Research Projects

Led by Professor Aisling Swaine, this ERC Consolidator grant-funded project Gender, Conflict and Coercive Control: A Feminist Phenomenological Expansion of Conflict-related Harm (GENCOERCTRL) develops a new methodological and theoretical approach to the study of conflict-related violence against women. The project will make the phenomenon of coercive control more discoverable in and conceptually relevant to the study and understanding of armed conflicts, as well as advance international legal scholarship on its relevance to approaches to accountability in transitional justice.  

Dr. Christie Nicoson and Dr. Lucía Poveda Galeano bring expertise to the project as post-doctoral fellows, while Dr. Jonathan Wren brings expertise in leadership coordination of  the project.

For more about the project and to meet the team please see (opens in a new window)coerciveinjustice.com.

The Group’s current project is entitled Law and Religion in Ireland 1530-1970.

The project will examine the ways in which law has regulated religion, and the law of religious institutions, in Ireland from the Reformation to the 1970s. The following topics fall within the scope of the project: The Legal Foundations of the Protestant Reformation in Ireland; The Penal Laws and Catholic Landholding, 1700-1793; The Penal Laws in the Long Eighteenth Century; The Catholic Relief Acts 1781 to 1793; Tithe in Ireland; The Catholic Emancipation Act 1829; Religious Disabilities after Catholic Emancipation: 1829-1920; Disestablishment and the Church Act 1869; Church Influence on Law Making in the Irish Free State; Article 44.1 of the Constitution 1937-1973; The Ecclesiastical Courts in Ireland in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries; Constitutional Aspects of the Catholic Church in the Nineteenth Century.

A roundtable conference, with contributions on these topics, will be held in the Sutherland School of Law in June 2018.

Persons who are interested in contributing to this project are encouraged to contact, Dr Kevin Costello ((opens in a new window)Kevin.Costello@ucd.ie).

In December 2014, Prof. Suzanne Kingston was awarded a highly prestigious research grant of almost 1.5 million euro from the EU's European Research Council for a project investigating how the way we design our laws influences levels of environmental compliance in the EU, and how we might change our laws to make environmental policy more effective. 

Please check out their website: (opens in a new window)http://effectivenaturelaws.ucd.ie/

Associate Professor Amy Strecker’s project, Land, Property and Spatial Justice in International Law (PROPERTY[IN]JUSTICE) investigates the role of international law in creating spatial justice and injustice through its conception of property rights in land. In going beyond traditional legal analysis to include interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives, the project aims to push the boundaries of property and advocate more place-based understandings of land across international law. 

For more about the project and to meet the team, click (opens in a new window)here.

The project develops a new socio-legal theory of European integration, asking whether integration through rights in a European Society can succeed. It combines theoretical inquiry with comparative research in 8 smaller states in the EU and its neighbourhood (Czechia, Georgia, Greece, Ireland, Northern Ireland (UK), North Macedonia, Norway, Sweden). (opens in a new window)Here is more information.

(opens in a new window)Professor Dagmar Schiek, who won the first ever Advanced ERC Grant for a legal scholar in Ireland, is principal investigator, and (opens in a new window)Dr Audrey Plan is the first Postdoctoral Researcher. Would you like to join the team? We are recruiting three PhD researchers (see (opens in a new window)here), starting on 1 January 2025 (the latest) and funded for four years.

Professor Eoin Carolan's ERC project, The Foundations of Institutional Authority, explores how separation of powers systems are being affected by current social and political trends.

For more on the project please (opens in a new window)click here.