Postgraduate Researchers

Postgraduate students are pioneers, adventurers, renaissance people even, plotting courses and setting off into the unknown. Their ambition? Mostly they reject the world as it is and are in search of the world as it could be. The media is often unkind toward researchers, usually representing them as starch-clad, socially awkward, scaredy cats, more comfortable among lifeless books than lively people. Nothing could be further from the truth. Those brave few who bite the bullet and pursue a Masters or a PhD may not be socially extroverted but they are intellectually daring, demanding more of themselves and, with Malcolm X-like iconoclasm, compelling humanity to demand more of itself.

Supervising postgraduate students is one of the more rewarding aspects of scholarly work. Few occurrences provoke exhilaration for an academic with the same verve as a student’s eureka moment, when the light bulb switches on: ‘That’s what you want. Transcendence. When that happens…oh, boy.‘ As such, and at all times, I welcome enquiries from aspiring postgraduate students. Reach out and tell me a little about your research interests and your scholarly – or professional – ambition. To be blunt, I prefer an informal message over a generic research proposal. The supervisory relationship depends much on expertise and competency, this is undeniable, but it also requires that both parties share a bit of passion for the project, that additional oomph that will propel us across the finish line.

I happily supervise a variety of students for master’s degrees, PhDs, and post-docs, both domestic and international. The topics vary though, more often than not, will include some aspect of international law, both public and private, and are coloured with a sociolegal brush.

A selection of my latest students and their topics (in no particular order)

Roisin Bradley, ‘Right to Boycott? The UK’s criminalisation of the BDS Movement’

Faris Algarni, ‘Assessing the Impact of the Saudi Arabian Legal System on the Flow of Foreign Direct Investment’

Ashley Needham, ‘Police Violence Against Black Americans: A breach of the prohibition on the torture?’

Paul Kirk, ‘State Immunity: An exception to the rule?’

Sarah McKibben, ‘A Help or a Hindrance? Low-cost primary schools and the right to education in Kenya.’

Omar Alsaeed, ‘Investigating Compliance Factors in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Implementation of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement’

Yeva Swart, ‘Come Hell or High Water: The Detroit water crisis through a human rights lens’

Sahel Alajlan, ‘The New Arbitration Law in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: A comparative study with the UNCITRAL model arbitration law’