School of Law

Staff

Biography
Brice Dickson has been Professor of International and Comparative Law at Queen's since March 2005. Having graduated from the University of Oxford with undergraduate and postgraduate law degrees in the mid-1970s, he was called to the Bar of Northern Ireland in 1976. He then held a Leverhulme European Studentship at the University of Paris II (Sorbonne) before being appointed as a lecturer in law at the University of Leicester in 1977. He moved back to Northern Ireland in 1979 when appointed as a lecturer at Queen's, where, apart from a year spent on a Younger European Lawyers' Programme in Germany, he stayed until 1991, having been appointed a senior lecturer in 1989. In 1981 he helped to found the Committee on the Administration of Justice (a civil liberties group) and he assisted in the re-establishment of Amnesty International in Northern Ireland.

From 1991 to 1999 Brice Dickson was the foundation professor of law at the University of Ulster, where he helped to develop law degree programmes and a School of Law. During most of that period he also served as a Commissioner and, later, deputy chair, of the Equal Opportunities Commission for Northern Ireland and he held a Churchill Fellowship in 1994 to allow him to study the effects of Bills of Rights in countries of Southern Africa. From 1999 to 2005 he was seconded from the University of Ulster to serve two terms as the first Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission , a statutory body established as a result of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement. In that role he represented Northern Ireland at many national and international events, speaking at the UN Commission on Human Rights and delivering the Paul Sieghart, Wills Memorial and Harry Street lectures at universities in England. Amongst other current responsibilities he sits on the British Council's Governance and Northern Ireland Advisory Committees.

Brice Dickson has written the standard textbook on the legal system of Northern Ireland (now in its fifth edition) and has written or edited other books on French law, the European Convention on Human Rights, civil liberties in Northern Ireland (now in its fourth edition) and the House of Lords. His main research interests at present are the role of Supreme Courts (especially adjudication within the House of Lords), the part played by UN mechanisms and national human rights institutions in protecting human rights, the combatting and remedying of non-state abuses of human rights, the accountability of police services and aspects of French law.

Research
Brice Dickson’s main research interests at present are the role of Supreme Courts, the developing jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, the effectiveness of the UN Human Rights Council, the importance of amnesties in post-conflict situations, the potentiality of national human rights institutions, the combating of human rights abuses committed by non-state actors, the accountability of police services, and aspects of French law.

Selected Publications
Judicial Activism in Common Law Supreme Courts (Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2007) (ed)

“The Impact of the Human Rights Act in Northern Ireland” in J Morison, K McEvoy and G Anthony (eds), Judges, Transition and Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2007) 201-222

“The Processing of Appeals in the House of Lords” (2007) 123 Law Quarterly Review 571-601

"Safe in Their Hands - The Law Lords and Human Rights" (2006) 26 Legal Studies 329-346.

"The House of Lords and the Northern Ireland Conflict - A Sequel" (2006) 69 Modern Law Review 383-417.

“The Role of Judges in the Development of Constitutions” (2006) 57 Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 332-351

“Assessing the Role of the Equality Commission in the Effectiveness of Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998” (Research Report for the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland; 2006), with Prof Colin Harvey

“Law versus Terrorism: Can Law Win?” [2005] European Human Rights Law Review 11

The Legal System of Northern Ireland (Belfast: SLS Legal Publications); 5th edn, 2005)

“ Northern Ireland ” in Lester and Pannick (eds), Human Rights Law and Practice (2 nd edn, 2004, LexisNexis Butterworths) 527

“ A Constitutional Court for Northern Ireland ?” in Le Sueur (ed), Building the UK's New Supreme Court (2004, Oxford University Press) 49

Administration                                                                                                                                      
Brice Dickson was Director of the School of Law’s Research Cluster in Common and Comparative Law from 2005 to 2008, but in October 2008 he became the Director of the School of Law’s Research Cluster in Human Rights and also the Director of the School of Law’s Human Rights Centre.