially where the text size is very small.
  • Information is conveyed as an image of text rather than as text itself, making it not compatible with screen readers and other assistive technology
  • It is not possible to access content within the homepage carousel using the keyboard only, navigation order is not always logical and the user must switch between tab and arrow keys without warning
  • Visual information to identify user interface components, such as keyboard focus, do not always have a sufficient contrast ratio
  • Pop ups open without the user being alerted
  • Duplicate ID attribute values found on some web pages
  • Anchor element found with no link content and no name and/or ID attribute, buttons were not labelled or labelled incorrectly, third-party video embed ARIA attribute does not conform to a valid value

We aim to improve our websites accessibility on a regular and continuous basis. See the section below ('What we're doing to improve accessibility') on how we are improving our site accessibility.

The issues relating to Non-Text Content; Focus Visible; Parsing; Name, Role, Value and On Input we believe to be largely within our control and look to fix by September 2026. The other remaining issues will be treated just as importantly as these issues we are to initially fix, and will be fixed as soon as possible on a case by case basis.

We are working towards solving these problems and expect significant improvements by September 30th 2026.

Disproportionate burden

We are not currently claiming that any accessibility problems would be a disproportionate burden to fix.

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs

Many of our older PDFs are not fully accessible, for example, and they may not be easy to view using a screen reader. The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. For example, we do not plan to fix old articles in the News section that date back nearly a decade. Any new PDFs we publish will meet accessibility standards.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We have improved keyboard accessibility on the homepage, including making the carousel fully navigable using only a keyboard or screen reader. We continue to review and refine tab order, focus states, and interaction patterns to ensure users can navigate all areas of the site without a mouse.

We are auditing our content structure using the Little Forest accessibility tool to identify and fix issues with heading order and interface relationships. We’re also improving the use of ARIA roles and landmarks to support assistive technology users.

We’ve improved the homepage’s navigation sequence and are continuing to address tabbing issues and key-switching problems on other pages. This includes reviewing DOM order and updating tabindex values to ensure a logical, predictable user experience.

We are auditing all images using Little Forest to identify and fix missing or unhelpful alternative text. Our editors have received training on writing meaningful alt text.

We have introduced high-contrast, consistent focus indicators across the site to improve navigation for keyboard users. These enhancements improve visibility in areas where focus outlines were previously unclear or low contrast.

We have resolved issues with mislabelled buttons and inconsistent tooltips by applying clear ARIA labels and accessible naming conventions. We continue to test and validate components using assistive technologies.

We are reviewing existing videos to add human-edited captions and are ensuring that all new video content includes accurate captions by default. Guidance and training have been provided to content creators to support this process.

We are assessing video content for essential visual-only information and adding audio descriptions or transcripts where needed. Accessibility checks are now part of our video production workflow for future content.

Using Little Forest, we are identifying and resolving low-contrast text issues, particularly where text overlaps images or uses muted colours. We are also training editors and updating styles to meet the WCAG 4.5:1 contrast ratio.

We are replacing text within images—particularly in banners and article headings—with HTML text for better readability and accessibility. Where images of text remain or are unavoidable, such as logos, we provide meaningful alt text.

We are reviewing site links and interactions to ensure users are warned when a new tab, window, or pop-up will open. Where possible, we are avoiding pop-ups in favour of more accessible alternatives.

We regularly scan for code errors such as duplicate IDs using Little Forest and other validators. We are also reinforcing best practice among developers and editors to prevent parsing issues during content creation.

Our existing design was produced by a 3rd party design agency. This relationship has been paused for some time now, and any changes to the codebase are largely managed in-house.

We are looking to move in time to the University's EdWeb 2 Website Publishing Platform, a managed Content Management System which also incorporates the University Design System. All content will be moved to this new platform. During this time we plan to fix many of our current accessibility issues.

The University has published a web strategy and governance approach:

University of Edinburgh Web Strategy

We will continue to address the accessibility issues highlighted, alongside working to deliver a solution or suitable workaround. We are working towards solving these problems and expect significant improvements by September 30th 2026.

