Dr Ben Warwick

Contact details

Telephone: 0121 414 6288
Email: b.t.warwick@bham.ac.uk
Twitter: @btcwarwick

Address: Birmingham Law School
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Dr Ben Warwick’s research explores how economic factors affect human rights (and especially socio-economic rights). He is interested in the ways that laws and the institutions that enforce them change under such pressures. This has led him to write on the related questions of crisis, neoliberalism, and the reversal of rights protections. He is a specialist in international human rights, the United Nations human rights bodies, and human rights after Brexit (especially the Irish context).

His research is frequently used by governmental and non-governmental bodies nationally and internationally, and has been prominently reported in national print and news media. He is currently Co-Investigator on a £250k ESRC Governance After Brexit grant which is interrogating questions of identity and governance, and was shortlisted for the Vice Chancellors Emerging Impact Award.

Ben is on the European Parliament’s list of legal experts, an Associate of the Oxford Human Rights Hub, is Co-Coordinator of the Law and Society Association's Economic and Social Rights network, and a member of the Queen Mary Human Rights Law Review’s Review Board.

Staff details
Media information
Policy information

Qualifications

PhD, Durham University
LLM (Human Rights Law), University of Nottingham
LLB, Durham University

Biography

Ben Warwick joined Birmingham Law School in 2016 as Lecturer in Law. He holds an LLB degree from Durham University, and an LLM in Human Rights Law from the University of Nottingham. His PhD, from Durham University, was on the doctrine of non-retrogression in economic and social rights. He previously taught at Durham University during his three years as Graduate Teaching Assistant there. He became a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2015.

Teaching

Criminal Law
International Human Rights Law
Foundations in International Law & Globalisation
Contemporary Issues in International Law & Globalisation
Law in Action 1, Law in Action for Graduates (Module Leader)

Postgraduate supervision

Economic and social rights
International human rights and resources
Rights enforcement

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

Research

Ben’s research interests lie within the broad field of human rights law. A primary strand of this research are the issues surrounding resource constraints and the implementation of economic and social rights. Working primarily with the international human rights framework, he has researched the circumstances in which 'backwards steps' (or ‘retrogression’) in rights protection might be taken. This research is particularly applicable to situations of crisis and where resource constraints occur through natural and economic disasters.

He has also undertaken research projects on, for example, the general obligations of the ICESCR, the performance of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the right to food in the UK, neoliberalism, theories of emergency, and the right to education in armed conflict.

Publications

Books

Sylvia de Mars, Colin RG Murray, Aoife O’Donoghue and Ben TC Warwick, Bordering Two Unions: Northern Ireland and Brexit, Policy Press (August 2018, Open Access here).

Journal articles

Ben TC Warwick, ‘Unwinding Retrogression: Conflicting Concepts and Patchy Practice’ (accepted, forthcoming 2019) Human Rights Law Review
Colin RG Murray, Aoife O’Donoghue and Ben TC Warwick, ‘The Implications of the Good Friday Agreement for UK Human Rights Reform’ 11 Irish Yearbook of International Law (2018).
Joe J Wills and Ben TC Warwick, ‘Contesting Austerity: The Potential and Pitfalls of Socioeconomic Rights Discourse’ (2016) 23(2) Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 629.
Ben TC Warwick, ‘Socio-Economic Rights During Economic Crises: A Changed Approach to Non-Retrogression’ (2016) 65(1) International and Comparative Law Quarterly 249.
Aoife O’Donoghue and Ben TC Warwick, ‘Constitutionally Questioned: UK Debates, International Law, and Northern Ireland’ (2015) 66(1) Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 93.

