Contact Details
Email address
k.mcevoy@qub.ac.uk
Telephone Direct Line (+44) 028 9097 3873
Room 29.107, 29 University Square
Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice,
School of Law,
Queen's University Belfast, BT7 1NN
Degrees
LLB, Queens University Belfast
MSc Criminology, University of Edinburgh
PhD, Queens University Belfast
Biography
Kieran McEvoy is Professor of Law and Transitional Justice at the School of Law, Queens University Belfast. Between 1990-1995 he worked as Information Officer for NIACRO, a large non-governmental organisation which campaigns on behalf of prisoners their families and ex-offenders. He was appointed Assistant Director of the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice in 1995 (which amalgamated with the Law School in 1998) and was promoted to Reader in 2000 and Professor in 2002. He has been a Visiting Scholar at Fordham University Law School, New York University Law School (June-September 2001), Institute of Criminology , University of Cambridge (July-August 2003), a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar at Harvard Law School (September 2001-July 2002), the Mannheim Centre of Criminology at the London School of Economics (Oct-Dec 2005) and the School of Law at Berkeley, University of California (June-Sept 2006). For eight years he served as Review Editor of the British Journal of Criminology. He is currently a member of the Editorial Board of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Contemporary Justice Review and Social and Legal Studies. He is also heading up a comparative research project (with L. Mallinder and B. Dickson) funded by the AHRC which is examining amnesties as part of conflict transformation in Argentina, Uruguay, Bosnia, South Africa and Uganda. He also recently conducted comparative research in Canada, the USA, Israel\Palestine, Spain, Italy, Colombia, Rwanda, Indonesia as well as Ireland and Britain. With Harry Mika and Kirsten McConnachie he is also completing a comparative project examining ‘transitional justice from below’ to be published as a monograph by Cambridge University Press in 2009. In 2002, his book Paramilitary Imprisonment in Northern Ireland was awarded the British Society of Criminology book of the year award for the best first sole authored book published in the discipline in the previous year. His article (with H. Conway) “The Dead, the Law and the Politics of the Past” was also joint winner Socio-legal Studies Association article of year prize in 2005. As an activist, he is currently Chairperson of CAJ (the Committee on the Administration of Justice), the principal human rights NGO in Northern Ireland. He is also a member of the Executive Committee of NIACRO and was heavily involved in the establishment of community based restorative justice projects in Nationalist areas in Northern Ireland. In 2001 he chaired the Human Rights Commission Criminal Justice Working Group on a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland. In 2006 he completed a major study (with the local NGO Healing Through Remembering on options for truth recovery for Northern Ireland to be published as a monograph by Willan in early 2009).
Teaching
Undergraduate
· Criminology and Criminal Justice
· International Criminal Justice
Postgraduate
· Restorative Justice
· Transitional Justice and Conflict Transformation
Research
Transitional Justice, Truth Recovery, Political Imprisonment, Ex-combatants, Human Rights, Restorative Justice, Conflict Transformation, Judiciary and Legal Profession in Transition.
Selected Publications
Beyond the Wire : Ex-prisoners and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland (2008) (with P. Shirlow). Pluto. 185 pp.
Transitional Justice from Below : Grassroots Activism and the Struggle for Change (2008) (ed with L. McGregor) Hart. 254pp.
Judges, Transition and Human Rights (2007) (ed with J. Morison and G. Anthony) Oxford University Press. 567pp.
Criminology, Conflict Resolution and Restorative Justice (2003) (ed with Tim Newburn) Palgrave. 228pp.
Paramilitary Imprisonment in Northern Ireland : Resistance, Management and Release (2001) Oxford University Press. 445pp.
“Beyond Legalism : Towards and Thicker Understanding of Transitional Justice.” (2007) Journal of Law and Society, 34,4, 411-440.