PhD Students

Sam McIntosh

PhD Title: Open Justice and Investigations into Deaths at the Hands of the State

E-Mail: sam.mcintosh.1@city.ac.uk
Twitter: @sammc123

 The aim of Sam's PhD thesis is to provide a practical and theoretical assessment of the open justice and public accountability elements of investigations into deaths where there has been actual or alleged State involvement in the circumstances of the death. This will initially be through a technical assessment of the way in which the processes involved attempt to fulfil the procedural requirements of Article 2 ECHR, but will extend to a wider and more general assessment of open justice and public accountability issues in such investigations. Sam's PhD Supervisors are Dr David Herling (The City Law School) and Professor Eugene McLaughlin (School of Social Sciences).

Sam is a fully qualified solicitor and trained and worked at three of the most highly regarded human rights firms in the country. He began his training in the criminal defence department at Imran Khan & Partners and went on to finish his training and work in the civil departments at Bhatt Murphy Solicitors and Hickman & Rose. Sam worked primarily on cases involving civil actions against the police and prison authorities, representing families in inquests into deaths in custody or at the hands of the State, and judicial review.

As well as his PhD, Sam is a part-time Research Assistant on Reading University's Law, Terrorism and the Right to Know Project. The programme explores democratic traditions of media freedom, and the contemporary demands of national and international security. It looks especially at the ways governments and courts deal with security related matters, and the relationships between the state and the media.

Sam's main research interests are: domestic and international human rights law; open justice and democratic accountability; the relationship between national security, state accountability, media law and access to information; and state responsibility in international law.

Publications