Chapters in edited collections

CRG Murray and Ben TC Warwick, ‘The Strange Case of Northern Ireland’s Disappearing Rights in the EU-UK Withdrawal Negotiations’ in Wolfgang Benedek, Philip Czech, Lisa Heschl, Karin Lukas, Manfred Nowak (eds), European Yearbook on Human Rights (Intersentia, forthcoming 2019).
Ben TC Warwick, ‘Social Minima at the UN Treaty Bodies: Minimal Consistency?’ in Toomas Kotkas, Ingrid Leijten, Frans Pennings (eds), Specifying and Securing a Social Minimum in the Battle Against Poverty (Hart, forthcoming 2019).
Helen Fenwick, Michelle Farrell, Wendy Guns and Ben TC Warwick, ‘ABC v Ireland’ in Troy Lavers and Loveday Hodson (eds), Feminist International Judgments (Hart, forthcoming 2019).
Ben TC Warwick, ‘Debt, Austerity, and the Structural Responses of Social Rights’ in Ilias Bantekas and Cephas Lumina (eds), Sovereign Debt and Human Rights (OUP, 2018).
Ben TC Warwick, ‘A Hierarchy of Comfort? The CESCR’s Approach to the 2008 Crisis’ in Gillian MacNaughton and Diane Frey (eds), Economic and Social Rights in a Neoliberal World (CUP, 2018).
Ben TC Warwick, ‘Describing a Rights Realisation Hybrid: The Example of Socio-Economic Rights’ in Nicholas Lemay-Herbert and Rosa Freedman (eds), Hybridity: Law, Culture and Development (Routledge, 2016).

Policy papers

Sylvia de Mars, Colin RG Murray, Aoife O’Donoghue and Ben TC Warwick, Briefing on: The Protocol on Ireland/ Northern Ireland (2018)
Sylvia de Mars, Colin RG Murray, Aoife O’Donoghue and Ben TC Warwick, Discussion Paper on the Common Travel Area (Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, 2018)
Colin RG Murray, Aoife O’Donoghue and Ben TC Warwick, High Level Discussion Paper on Human Rights and Brexit (Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission and Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, 2018)
Sylvia de Mars, Colin RG Murray, Aoife O’Donoghue and Ben TC Warwick, ‘Commentary on the Protocol on Ireland/ Northern Ireland’ (2018).
Sylvia de Mars, Colin RG Murray, Aoife O’Donoghue and Ben TC Warwick, ‘Commentary on the Joint Report of the EU and UK following Phase 1 of the Article 50 Negotiations’ (2017).
Sylvia de Mars, Colin RG Murray, Aoife O’Donoghue and Ben TC Warwick, ‘Policy Paper: Northern Ireland and The Brave New World of Brexit’ (2017).
Sylvia de Mars, Colin RG Murray, Aoife O’Donoghue and Ben TC Warwick, ‘The Common Travel Area: Prospects After Brexit’ (2017).
Sylvia de Mars, Colin RG Murray, Aoife O’Donoghue and Ben TC Warwick, ‘Policy Paper: Brexit, Northern Ireland and Ireland’ (2016).
Colin RG Murray, Aoife O’Donoghue and Ben TC Warwick, ‘Policy Paper: The Place of Northern Ireland within UK Human Rights Reform’ (2015).

Book reviews

Ben TC Warwick, ‘Human Rights and Public Finance: Budgets & the Promotion of Economic and Social Rights, by Aoife Nolan, Rory O’Connell and Colin Harvey (eds.)’ (2015) 8 Irish Yearbook of International Law.
Ben TC Warwick, ‘Beth Goldblatt and Kirsty McLean (eds): Women’s Social and Economic Rights: Developments in South Africa’ (2014) 23(1) Feminist Legal Studies 101.
B Warwick, ‘Failing to Protect: The UN and the Politicisation of Human Rights by Rosa Freedman’ (2014) LSE Review of Books.

