Jérémie Gilbert

Jérémie Gilbert is Professor of Human Rights Law, he joined the Roehampton Law School in June 2017.

Jérémie's main area of research is on international human rights law, and more particularly the interaction between international human rights, the protection of the environment and the emerging rights of nature. Professor Gilbert is an advocate and supporter of the rights of Indigenous peoples, having developed legal expertise on the Indigenous peoples' rights to land and natural resources. 

Jérémie has worked with several indigenous communities across the globe and as a legal expert, he has been involved in providing legal briefs, expert opinions and carrying out evidence gathering in several cases of litigation supporting Indigenous peoples’ human rights. Learn and watch about his work.

In Roehampton, he has created and developed our new LLM in Human Rights and Legal Practice, to support research and learning opportunities for students wishing to embrace a careeer in human rights and acquire specific legal skills, and is one of the founding members of the Roehampton Climate Network. 

Previously, Jérémie was a Professor of International and Comparative Law at the University of East London, a Senior Lecturer in Law at Middlesex University, a Lecturer in Human Rights at the Transitional Justice Institute (University of Ulster) and a teaching fellow at the European Masters in Human Rights and Democratisation (Venice). Beforehand he worked for different NGOs such as the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre in New Delhi and Greenpeace in both France and Canada.

• ‘The future of the Rights of Nature: An interdisciplinary scoping analysis Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, this scoping project reviews the current application of the Rights of Nature from an interdisciplinary perspective. The aim is to explore the rights of nature across different disciplines to analyse common themes that might support future research in the emerging field of the rights of Nature. Watch our short animated video: The project involved colleagues from several other disciplines, including Anne Robertson (ecology); Neil Williams (Philosophy);   Saskia Vermeylen (Law); Robert Grabowski (Catchment Science) and Ilkhom Soliev (Economics) 
  

• Strategic Litigation Impacts: Indigenous Peoples’ Land Rights: This project is based on a one-year project conducted for the Open Society Justice Initiative, looking at the impacts of strategic litigation to assert land rights for indigenous peoples. It is a comparative study, based on dozens of interviews conducted in Kenya, Malaysia, and Paraguay with local indigenous activists, indigenous communities, supportive NGOs, as well as politicians, lawyers, journalists and judges. It examines the ways indigenous communities and their advocates are using litigation in an effort to defend their rights.

• Ethnicity, Minority Rights and Constitutional Rights: I am interested to understand and analyse how constitutions are dealing with the rights of the minorities. For minorities having a strong legal basis for the recognition of their identity and cultural rights as part of the State fabric is often a key issue, but constitutions are not always very developed on the rights of minorities. Part of my research has focused on the constitutional principle of fraternity to explore how it could offer an anchor to support minority rights, notably in countries such as France which have rejected the recognition of cultural rights for the minorities in the name of equality. I am also keen to explore how post-conflicts constitutions have engaged or not with recognising the rights of extremely marginalised hunter-gartering communities in Africa, this was undertaken under a funded British Academy project entitled: Minority Rights in Africa: A Comparative Legal Analysis condicted between 2009 and 2012.  

   

   
  

Jérémie has served as a consultant for several international organisations, notably the United Nations. He was one of the invited independent experts for the United Nations Expert Seminar on Treaties, Agreements and other Constructive Arrangements between States and Indigenous Peoples (2006), and he has served as a consultant for the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2015), and the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (2018), and the UN Division for Inclusive Social Development (2019).  

He regularly works with non-governmental organisations supporting human rights and environmnetal justice. Jérémie is an associate expert member of the Forest Peoples Programme (FPP) a human rights organisation working with forest peoples across the globe to secure their rights to their lands and their livelihoods; a board member of the Peoples Planet Project an organisation assisting indigenous communities in their battle against deforestation through documentaries and participatory films; and a strategic advisor for the Clean Trade, an organisation working to support peoples’ rights over their natural resources against blood Oil and conflict minerals.  

He was the vice-chair of the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) international board (2009-2015), and member of Minority Rights Group International (MRG) advisory board on the legal cases programme (2005-2015). Beforehand he worked as an intern for different NGOs such as the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre in New Delhi and Greenpeace in both France and Canada.

Although not a practicing lawyer, Jérémie has a long-term experience in supporting litigation as a tool for social change. As a legal expert, he has been providing legal briefs, expert opinions, witness statements, and affidavits in several cases concerning Indigenous peoples’ human rights, both at international level, with intervention in front of the specialised regional human rights courts, as well as in national and constitutional courts. He has also been involved in the drafting of new laws and legislations concerning  community forest regulations in several countries. 

 Programme & Course Design: 

LLM in Human Rights & Legal Practice (Roehampton 2018); LLM in Human Rights Advocacy (East London, 2015) 

Taught Modules: Public International Law (LLB/BA), European Law (LLB), Public Law (LLB/BA), Human Rights (LLB/LLM/MA/MSc), Learning Legal Skills (LLB), Comparative Legal Systems (LLB); International Relations Theory (MA), International Organisations (MA), Minority Rights, Indigenous Peoples & Human Rights (LLM & MSc), Globalisation, Development & Human Rights (LLM), Business and Human Rights (LLM & MA), Gender & Human Rights (LLM), Child Rights (LLM/MA), Refugee Law (LLM/MA), Corporate Social Responsibilities and Ethics (MBA), Litigation and Social Change (LLM) 

Doctoral Supervisions:

-  Susan Anne Mutaasa Alegre, 'Human Rights without frontiers: A study of the implications of transnational legal developments in the European Union', PhD by Published Works, September 2022

- Rajiv Jebodh, ‘Legal Transplant, Rule of Law development and postcolonial certainty in the Commonwealth Caribbean’ – PhD awarded June 2019

- Emmanuel Iko Ojotu, ‘Constitutionalism and Separation of Powers in Africa’, PhD started January 2015 - awarded Spring 2020

- Jonathan Cornthwaite, ‘Intellectual Property and the Internet: A Legal Analysis’, PhD by published work, PhD awarded September 2019

-  Emmanuel Nartey, ‘Remedies for Corporate Human Rights Violations’, PhD awarded March 2018

- Raymond Nwohia, ‘The International Criminal Court and Post-colonialism in Africa’, PhD started in Sept. 2015, MPhil awarded posthumously, February 2017.

- Mumtaz Kassam – ‘Land Restitution in Uganda’ – PhD awarded Oct. 2011

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @jeremie_gilbert

tel: +44 (0)2083925071

Repository:  https://roehampton-online.academia.edu/JeremieGilbert