Dr Sabina Garahan, Director of the Essex Human Rights Centre Clinic, is delighted to announce seven Clinic projects for the 2025-26 academic year, including a new multi-year project – the Business and Human Rights Unit (BHRU). The range of projects confirms the Clinic’s longstanding commitment to providing high-quality and impactful human rights research. Undergraduate and postgraduate students at Essex will have the opportunity to collaborate with expert organisations, including national and international NGOs, UN bodies, and specialist law clinics, and to respond to urgent issues and inquiries.
A range of the Clinic’s recent and ongoing work will be presented at the Clinic’s Annual Conference on Tueday 3 June 2025. For more information, please contact Clinic Director Dr Sabina Garahan.
Module-based projects
These are open to postgraduate human rights students enrolled on the HU902 module.
Project 1 – Resisting foreign agent laws and the shrinking of civic space
Partner: Amnesty International
The project will examine the introduction of foreign agent laws – a widespread authoritarian practice which threatens the sustenance of impactful human rights work. By designating critics of the government as “foreign agents”, such laws restrict the operation of civil society organisations, threatening the ability of individuals and groups globally to voice dissent and challenge autocracy. The aim of the project is to understand legal and non-legal strategies to respond to the threat posed by such laws, which several countries
have already adopted or considered in 2025 alone. The report will analyse foreign agent laws across Europe and Northern America. The generated research will help Amnesty International to build a campaign on resistance strategies to fight against restrictions on civic space.
Supervisor: Dr Elif Mendos Kuşkonmaz
Project 2 – Tackling online and influencer glamorisation of gun violence
Partner: Lancet Commission on Global Gun Violence and Health
In 2024, the Lancet established a new Commission on Global Gun Violence and Health to tackle the escalating global crisis of gun violence. The Commission has been set up to develop evidence-based solutions for reducing gun-related deaths and injuries, ultimately improving public health and safety on a global scale. Our project will help inform and guide the Commission by focusing on how online influencers and digital communities contribute to the glamorisation and normalisation of gun violence, identifying gaps in checks and balances on influencer marketing in this area and possible solutions, including stronger accountability measures for online platforms in managing harmful content. This will be fed into the Commission’s recommendations and address the harmful effects of targeted marketing, deceptive messaging, and insufficient scrutiny over commercial tactics in firearm promotion.
Supervisor: Dr Alexandros Antoniou
Project 3 – International accountability for incommunicado detention in China
Partner: International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
The project will examine the status and use of Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location (RSDL) in China under international law. RSDL is a form of incommunicado detention that has been widely condemned as a form of enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention, and torture. China introduced RSDL in its Criminal Procedure Law’s Article 73 in 2012 (it now falls under Article 75 of the Law’s 2018 revision). Under the practice, authorities can detain individuals for up to six months in undisclosed locations without trial, access to legal representation, or contact with their families. The locations used for RSDL include secret facilities such as restaurant and hotel basements, rather than official detention centres. The research will contribute to ISHR’s advocacy efforts by determining whether the use of RSDL meets the threshold for crimes against humanity, supporting submissions to UN experts, and identifying avenues for international accountability.
Supervisor: Dr Marina Lostal
Project 4 – Recovering the indigenous city: the right to adequate housing and lands of indigenous peoples in Mexico City
Partners: Adequate Housing Clinic (Universidad Iberoamericana) and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Clinic (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM))
The project aims to empower indigenous peoples in Mexico City to defend their lands, livelihoods, and culture. Mexico City is home to indigenous communities and neighbourhoods seeking to maintain their traditional forms of political organisation and culture. However, numerous obstacles have made it difficult for them to occupy and govern their territories, as well as maintain their organisational structures: the imposition of private property on their communal lands, the advance of real estate and megaprojects promoted by governments and developers, the lack of support for their traditional institutions, and political violence, among others. The project will plug the existing gap in research on the rights of indigenous communities to access housing and land, providing analysis of relevant legal frameworks, potential obstacles, and opportunities. The research will contribute to advocacy and litigation by both the Housing and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Clinics aimed at recovering the indigenous city.
Supervisor: Dr Koldo Casla
Project 5 – Investigating the weaponisation of travel bans by authoritarian regimes
Partner: Index on Censorship
The aim of the project is to bring accountability and scrutiny to an underreported practice – the rise of travel bans as a tool of censorship. Authoritarian regimes across the world are increasingly weaponising travel bans, not just to keep critics from leaving their countries, but to stop them from entering. This isolates dissidents, breaks solidarity across borders, and undermines global norms around mobility and human rights. In recent years, prominent journalists, human rights activists, and artists have been denied entry into countries for reasons that appear politically motivated. Often, no formal charges are brought against these individuals. Instead, vague “national security” justifications or opaque blacklists are used to bar entry – silently, and often without due process. The project will identify politically motivated travel bans, highlighting key case studies, legal grey areas, and recommendations for policy reform to respond to this urgent issue.
Supervisor: Martin Bright
Multi-year projects
These are open to both undergraduate and postgraduate students.
Project 6: Arbitrary Detention Redress Unit (ADRU)
Partner: UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
Since 2022, the Human Rights Centre Clinic has been running the Arbitrary Detention Redress Unit (ADRU), supervised by Dr Matthew Gillett, Vice-Chair Rapporteur of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. The ADRU team will work with Dr Gillett and other UN experts to redress cases of alleged arbitrary detention. Team members will work on real cases and help prepare briefings for country visits, including inspections of detention facilities. Arbitrary detention is a human rights violation, prohibited under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It can constitute a gateway to further violations, including torture, enforced disappearances, and violations of fair trial rights. Thousands of people around the world are subjected to arbitrary detention every year, including human rights defenders, journalists, and members of civil society organisations.
Supervisor: Dr Matthew Gillett
Project 7: Business and Human Rights Unit (BHRU)
Partner: RAID (Rights and Accountability in Development)
The Business and Human Rights Unit (BHRU) is a specialised unit launching within the HRC Clinic in the 2025-26 academic year. It marks a collaboration between the Essex Business and Human Rights Project (EBHR) and the HRC Clinic. The BHRU builds on two decades of business and human rights scholarship and education expertise at Essex HRC and Essex Law School. BHRU participants will work with academic supervisors and partner organisations to conduct research and develop outputs that support the advancement of human rights and environmental protection in the context of business operations across the globe. Students will work on a range of projects, including conducting investigative research on corporate statements or reporting and carrying out background research on potential court claims for remediation of corporate harms. Working within the Unit will allow students to develop skills in identifying possible legal pathways to holding corporations accountable and understanding the practical challenges involved in cross-border business and human rights violations.
In 2025-26, the BHRU is partnering with RAID (Rights and Accountability in Development). RAID is a UK-based NGO that investigates and exposes corporate wrongdoing, environmental harm, and human rights abuses. One of RAID’s core areas of focus is the global shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy. While this transition is essential to addressing the climate crisis, it is increasingly marred by a troubling race to extract critical minerals—such as cobalt and copper—used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries and other clean technologies. Their work is at the forefront of exposing how this “green” economy is being powered by harmful practices that disproportionately affect communities in resource-rich countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In the DRC’s copper and cobalt belt, industrial mining is often associated with severe environmental pollution, unsafe working conditions, and systemic human rights abuses, all within a context of weak regulation and limited accountability. BHRU participants will work with a collaborative team of activist lawyers and legal researchers at RAID and play a meaningful role in developing research and strategies that focus on just transition, human rights, and critical minerals.
Supervisors: Dr Anil Yilmaz, Dr Jessica Lawrence and Dr Justin Jos Poonjatt