Evidence and briefings

M. Campbell and B. Warwick, ‘Visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights to the UK’ (September 2018).
M. Campbell and B. Warwick, ‘The Impact of Economic Reform Policies on Women’s Human Rights’ (March 2018).
S de Mars, CRG Murray, A O’Donoghue and B Warwick, Response to Northern Ireland Affairs Committee 'Future of the Land Border with the Republic of Ireland' Inquiry (October 2017).
S de Mars, CRG Murray, A O’Donoghue and B Warwick, Response to House of Lords EU Committee Inquiry, ‘Brexit: Devolution’ (July 2017).
S de Mars, CRG Murray, A O’Donoghue and B Warwick,Response to Northern Ireland Affairs Committee 'Future of the Land Border with the Republic of Ireland' Inquiry (December 2016)
S de Mars, CRG Murray, A O’Donoghue and B Warwick, Evidence to Bright Blue’s Commission on Human Rights (June 2016).
S de Mars, CRG Murray, A O’Donoghue and B Warwick, Response to Northern Ireland Affairs Committee ‘Northern Ireland and the EU Referendum’ inquiry (February 2016).
B Warwick, Evidence to UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on the drafting of its General Comment on Public Spending and the Rights of the Child (November 2015).
A O’Donoghue and B Warwick, Briefing Document on Human Rights Reform and Northern Ireland (May 2015).
B Warwick, Evidence to UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on the drafting of its General Comment on the Rights of Adolescents (March 2015).
B Warwick, Evidence to Bright Blue’s Commission on Human Rights (June 2016).
S de Mars, CRG Murray, A O’Donoghue and B Warwick, Response to Northern Ireland Affairs Committee ‘Northern Ireland and the EU Referendum’ inquiry (February 2016).
B Warwick, Evidence to UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on the drafting of its General Comment on Public Spending and the Rights of the Child (November 2015).
A O’Donoghue and B Warwick, Briefing Document on Human Rights Reform and Northern Ireland (May 2015).
B Warwick, Evidence to UN Committee on the Rights
B Warwick, Evidence to All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Hunger and Food Poverty in Britain (June 2014, by invitation).

Selected op-eds and blogs

M. Campbell and B. Warwick, ‘Austerity Policies in the UK an Impermissible Retrogressive Measure’ (Oxford Human Rights Hub 2018)
B. Warwick, ‘A Windrush in waiting: post-Brexit categories of citizen in Northern Ireland’ (LSE Brexit Blog, 2018)
B. Warwick, ‘Brexit and the Good Friday Agreement’ (DCU Brexit Institute 2018)
B. Warwick, ‘Eviction and Homelessness under the OP-ICESCR’ (Oxford Human Rights Hub, 2018)
B. Warwick, ‘“Protecting the Public Purse” in cuts to Social Security: Krajnc v Slovenia’ (Strasbourg Observers 2017)
B. Warwick, ‘How Have The Conservatives Done On Human Rights?’ (Huffington Post, 2016).
B. Warwick, ‘Sanction First, Ask Questions Later’ (Huffington Post, 2016).
S. de Mars, A. O’Donoghue, C. Murray, and B. Warwick‘Brexit-ing Northern Ireland: The Challenges Ahead’ (Oxford Business Law Blog, 2016).
C. Murray and B. Warwick, ‘Your Irish Granny Could Save Your EU Citizenship’ (BuzzFeed, 2016).
R. Freedman and B. Warwick, ‘UK Must Constructively Engage with UN Expert on Violence Against Women’ (Huffington Post, 2015).
B. Warwick and A. O'Donoghue, ‘A new Constitutional Settlement for Northern Ireland: Queries from International Law’ (Human Rights in Ireland, 2014).
B. Warwick, ‘Britain must provide enough food for the people – and that’s the law’ (The Conversation, 2014).
B. Warwick and R. Freedman, ‘Britain’s first FGM prosecution is all too politically convenient’ (The Conversation, 2014).
B. Warwick, ‘Say it quietly, but this Defra report is about a right to food’ (Human Rights in Ireland, 2014).
B. Warwick, ‘The UK report on socio-economic rights: guilty by omission?’ (Human Rights in Ireland, 2014).
B. Warwick, ‘An Economic Crisis… For Women’ (Inherently Human Blog, 2013).