Dr. Ruth Brittle
Lecturer
Leicester Law School
Research Area(s): Refugee and Asylum-Seeking Children, Migration, Right to Education, Best Interests of The Child, Child Protection and Safeguarding
Legal Experience: Ruth is a qualified solicitor and an experienced litigator. Her practice focused on complex multi-party claims on behalf of local authority clients and their insurers. She was the legal advisor to a public liability insurer at the North Wales Tribunal of Inquiry (‘The Waterhouse Inquiry’), between February 1997 and May 1998. She defended cases on behalf of local authorities involving historic child abuse in large local authority children's homes and institutions. Additionally, she has experience in handling cases involving abuse in foster care, sensitive child protection cases and claims by children with special educational needs.
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Education: Ruth has a PhD in law from the University of Nottingham which was funded by the AHRC/Midlands 4 Cities Partnership. Her PhD focused on the child's right to protection in the context of asylum and refugee law; examining and analysing the normative content of the child's right to protection under international children's rights law and the operationalisation of the best interests principle in the context of international refugee law. She has an LLB (Hons) from the University of Manchester and an LLM in Human Rights Law from the University of Nottingham.
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Work: Ruth currently teaches Family Law, Law of Evidence, and Immigration law for Law, Justice and Society. Before working at Leicester, Ruth was a Lecturer in Law at Nottingham Trent University, where she taught immigration and asylum law, family law, international refugee law and human rights. Ruth is a legal advisor to the Nottingham Education Sanctuary Trust (NEST) which is an education provision for refugees and asylum seekers aged 15 to 19 in Nottingham. She is also a trustee of Nottingham Arimathea Trust (NAT), which is an organisation providing accommodation to destitute asylum seekers and their families as well as temporary housing for newly recognised refugees. Ruth is co-convenor (with fellow Child Rights ECR Network Member, Naomi Lott) of the SLSA Conference Children's Rights Stream.
Publications, Conferences & Engagement
A Hostile Environment for Children? The Rights and Best Interests of the Refugee Child in UK Asylum Law
Thirty Years of Research on Children's Rights in the Context of Migration: Towards Increased Visibility and Recognition of Some Children, But Not All?
Human Rights Law Review, 2019
Ruth's paper 'A Hostile Environment for Children? The Rights and Best Interests of the Refugee Child in UK Asylum Law' was published in the Human Rights Law Review in 2019.
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Her paper argues that the hostile environment policy of the UK government and the prioritisation of the immigration control agenda clashes with a refugee child’s best interests and their rights under the CRC. She argues that the framework of children’s rights can challenge the hostile environment agenda to ensure priority to a child’s best interests in the context of immigration decisions.
International Journal of Children's Rights, 2020
Ruth's co-authored paper (with Ellen Desmet) 'Thirty Years of Research on Children's Rights in the Context of Migration: Towards Increased Visibility and Recognition of Some Children, But Not All?' was published in the International Journal of Children's Rights in 2020.
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Their article reviews research and articles published (in English language journals) on migration and children’s rights over the thirty years since the CRC was adopted. It provides a tentative analysis of the dominant research themes which have emerged in migration and children’s rights since 1989 and highlights emerging themes as well as gaps in research.
Research Handbook on Education and Migration
Chapter (Forthcoming, Edward Elgar)
Ruth is writing a chapter in a Research handbook on Education and Migration. Her chapter is a rights-based approach to realising the migrant child’s right to education, which will be published by Edward Elgar in 2022.