Professor Janine Natalya Clark

Birmingham Law School
Professor of Gender, Transitional Justice and International Criminal Law

Contact details

Telephone
0121 414 6316
Email
j.n.clark@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
Birmingham Law School
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Professor Janine Natalya Clark joined Birmingham Law School in October 2014. She was promoted to Reader in 2016 and promoted to Professor in 2018. Her research interests include conflict-related sexual violence, transitional justice, international criminal courts, resilience, ethnic conflict and reconciliation. She is currently leading a five-year European Research Council project entitled A Comparative Study of Resilience in Survivors of War Rape and Sexual Violence: New Directions for Transitional Justice (CSRS). She is also working on an ESRC-funded project aimed at tackling sexual violence-related stigma in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Her most recent book – Rape, Sexual Violence and Transitional Justice Challenges: Lessons from Bosnia-Herzegovina – was published in September 2017 and in January 2019 (in paperback).

Qualifications

  • LLB (Bristol)
  • MA (Leeds)
  • PhD (Nottingham)

Biography

Professor Clark received her PhD from the University of Nottingham in 2006 and subsequently spent three years in the International Politics department at Aberystwyth University as an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship and Leverhulme Early Career Fellow respectively. In 2014, she was awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship. Before joining Birmingham Law School in October 2014, she held Lecturer positions in the Post-War Reconstruction and Development Unit at the University of York (2009-2010), the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy at Queen’s University in Belfast (2010-2011) and in the Department of Politics at the University of Sheffield (2011-2014). She was promoted to Chair in 2018.

Postgraduate supervision

Dr Clark is interested in supervising research in the following areas:

International criminal justice
Transitional justice
Rape and sexual violence
Genocide
DDR

Find out more - our PhD Law  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Research

Professor Clark’s research interests include conflict-related sexual violence, transitional justice, international criminal courts (and particularly their impact and effectiveness), resilience, ethnic conflict and post-conflict reconciliation. In 2017, she started a five-year European Research Council Consolidator Grant. The research is exploring the resilience of victims-survivors of conflict-related sexual violence in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia and Uganda, with the aim of developing a new ecological model of transitional justice that fosters resilience.

Other activities

Professor Clark is a member of the UK governments Team of Experts on the Prevention of Sexual Violence in Conflict. She is a member of the Editorial Committee of the Journal of International Criminal Justice. She established the University of Birmingham’s Fieldwork Group; this brings together scholars and researchers from different disciplines across the university who engage in challenging fieldwork.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Clark, J 2020, 'Beyond bouncing: resilience as an expansion-contraction dynamic within a holonic frame', International Studies Review. https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viaa048

Clark, J 2020, 'Body memories as a neglected legacy of human rights abuses: Exploring their significance for transitional justice', Social and Legal Studies.

Clark, J 2020, 'Emotional legacies, transitional justice and alethic truth: a novel basis for exploring reconciliation', Journal of International Criminal Justice, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 141–165. https://doi.org/10.1093/jicj/mqaa011

Clark, J 2020, 'Re-thinking memory and transitional justice: a novel application of ecological memory', Memory Studies.

Clark, J 2020, 'Storytelling, resilience and transitional justice: Reversing narrative social bulimia', Theoretical Criminology.

Clark, J 2020, 'Vulnerability, space and conflict-related sexual violence: building spatial resilience', Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038520918560

Clark, J 2019, ''Leaky' bodies, connectivity and embodied transitional justice', International Journal of Transitional Justice, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 268–289. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijz003

Clark, J 2019, 'Finding a voice: Silence and its significance for transitional justice', Social and Legal Studies, pp. 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1177/0964663919856685

Clark, J 2019, 'Helping or harming? NGOs and victims/-survivors of conflict-related sexual violence in Bosnia-Herzegovina', Journal of Human Rights, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 246-265. https://doi.org/10.1080/14754835.2019.1581055

Clark, J 2018, 'De-centring trauma: conflict-related sexual violence and the importance of trauma discourse', The International Journal of Human Rights. https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2018.1454908

Clark, J 2018, 'The destruction of cultural heritage in armed conflict: the 'human element' and the jurisprudence of the icty', International Criminal Law Review, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 36-66. https://doi.org/10.1163/15718123-01801005

Clark, J 2018, 'Transitional justice, education and sexual violence stigma: the results of a schools-based study in Bosnia-Herzegovina', Journal of Law and Society, vol. 45, no. 4, pp. 509-537. https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12128

Clark, J 2017, 'Masculinity and male survivors of wartime sexual violence: a Bosnian case study', Conflict, Security and Development, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 287-311. https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2017.1338422

Chapter

Clark, J 2020, The ICTY, truth and reconciliation: a meta reconceptualization. in C Stahn, C Agius, S Brammertz & C Rohan (eds), Legacies of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia: A Multidisciplinary Account. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198862956.003.0032

Clark, J 2020, Thinking systemically about transitional justice, legal systems and resilience. in M Ungar (ed.), Systemic resilience: principles and processes for a science of change in contexts of adversity. Oxford University Press.

View all publications in research portal

Expertise

Education and Sensitization in the Fight against Sexual Violence in Conflict: Tackling Prejudice and Social Stigma in Bosnia-Herzegovina

  • Sexual violence in conflict
  • International criminal courts
  • Transitional justice