Our People

Aoife Nolan

Co-Director and Professor of International Human Rights Law

Professor Nolan’s professional experience in human rights and constitutional law straddles the legal, policy, practitioner and academic fields. She is Vice-President of the Council of Europe's European Committee of Social Rights, Europe’s leading monitoring body on economic and social rights which she joined in 2017.

She has published extensively in the areas of human rights and constitutional law, particularly in relation to children's rights and economic and social rights. She currently leads a major three-year international research project on ‘Advancing Child Rights Strategic Litigation’. Professor Nolan has acted as an expert advisor to a wide range of international and national organisations and bodies working on human rights issues, including numerous UN Special Procedures, UN treaty bodies, the Council of Europe, multiple NHRIs and NGOs.

She has held visiting positions at academic institutions in Europe, Africa, the US and Australia. She is an Academic Expert member at Doughty Street Chambers where she co-leads the Children’s Rights Group.

aoife.nolan@nottingham.ac.uk

Marko Milanovic

Co-Director and Professor of Public International Law

In addition to co-directing the centre, Marko Milanovic is Professor of Public International Law at the School of Law. Marko is co-editor of EJIL: Talk!, the blog of the European Journal of International Law, as well as a member of the EJIL's Editorial Board. He was formerly Vice-President and member of the Executive Board of the European Society of International Law. He held visiting professorships at Michigan Law School, Columbia Law School, Deakin Law School, the University of the Philippines College of Law, and the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights.

Marko was appointed by the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights as one of three high-level experts who will assist her in conducting a comprehensive examination of alleged human rights violations committed in Belarus since 1 May 2020, pursuant to the UN Human Rights Council's mandate in its resolution 46/20. He is co-general editor of the ongoing Tallinn Manual 3.0 project on the application of international law in cyberspace, and a recipient of the British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship for a project on the legal aspects of intelligence sharing in multinational military operations. Marko is also an Associate of the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights.

marko.milanovic@nottingham.ac.uk

Zinat Jimada

Research and Projects Assistant 

Zinat joined the HRLC as a Research and Projects Assistant in January 2022. She completed the BCL at the University of Oxford in 2021 and holds two bachelor's degrees, in Law and Psychology, from Queen Mary University of London and the University of Ghana, respectively.

Zinat has worked for Rights and Security International conducting human rights analyses of conditions in detention camps in northeast Syria. She also worked at REDRESS where she contributed to projects on the prohibition of torture as a Fellow of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights. She has broad interests in public international law, human rights and constitutional law.

 zinat.jimada@nottingham.ac.uk

Thomas Welch

Research and Projects Assistant 

Tom joined the Human Rights Law Centre as a Research and Projects Assistant in March 2022. He holds an LLB in Law and Criminology  from the University of Lincoln and an MA in Applied Human Rights from the University of York.

Prior to joining the HRCL team, Tom worked as Programme Coordinator at The Access Project and as a Teaching Associate at the University of Lincoln Law School, where he taught Public Law on the undergraduate degree programme. He maintains a broad interest in human rights law, international public law, and penological theory.

thomas.welch@nottingham.ac.uk 

Laura Wills

Research Associate

Laura Wills joined the Human Rights Law Centre in March 2014. Laura holds an LLB, LPC and an LLM in Human Rights Law.

Within her current role Laura conducts research under the Centre’s FRANET contract, assists with the design and implementation of the Centre’s bespoke training and capacity building programmes, is the Assistant Editor of the International Human Rights Reports and module convenor of the International Refugee Law module on HRLC's Distance Learning Course.

Laura is also the Director of HRLC's Refugee Clinic having co-founded the Clinic in January 2020. She oversee's the Clinic's casework and research and supervises the team of Student Caseworkers.

laura.wills@nottingham.ac.uk