Centre for the International Politics of Conflict, Rights and Justice
The Centre for the International Politics of Conflict Rights and Justice (CCRJ) promotes individual and collaborative research on the international politics of human rights, humanitarianism and aid, religion, transitional justice, and civil liberties especially as they relate to conflict and post-conflict situations. CCRJ pursues research that investigates efforts to construct international norms, policies, and institutions for governing conflict and post-conflict situations. The Centre also facilitates research designed to evaluate the effects of these practices on a range of political outcomes and especially the for the future of international peace and security.
CCRJ provides a forum for encouraging research driven engagement between and among scholars, practitioners, advocates, and research students in these areas. CCRJ welcomes interdisciplinary perspectives, but seeks to contribute especially to the study of international relations, comparative politics, and political theory. Through research workshops, speaker series, manuscript readings, and grant projects it facilitates creative engagement among policy and research communities based internationally and in London. CCRJ also provides a mechanism for engaging visiting scholars and practitioners that are pursuing relevant research. We welcome these visitors as research associates.
CCRJ was established in 2010 in the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS. CCRJ scholars are involved in several ongoing collaborative research projects including a project comparing secular and religious providers of humanitarian services looking particularly at the rise of ‘faith based actors’ in international humanitarianism and also in transitional justice, the construction of a ‘topology’ of the aid industry that will include compiling a database of the variety of humanitarian actors, and the impact of transitional justice on peace, stability, and human rights compliance.
Dr Stephen Hopgood, CCRJ co-director (sh18@soas.ac.uk), currently holds a three-year Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship to investigate the politics of human rights at the global level). Dr Leslie Vinjamuri, CCRJ co-director (lv@soas.ac.uk) is pursuing a major project on transitional justice and conflict, and is a founding Chair of the London Transitional Justice Network (together with LSE Global Governance and the Centre on Human Rights in Conflict)
