Suggested PhD Topics

Here is a list of ideas for PhD theses that may stimulate reflection by potential students who have not yet identified a topic of field of research
  • Racism in sport
    • or, possibly, other topics related to sport and human rights
  • Protection of witnesses at international criminal tribunals
    • in particular, there is a practice of relocating witnesses about which almost nothing is known
    • international trials are often like organised crime trials, with a decisive role being played by 'protected witnesses'
  • The Right to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly

  • Statelessness

  • The Amicus Curiae
    • Practice of High Commissioner for Human Rights
    • International Criminal Tribunals
    • European Court of Human Rights

  • Quantitative measurement of human rights violations
    • How do we determine how many people were killed in a massacr
    • Scientific technique
    • Misrepresentatio
    • Advocacy concerns etc.

  • Non-member states of the United Nations and the protection of international human rights law

  • The ‘Uniting for Peace’ Resolution as a mechanism to protect human rights

  • Terminology in human rights law (e.g., Déclaration des droits de l’homme, etc.)

  • Justiciability of economic, social and cultural rights 
    •  Examine relevant case law in national jurisdictions
    • International jurisprudence involving ESCR

  • Documents of the UN War Crimes Commission
    • study the UN War Crimes Commission through archives, memoires etc.

  • Cultural rights

  • Special advisor on the Prevention of Genocide

  • Commissioner for human rights of Council of Europe

  • Comparison of Rules of Procedure and Evidence at international tribunals

  • Study of deaths in armed conflict
    • Totals, over the century
    • Are more dying or fewer?

  • Substantive criminal justice and human rights norms
    • What do human rights norms say about the content of crimes
    • Can a criminal justice system punish any crime (sodomy, adultery, abortion) without violating human right
    • Are there obligations to punish certain crimes

  • Lis pendens and international human rights bodies (same or similar case treated by two or more bodies)

  • Evidence in international human rights law

  • What is ‘a national’; nationality in international human rights law, etc. (ICL)

  • Grey zones in international human rights law (Taiwan, Northern Cyprus, Kosovo, Occupied Territories

  • Who can ratify the ICC Statute?

  • Who can ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights?

  • Mandate of any of the Special rapporteurs

  • ‘Good offices’ and Human Rights

  • Research based on travaux preparatoires of the ICC Statute
    • Examination of the participation of a delegation, or group of delegations
    • USA? EU? Ireland?

  • Work of the Venice Commission in development of human rights law

  • Ex gratia payments to war victims

  • Study on Migrant Workers Convention

  • Study of draft Convention on Enforced Disappearance

  • The dead in international human rights law

  • Preambles of human rights treaties