While we are in the process of resolving these accessibility issues, or where we are unable, we will ensure reasonable adjustments are in place to make sure no user is disadvantaged. As changes are made, we will continue to review accessibility and retest the accessibility of this website.

Accessibility improvements

Accessibility improvements, bug fixes and development work to fix issues will be recorded to keep a record of work completed.

Accessibility improvements

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 17th May 2019. It was last reviewed on 22nd July 2025

This website was last tested by the Disability Information Office, University of Edinburgh in April 2023 using automated and manual methods. The site was tested on a PC, primarily using Microsoft Edge (103.0.1264.37) alongside Mozilla Firefox (91.9.1esr) and Google Chrome.

Recent world-wide usage levels survey for different screen readers and browsers shows that Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge are increasing in popularity and Google Chrome is now the favoured browser for screen readers:

WebAIM: Screen Reader User Survey

The aforementioned three browsers have been used in certain questions for reasons of breadth and variety.

We ran automated testing using Little Forest, Wave WEBAIM and AXE browser extension then manual testing that included:

  • Spell check functionality;
  • Scaling using different resolutions and reflow;
  • Options to customise the interface (magnification, font, background colour, etc);
  • Keyboard navigation and keyboard traps;
  • Data validation;
  • Warning of links opening in new tab or window;
  • Information conveyed in the colour or sound only;
  • Flashing, moving or scrolling text;
  • Operability if JavaScript is disabled;
  • Use with screen reading software (for example JAWS);
  • Assistive software (TextHelp Read and Write, Windows Magnifier, ZoomText, Dragon Naturally Speaking, TalkBack and VoiceOver);
  • Tooltips and text alternatives for any non-text content;
  • Time limits;
  • Compatibility with mobile accessibility functionality (Android and iOS).

Change log

Accessibility improvements, bug fixes and development work to fix issues will be recorded here to keep a record of work completed.

Change log of accessibility improvements

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Accessibility

Dr John Macleod

Senior Lecturer in Private Law

Director of Exams Undergraduate

Tel: +44 (0)131 650 2058

Email: John.Macleod@ed.ac.uk

View my publications

John MacLeod joined the Law School in 2018 from the University of Glasgow. His interests range across private and commercial law, with a particular focus on structural and taxonomical questions, the law of delict, the law of property and the law of debt. He has worked extensively with the Scottish Law Commission and the Law Reform Committee of the Law Society of Scotland. He delivers CPD across a range of topics.

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Professor Laura Macgregor

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Chair of Scots Law

College Promotions Representative; Head of Subject Area: Private Law

LLB, LLM, DipLP

Office hours:

Tel: +44 (0)131 650 2034

Email: l.macgregor@ed.ac.uk

View my publications

Laura Macgregor holds the Chair of Scots Law, her appointment to this Chair beginning on 1 July 2020. She is the first woman since the Chair's inception 297 years ago to hold the Chair. Before becoming an academic Laura spent several years as a solicitor in practice with a major Scottish law firm in Edinburgh. She began her academic career as a lecturer at Glasgow Law School, joining Edinburgh Law School in 2002. She is a panel member of REF Sub-Panel 18.

Ph.D. supervision interests

She welcomes PhD enquiries which relate generally to her fields of interest. In particular she would be interested in supervising research into agency law, partnership law or contract law within Europe.

Research Interests

Laura's interests lie in the field of commercial law, specifically contract law, agency law and partnership law.  Her research considers Scots law in its comparative context, both European and global. She is also interested in legal history.

She is the author of the leading monograph, Agency Law in Scotland, (ISBN 9780414018051), published in the prestigious Scottish Universities Law Institute Series. 

Currently working on a project on the law of partnership, her most recent article on this topic is 'Partnerships and Legal Personality: A Cautionary Tale From Scotland' (2020) 20 Journal of Corporate Law Studies in 237. 

Research Groups

Laura is a member of the Edinburgh Centre for Commercial Law. This is a research centre which aims to build stronger links between academia and the various parts of the legal community in Scotland. The blog for the Centre can be found here: http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ecclblog/.

