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Paul Roberts

Professor of Criminal Jurisprudence, Faculty of Social Sciences

Contact

  • workRoom C69 School of Law, Law and Social Sciences Building
    University Park
    Nottingham
    NG7 2RD
    UK
  • work0115 95 15736
  • fax0115 95 15696

Expertise Summary

Paul Roberts read law at Balliol College, Oxford (1987-1990 and 1992-93) and criminology at the Institute of Criminology and King's College, Cambridge (1990-91). Whilst based in the Faculty of Law in the University of Bristol in 1991-92, he conducted empirical research on forensic science evidence on behalf of the Runciman Royal Commission on Criminal Justice, before joining the School of Law as a Lecturer in Law in 1993. He was promoted to Reader in Criminal Justice in 2000, and to Professor of Criminal Jurisprudence in 2003. In 2011 he was also appointed Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, Sydney.

Paul teaches and researches in the fields of criminal justice, evidence, criminology, criminal law and legal theory, with particular emphasis on philosophical, comparative and international perspectives. His principal publications are: Roberts and Zuckerman, Criminal Evidence (OUP, 2/e 2010), Roberts and Hunter (eds), Criminal Evidence and Human Rights (Hart, 2012), Aitken, Roberts and Jackson, Fundamentals of Probability and Statistical Evidence in Criminal Proceedings (Royal Statistical Society, 2010), Roberts and Redmayne (eds), Innovations in Evidence and Proof (Hart, 2007), Cooper and Roberts, Special Measures for Vulnerable and Intimidated Witnesses: An Analysis of Crown Prosecution Service Monitoring Data (Crown Prosecution Service, 2005), and Roberts and Willmore, The Role of Forensic Science Evidence in Criminal Proceedings (HMSO, 1993), in addition to which he has published over eighty journal articles, book chapters, essays and reviews.

Paul has been visiting professor or invited lecturer at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), the University of Warsaw, the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, the University of Gottingen, the University of New South Wales (UMSW), Sydney, and the University of Natal (Pietermaritzburg), RSA. He is editorial board member of four academic journals: International Commentary on Evidence (ICE); Criminal Law & Philosophy; Law, Probability and Risk and Law and Philosophy. He was also a founding editorial board member of The International Journal of Evidence and Proof (E & P), serving as Reviews Editor (1995-2005) and General Editor (2005-9). Paul has served as a consultant to the Crown Prosecution Service and to the Law Commissions of England and Wales and Scotland. He is currently an advisor to the Forensic Regulator, and is a member of the Royal Statistical Society's Working Group on Statistics and the Law, of the Northumbria University Centre for Forensic Science and of the Board of Foreign Advisors of the Institute of Evidence Law and Forensic Science, China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL).

Research Summary

Paul teaches and researches in the fields of criminal justice, evidence, criminology and criminal law, with particular emphasis on philosophical, comparative and international perspectives.

PhD Supervision

I am interested in supervising students who want to work on the following areas:

  • evidence and proof
  • criminal procedure
  • criminal process
  • comparative criminal justice
  • criminal law/punishment theory, extending over into moral and political philosophy

Current PhD Students

  • Canham, Mary: An Analysis of the use of Secret Evidence (Closed Evidence) and its Conceptual Capability with the Right to a Fair Hearing (co-supervised with Sangeeta Shah)
  • Carver, Lucy: The ICC and the Penal Objectives of International Criminal Justice
  • Pleshkova, Olga: Human Rights in Policing
  • Purshouse, Joe: Privacy, Procedural Fairness and Human Rights: To what extent can privacy be considered a right for those subjected to the criminal justice process? (co-supervised with Professor John Jackson)

Recent PhD Students

Future Research

1. reform and development of criminal evidence and procedure; evidence & proof 2. global criminal justice; cosmopolitanism; human rights in criminal proceedings 3. comparative criminal justice (inc EU criminal law) 4. philosophical foundations of criminal justice; criminal law theory; jurisprudence

School of Law

Law and Social Sciences building
University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham, NG7 2RD

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