Teaching & Research
Teaching
Chris has been teaching law at UK universities since 2009 and has taught students on the
Chris has been teaching law at UK universities since 2009 and has taught students on the LLB, Graduate Diploma in Law and LLM courses.
Chris is the module leader for Public Law, Human Rights, and Commercial Law on the LLB. He is also the module leader for the Dissertation and Legal Research Methods modules on the LLM. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (since 2012) and was nominated for the University of Worcester’s Student Union’s Students’ Choice Award – Outstanding Lecturer Award in 2017 and 2020 and was shortlisted for the Student Union’s Students’ Choice Award – Exceptional Personal Academic Tutor in 2020.
He enjoys teaching Public Law has previously presented on the teaching of Public Law at the Association of Law Teachers’ Annual Conference in 2015. He has published textbooks on Public Law (2022), Constitutional Administrative Law (2015), Business Law (2015) and Contract Law (2013).
Research
Chris has a keen interest in constitutional law, the role of parliament (with an emphasis on accountability), broader notions of executive accountability, and the global use of impeachment. He is very happy to supervise PhD students in any of these areas.
Chris’ two main on-going research projects are:
Accountability and impeachment
Chris is interested in the accountability of the executive within the United Kingdom’s Westminster system of government and the use of impeachment as an accountability mechanism. He has been writing on various aspects of executive accountability for the past decade.
He holds a PhD from King’s College London and his thesis provided a balanced and independent examination of the case for a new impeachment process for the United Kingdom, arguing that it would have a valuable role to play in the future development of the United Kingdom’s system of politics and government. He argued that a modernised impeachment process would buttress the existing political accountability mechanism, serve as a way for the House of Commons to undertake the role as guardian of the constitution, and enhance the accountability of the executive. As part of his research Chris interviewed leading public figures including Lord David Owen, Lord Phillips, Sir Ross Cranston and Chris Bryant MP. His doctoral research was published as Accountability, Impeachment and the Constitution: The Case for a Modernised Process in the United Kingdom (Routledge 2022).
Chris has recently presented on his research at the Society of Legal Scholars’ Annual Conference (University of Exeter), the Global Summit (University of Texas), the PSA Parliaments’ Annual Conference, the Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom’s Annual Conference, the Study of Parliament Group’s Annual Weekend, and at the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History. He also took part in a keynote panel discussion on impeachment with Professor Richard Albert (University of Texas, Joshua Matz (Georgetown University), Karen Popp (former Associate White House Counsel) and Professor Frank Bowman (University of Missouri).
Chris is currently co-editing two books that explore the role played by impeachment. The first book British Origins and American Practice of Impeachment is co-edited with Professor Matthew Flinders and will be published by Routledge in 2023. The second book Impeachment in a Global Context: Law, Politics and Comparative Practice is co-edited with Professor Matthew Flinders and Professor Aziz Huq and will be published by Routledge in 2023.
Chris co-organised an international conference Questions of Accountability that took place in November 2021. The conference was a collaboration between the University of Worcester and the University of Sheffield and was supported by the Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom. Keynote speakers included Lord Blunkett, Baroness Manningham-Buller, Professor Bruce Ackerman, Baroness Hale, Lord Neuberger, Professor Alison Young, Professor Tom Ginsburg, Professor John Keane, Professor Conor Gearty and Baroness Helena Kennedy QC. Over 300 delegates registered to attend the conference and The Law Society Gazette reported on the proceedings. Recordings of the sessions can be found here. The conference proceedings are being published as Questions of Accountability: Prerogatives, Power and Politics (Hart Publishing 2023).
Finally, Chris has a particular interest in the use of the prerogative powers by the executive and has written on the judicial control of the prerogative. He has previously proposed a bill to reform the use of the prerogative power to enact colonial legislation (‘An imperfect legacy: the significance of the Bancoult litigation on the development of domestic constitutional jurisprudence’, 2018). This statutory reform would strengthen Parliament’s accountability of the executive and remedy the clear defects in using the prerogative to enact colonial legislation.
Bancoult/Chagos Litigation
Chris has been researching and writing on the Bancoult/Chagos litigation since 2011. I have organised a major conference in 2015, co-edited Fifty Years of the British Indian Ocean Territory: Legal Perspectives (Springer 2018), contributed chapters to books (Dissenting Judgments in the Law Wildy 2012, T Burri and J Trinidad (eds), The International Court of Justice and Decolonization: New Directions from the Chagos Advisory Opinion CUP 2021, G. Baldacchino (ed), Mice that Roar: Small States ‘getting the better’ of Large(r) States Routledge 2023) and convened a 2019 Panel Discussion with leading experts Professor Sue Farran, Dr Jamie Trinidad and Mr David Snoxell (the former UK High Commissioner to Mauritius.
I have recently undertaken research on an oral history of the Bancoult (Chagos) litigation, which was supported by the Humanities Research Investment Fund scheme and this will be published in Judicial Review, I am currently co-convening a major conference on Chagos (with Professor Laura Jeffery) at the University of Worcester in 2023. The keynote speaker is Philippe Sands KC, academics, and senior diplomats. The conference proceedings will be published by Routledge in 2024.
Previous research projects:
Fraud and Criminalisation: with particular reference to School Application Forms
Between 2009-2018 Chris researched and wrote on the use of the Fraud Act 2006 (and now also the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981) by local authorities in England to bring prosecutions against parents who provide ‘false’ information on their child’s school application form. In January 2017, Chris co-organised a workshop, The Fraud Act 2006: Ten Years On that explored the impact of the Act. The workshop proceedings have been published as an edited collection: Financial Crime and Corporate Misconduct: A Critical Evaluation of Fraud Legislation (Routledge, 2018). Chris has published on this topic in the Criminal Law Review, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminal Law and Justice Weekly.