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Ms Merris Amos, BEc (Sydney) LLB (Sydney) BCL (Oxon.) Solicitor, Supreme Court of NSW and Supreme Court of England and Wales

Merris

Professor of Human Rights Law

Email: m.e.amos@qmul.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7882 3938
Room Number: Mile End

Profile

Merris Amos is Professor of Human Rights Law in the Department of Law and Director of the Human Rights Law Centre. She has previously held posts at the University of Essex and the University of Westminster and worked as a researcher for a member of the House of Lords and a policy officer at the Australian Human Rights Commission. Professor Amos is an expert on the UK’s Human Rights Act 1998 and the relationship between national institutions and the European Court of Human Rights. She has published numerous articles and chapters in this field and her book Human Rights Law Third Edition (Oxford: Hart, 2021) is the leading work on the Human Rights Act.

Professor Amos is a long standing member of the Executive Committee of the UK Constitutional Law Association and the UK representative on the Executive Committee of the International Association of Constitutional Law. She recently convened the Society of Legal Scholars Annual Seminar: The Human Rights Act After 22 Years and will shortly be co-convening the Workshop on Constitutionalism, Covid-19 and Recovery at the IACL World Congress in Johannesburg.

Undergraduate Teaching

Research

Publications

Since 2015

Books

  • Human Rights Law Third Edition (Oxford: Hart, 2021)

Articles

Chapters

Supervision

Professor Amos welcomes supervision enquiries in the areas of national and European human rights law. Her current PhD students are:

  • Jingxi Liu – Artificial intelligence and sex discrimination in employment
  • Tamara Katamine – Reducing breed-related welfare challenges for dogs
  • Stefania Rainaldi Redon – International human rights courts and structural discrimination

Public Engagement

Conferences convened

  • Society of Legal Scholars Annual Seminar 2020, 3 and 4 November 2022, The Human Rights Act After Twenty-Two Years: Evolution, Impact, Future Directions (funded by the Society of Legal Scholars and the UK Constitutional Law Association).
  • WG Hart Legal Workshop 2018, Building a 21st Century Bill of Rights, Co-Convener with Professor Roger Masterman (Durham) and Dr Helene Tyrrell (Newcastle) (funded by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies).

Selected invited papers (since 2018)

20 October 2022: ‘Climate litigation in the European Court of Human Rights: possibilities and problems’ Environment, Climate Change and Constitutionalism, IACL Roundtable, Ankara, Turkey.

3 March 2022: ‘Fact or fiction? Positive duties and human rights reform’ Reforming the Human Rights Act, Human Rights and Public Law Centre, University of Durham.

4 February 2022: ‘The Human Rights Act and social rights’ Feminist Review of the Human Rights Act, University of Liverpool and Feminist Legal Studies.

26 January 2022: ‘Performance and Reform: The Consultation on a Bill of Rights’ The Future of Human Rights Protection in the UK, Centre for European Law and Internationalisation, University of Leicester.

18 November 2021:  ‘Human rights and artificial intelligence’ Exploring the future of biometrics in a post-Covid world, Centre for Bioethics and Emerging Technologies, St Mary’s University, London.

24 February 2021: ‘Lessons for human rights law from the COVID-19 Pandemic?’ Human Rights in a Pandemic, McGill University, Lawyers Without Borders.

23 January 2021: ‘COVID-19 and human rights in the UK’ Human Rights Research Group, Meiji University, Tokyo.

11 November 2020: ‘Why the UK still needs the ECHR’ The UK, European Human Rights and the Rule of Law: Seventy Years of the ECHR and Twenty Years of the HRA – A Time for Celebration? University of Leicester, Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law.

3 September 2020: ‘Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic for the UK human rights law framework’, Civil Liberties and Human Rights Section, 2020 Society of Legal Scholars Annual Conference.

22 April 2020: ‘Clashing human rights law duties during the COVID-19 Pandemic’, The State’s Obligation to Protect Webinar, University of Liverpool, University of Leeds, Strasbourg Observers.

17 June 2019: ‘The evolving jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights’, Scottish Public Law Group Annual Conference, Edinburgh.

27 November 2018: ‘The impact of Article 2 ECHR in the UK’, Knowing Our Rights Symposium, British Academy, London.

1 October 2018: ‘What are the human rights and fundamental rights challenges after Brexit?’, Civil Society in a Post Brexit Democracy, Public Law Project, Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, Liberty, Oxford.

5 September 2018: ‘The future of human rights law in the United Kingdom’, Public Law Section, 2018 Society of Legal Scholars Annual Conference, London.

4 September 2018: ‘Brexit and human rights protection’ Annual Seminar of the British Association of Comparative Law, London.

19 June 2018: ‘The United Kingdom’s proposed derogation from the European Convention on Human Rights’, IACL World Congress, Seoul.

22 May 2018: ‘What should a UK bill of rights look like?’ Human Rights Law at a crossroads: what directions after Brexit? Centre for European Law and Internationalisation, University of Leicester.

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