Socio-Legal Studies

The Socio-Legal Studies pathway offers a 1+3.5 route for students entering without appropriate core training that meets the 2022 ERSC Training Guidelines:

• MPhil Socio-Legal Research

Students with appropriate core training that meets the ESRC’s 2022 Training Guidelines can enter directly onto the DPhil programme (+3.5):

• DPhil Socio-Legal Studies

CSLS students have been involved in the development of courses on the rule of law and constitutional design in association with the NGO ‘Lawyers for Justice in Libya’. They have also been involved in the transfer of research findings on participatory budgeting to a third sector organisation ‘Purpose’ in Colombia, and some students have worked with Unicef in Colombia on the design of transitional justice processes for children. Furthermore, some students have published elements of their academic research in widely accessible publications, such as the ‘New Statesman’ and ‘open democracy’.

This knowledge exchange work is also recognized by external bodies, with a Centre student currently being nominated for the MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 Colombia Award.

Typically 2-4 CSLS students each year take up internships with international organizations, including the UN in Geneva and Serbia, the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, and the British Institute for Comparative and International Law/Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law.

Primarily students go on to careers in academia, but also pursue work in government policy-making and administration, private consultancies as well as legal practice.