Collaborative Activity

Laura has edited a number of collaborative projects in the field of European private law. Her most recent project, edited with Jaap Baaij and David Cabrelli, focussed on the law of interpretation. It has now been published as Jaap Baaij, David Cabrelli and Laura Macgregor (eds), Interpretation of Commercial Contracts in European Private Law, Intersentia, 2020. This volume was published under the auspices of the Common Core of European Private Law. 

Laura retains strong links with the legal profession and is heavily involved in the provision of CPD training to Scottish law firms. She has designed and delivered training on the law of contract to Scottish Sheriffs through the Judicial Institute. Her annual CPD course, Contract Law Update, delivered under the auspices of Edinburgh Law Seminars, takes place each year in May. The course is delivered in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and online to the Highlands and Islands. 

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Dr Euan MacDonald

Senior Lecturer in Jurisprudence

LLB, LLM, PhD

Email: Euan.Macdonald@ed.ac.uk

View my publications

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Intellectual Property Law

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Edinburgh Law School has a long-standing reputation for research and teaching in intellectual property (IP) law.

“Together, we create!” on brick wall

Dating back to the foundation of the SCRIPT Research Centre in 1998, Edinburgh Law School’s profile in the field of IP grew through the activities of the AHRC Research Centre for Studies in Intellectual Property and Technology Law (2002-2012). From 2012 to 2018, Edinburgh Law School’s IP specialists formed part of the RCUK-funded multi-institutional CREATe consortium.

Current members of the IP team offer expertise spanning copyright, designs, trade marks, IP’s relationship with innovation and creativity, IP and human rights, and IP enforcement. Engaging with diverse research methodologies - doctrinal, socio-legal, and empirical – they conduct innovative research examining topics including creative and cultural intersections, international IP, Europeanisation of IP, and IP practice and policy.

Building on this expertise, the IP team offers popular research-led teaching in IP law for both undergraduate and postgraduate students, including well-established on-campus and online nominate LLM programmes in Intellectual Property Law.

Dr Kheria and Ms Cornwell are also co-authors of a leading textbook on IP rights (Contemporary Intellectual Property: Law and Policy, Oxford University Press).

Jane Cornwell, Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law

Smita Kheria, Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law

Amandine Léonard, Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law

Emmanuel Oke, Senior Lecturer in International Intellectual Property Law

Gerard Porter, Senior Lecturer in Medical Law and Ethics

 

Journal articles

International intellectual property law as applicable law in investment disputes
Oke, E.K. In: ICSID Review - Foreign Investment Law Journal. 29.04.2025. View article

War, armed conflict, and the security exception in the TRIPS Agreement
Oke, E.K. In: Intellectual Property Quarterly. Vol. 2024. No.3. 29.08.2024. View article

Frand royalties: Rules v standards?
Petit, N. & Leonard, A. In: Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property, Vol. 22, No.1, 17.01.2023, p. 1-36. View article

Excessive or abusive reliance on measures, procedures and remedies under Directive 2004/48/EC—the issue of ‘trolls’ in the IP enforcement framework in light of Case C-597/19 Mircom
Leonard, Amandine. In: Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, Vol. 17, No. 4, 02.04.2022, p. 387-397. View article

Rethinking Nigerian geographical indications law 
Oke, Emmanuel Kolawole. In: Journal of World Intellectual Property, Vol. 25, No. 3, 12.11.2022, p. 746-752. View chapter

Book chapters

Intellectual property rights and investment law in the AfCFTA
Oke, Emmanuel Kolawole. In Contemporary Issues in Intellectual Property Law in Africa. Routledge. 2024. p.5-22. View chapter

Defining intellectual property as an investment 
Oke, Emmanuel Kolawole. The Future of Intellectual Property. ed. / Daniel J. Gervais. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021. p. 81-104 (ATRIP Intellectual Property Series). View chapter

Books

Defining intellectual property as an investment
Oke, Emmanuel Kolawole. The Future of Intellectual Property. ed. / Daniel J. Gervais. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021. p. 81-104 (ATRIP Intellectual Property Series). View book

