Profile

Dr Amanda Cahill-Ripley is a Visiting Researcher at the School of Law, Lancaster University (and a Senior Lectuer in Law at the University of Liverpool School of Law and Social Justice).

She is an expert in international human rights law, with a specialism in economic, social, and cultural rights. Her current research has two interrelated strands: The first explores socio-economic rights, in the context of conflict-affected settings and the transition to peace and focuses on the role of such rights in peacebuilding (including transitional justice and sustainable development). The second examines the role of economic, social, and cultural rights and transformative justice in addressing structural violence such as poverty. Dr Cahill-Ripley is also interested in human rights in the community (advocacy and mobilisation) and empirical methods of human rights research.

Dr Cahill-Ripley has published two monographs to date, the most recent in 2025 entitled 'Socio-Economic Rights in Times of Crisis and Normality: Article 4 Limitations Under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights' (BUP) and the first monograph published in 2011 on 'The Human Right to Water and its Application in the Occupied Palestinian Territories' (Routledge: Oxford). She is currently working on her third monograph entitled 'Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Peacebuilding' (forthcoming with CUP). Prior to this, she was working on peace agreements and sustainable development with members of the Glasgow Centre for International Law and Security. Other publications include articles in the Journal of Human Rights Practice, Human Rights Law Review, Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, and the International Journal of Human Rights, as well as several reports and book chapters.

Amanda regularly works with the United Nations OHCHR and other policy makers and practitioners, providing expert consultation and supporting collaborative knowledge exchange. Currently, she is working with the UN CESCR on the new General Comment on the application of the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights in situations of Armed Conflict. She has also provided expert opinions on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Limitations for the Scottish Parliament Bill of Rights Team and previously submitted Written and Oral Evidence to the Northern Ireland Assembly Ad Hoc Committee on A Bill of Rights, on Human Rights and Peacebuilding.