Dr Aoife Duffy

Biography

Dr. Aoife Duffy is senior lecturer in international human rights law and an interdisciplinary scholar with the University of Essex’s Human Rights Centre/Law School. Previous to this she held lectureships at University of Galway and Dublin City University. Aoife has been the recipient of various awards and grants, including the prestigious Department of Foreign Affairs Andrew Grene scholarship in conflict resolution for her doctoral studies. With a broad horizon of research interests, Aoife has published on topics ranging from indigenous peoples’ rights to conceptual paradigms for human rights in world-leading peer reviewed interdisciplinary journals such as Human Rights Quarterly, the International Journal of Transitional Justice and the International Journal of Human Rights. Her transitional justice scholarship has produced new historiographies shedding light on legacy issues across various case studies (e.g. including the ground-breaking book - Torture and Human Rights in Northern Ireland: Interrogation in Depth). While developing legal histories, she has accumulated expertise on intelligence/security operations, detention without trial, interrogation and torture. Aoife’s interdisciplinary scholarship has evolved, examining the interplay between photography and international law, a conceptual framework on universality, reproductive autonomy and critical archival work. Current projects focus on how the British colonial past is understood in the present. A particular sensitivity is given to excavating subaltern or marginalised narratives that might otherwise be missing from the socio-historical record. Aoife's academic research and activism is animated by social justice goals; in particular, the achievement of substantive equality and the elimination of discrimination in society. In order to address structural injustice, systemic marginalisation and exclusion, human rights practice and scholarship is strengthened by different disciplinary perspectives. In that regard, she would welcome human rights PhD supervision in a cross disciplinary arrangement. In 2022, Aoife was invited to participate in the International Expert Panel: State Impunity and the Northern Ireland Conflict (report available here: https://www.jus.uio.no/smr/english/about/id/law/nipanel.html). Aoife has also acted in an advisory/consultative capacity for various stakeholders on post-conflict legacy issues, human rights training and social justice research.

Qualifications

• PhD International Human Rights Law National University of Ireland Galway,

• LLM International Human Rights Law National University of Ireland Galway,

• M.Phil International Peace Studies Trinity College Dublin,

• BA (Hons) Applied Psychology University College Cork,

Appointments

University of Essex

• EDI Co-Lead, Law, University of Essex (16/1/2023 - present)