Contemporary Intellectual Property: Law and Policy.
Waelde, Charlotte; Brown, Abbe; Kheria, Smita; Cornwell, Jane. 4th ed. Oxford University Press, 2016. 1128 p. View text book

Exploring the Interface between Intellectual Property and International Investment Law: A Human Rights Perspective
Recent high profile investment tribunal claims against states challenging measures relating to IP have led to increased scrutiny and concern over the interface between IP law and international investment law. Dr Emmanuel Oke’s research critically examines the interface between these two fields from a human rights perspective, aiming to provide insights regarding the role that international human rights law can play with regard to securing the twin complementary objectives of protecting foreign investments and fostering economic development.

Copyright in the everyday lives of creative practitioners
Dr Smita Kheria’s socio-legal research evaluates the complexities of copyright in a ‘real world’ context focussing on the intersection of copyright law with the everyday lives of creative practitioners. Her work addresses fundamental policy questions: Does copyright law matter? Who does it matter to and why? Who is it resisted by and why? How can this regulatory framework remain relevant and fit for purpose in an uncertain fast-moving social, technological, and economic landscape? Recent grants that have enabled this ongoing research include two projects led by Dr Kheria through the programme of the RCUK funded CREATe centre: Individual Creators and Creators’ Organisations.

Is online streaming akin to radio, a digital download, or a derived hybrid?
Funded by the Scottish Graduate School of Arts Humanities’ Creative Economies Studentship scheme, this research addresses whether the current legal framework is fit for purpose in rewarding musicians and music creators in the changing digital music consumption landscape. Supervised by Dr Smita Kheria, Edinburgh Law School PhD candidate Desmond Agyekumhene is examining the development, role, and place of online streaming services, and related flow of streaming revenues, with the objective of evaluating if the legal framework for rights of musicians and music creators remains fit for purpose.

SCRIPT Centre
The SCRIPT Centre explores the synergetic relationship between law, technologies, commerce and society.
Visit the SCRIPT Centre website

Professor Cormac Mac Amhlaigh

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Professor of Public Law

Staff Development Officer

Ph.D (EUI)

Office hours:

Tel: +44 (0)131 651 4373

Email: cormac.mac.amhlaigh@ed.ac.uk

SSRN: http://www.ssrn.com/author=1113313

View my publications

Cormac Mac Amhlaigh is Professor of Public Law at Edinburgh Law School.

In his current research, he is developing a perfectionist theory of democracy which argues for a dominant role for autonomy in the justification of democracy as well as a positive role for political power in promoting the democratic autonomy and democratic capacity of citizens.   

Other strands of his research in this area include critically analysing of the value of pluralism and political disagreement and its relationship to democracy.  These themes were explored in his Vienna Lecture in International Legal Philosophy entitled ‘Dworkin on Disagreement’ delivered at the University of Vienna in 2023, as well as his Inaugural Lecture at Edinburgh University entitled ‘Holding the Centre?:  Politics, Pluralism and Public Law’ which examined the harms of populism through the lens of pluralism and can be accessed here. 

He also researches the role of pluralism and disagreement in constitutional law, and particularly the role of judicial review in this context – commonly known as political constitutionalism or the counter-majoritarian difficulty  -   as well as the role of constitutional rights and constitutional courts in democracy promotion with a specific emphasis on the European Court of Human Rights.  His research in these areas has been published in the International Journal of Constitutional Law, Res Publica and Global Constitutionalism.

His previous research lay in the area of legal and constitutional pluralism at the transnational and international levels with a particular focus on the idea of constitutional pluralism in the European Union.  His 2022 book, New Constitutional Horizons:  Towards a Pluralist Constitutional Theory (OUP, 2022) developed a novel theory of constitutional pluralism drawing on the theorization of legal and political pluralism in the work of Joseph Raz and Ronald Dworkin and was favourably reviewed in the Modern Law Review, Public Law, the International Journal of Constitutional Law, the European Journal of International Law, Jurisprudence, Global Constitutionalism and the Jindahl Global Law Review.  His work in this area has also been published in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Jurisprudence,  Global Constitutionalism, The Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies and the Oxford Handbook of Legal Pluralism. 

