Human Rights

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Undertaking doctoral research allows you to develop in-depth knowledge, while making a meaningful contribution to your chosen field.

With guidance from our expert supervisors, you'll carry out extensive independent research culminating in a thesis of up to 100,000 words. Broadly speaking the focus of research degrees has increasingly been on the humanities and cognate social sciences, particularly on the subjects of human rights, globalization and development, politics, and Commonwealth history.

This degree presents the opportunity to gain expertise in your area of interest while also honing a range of transferable skills. On completing this course, you'll be well prepared for specialist career paths both within academia and beyond.

Subject Areas and Supervisors

The Institute of Commonwealth Studies offers doctoral research supervision in the following broad areas:

• Human rights
• Indigenous peoples
• Ecocide
• Genocide studies
• The foreign and defence policies of Commonwealth countries
• The politics, governance and development of South Asia
• African politics, governance and development
• Ethnicity: conflict and accommodation in plural societies
• The Mediterranean and the colonial powers
• Protection of refugees
• Minority and Indigenous rights protection
• Dynamics of armed conflict and forced displacement
• Twentieth-century British and Commonwealth History
• Globalisation, security and conflict
• The Commonwealth as an international organisation
• British Imperial history, including decolonization
• European colonialism in comparative perspective
• Post-colonial legacies in the Commonwealth and beyond
• Non-governmental public actors, civil society and development
• Local government and decentralisation
• British and Commonwealth intelligence communities

Before submitting an application you are advised to contact a member of the Institute's academic staff who has interests in your proposed field of study to discuss your proposal. A list of academic staff and their interests can be found here.