A full list of his publications can be found here.

He welcomes inquiries from potential doctoral students interested in researching any of these topics.

He holds a PhD in Law from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy; an LL.M in European Law from University College Dublin; and an LL.B in Law and Hispanic Studies from Queen’s University Belfast, a year of which was spent as an Erasmus exchange student at the University of Zaragoza, Spain.  He has held visiting fellowships at Queen Mary University of London and the University of Copenhagen, and was a Fernand Braudel Fellow at the European University Institute in 2022.  Prior to undertaking doctoral studies, he worked in government and legal research.

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Professor Graeme Laurie

Professorial Fellow

LLB, PhD, FRSE, FRCPE, FMedSci

Tel: +44 (0)131-650-2020

Email: Graeme.Laurie@ed.ac.uk

SSRN: Papers

Graeme Laurie is Professorial Fellow in the School of Law at the University of Edinburgh and Founding Director of the JK Mason Institute for Medicine, Life Sciences and the Law. He held the Chair of Medical Jurisprudence from 2005-2019. Currently, he is the Editor-in-Chief of the Asian Bioethics Review and Principal Investigator of a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award for a project entitled Confronting the Liminal Spaces of Health Research Regulation. This is a £1 million, five-year, interdisciplinary project running from October 2014 until March 2021. He is also a member of the Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society, also funded by Wellcome to over £1 million, which is in interdisciplinary initiative to examine social science, legal and ethical contributions to biomedicine and novel partnerships in the co-production of biomedical knowledge and innovation.

Graeme Laurie served as the Director of Research for the School of Law (2011-2014). He previously held the role of PI and Director of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Research Centre for Studies in Intellectual Property and Technology Law - also known as SCRIPT - from 2007-2011 until he took up the position of Director of Research. He is Founding Director of the JK Mason Institute for Medicine, life Sciences and the Law, established in 2012, and he held the role of Director from 2012-2017.

Twitter: @GraemeLaurie @LiminalSpaces @MasonInstitute

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Professor Andrew Lang

Professor of International Law and Global Governance

Office hours:

Email: Andrew.Lang@ed.ac.uk

View my publications

Professor Andrew Lang joined the Edinburgh School of Law in 2017 as the Chair in International Law and Global Governance. Prior to that, he was Professor of Law at the London School of Economics. He is an expert in Public International Law, with a specialty in International Economic Law and the Law of the World Trade Organization. He has a combined BA/LLB from the University of Sydney, where he was a double University Medallist, and his PhD is from the University of Cambridge. 

From 2004-6, Professor Lang was a Junior Research Fellow at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge, before teaching at the London School of Economics from 2006 until 2017. 

Professor Andrew Lang has been selected for inclusion in a list of individuals suitable for appointment as Chairperson for arbitrations and Trade and Sustainable Development expert panel proceedings under EU bilateral free trade agreements. He has also been included in the WTO's approved roster of legal experts pursuant to article 27.2 of the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding.

Professor Lang has consulted on legal matters related to international trade and investment, including most recently for the Bank of England, HM Treasury, Department for International Trade, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Financial Conduct Authority, European Commission, the European Parliament, and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).  

Professor Lang has taught on Harvard's Institute for Global Law and Policy, the University Melbourne LLM program, the World Trade Institute's Masters of International Law and Economics (MILE) program, the University of Barcelona's IELPO course, as well as the IIEM Academy of International Trade Law in Macau. He has been a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School, Visiting Fellow at the Institute of International Economic Law at Georgetown University Law Center, Visiting Faculty at the University of Michigan, and an International Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Sydney.

He is a co-founder, with Colin Picker, of the Society of International Economic Law. He sits on the Editorial Committee of the Modern Law Review, the Editorial Boards of the London Review of International Law, the Journal of International Economic Law, and the International and Comparative Law Quarterly, where he has also been a Book Review Editor.

In 2012-13, he was awarded a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship.

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