It is our great pleasure to welcome our new IntLawGrrls contributor Rachel Killean! Rachel is a lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast, where she teaches Public Law and International Human Rights Law. Her research interests centre around two key topics: first, the ways in which states and other actors respond to international crimes and mass human rights violations, and second, the various factors and contexts which influence the invisibility or visibility of certain crimes and harms.

Rachel completed her PhD in 2016, which examined the extent to which international criminal courts can respond to the needs and interests of victims. In particular, it focused on the role of victims within the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Drawing from critical victimology, socio-legal theory and procedural justice theory, it considered how the rights victims were given, and the ‘justice’ which they received from the Court, was shaped by the various political, legal and civil society actors involved in the Court’s work. She is in the process of turning her thesis into a book which will be published by Routledge in 2018.

Rachel is currently working on a AHRC funded project which examines responses to the destruction of cultural property, with a particular focus on the treatment of the minority Cham group during the Khmer Rogue.

Both Rachel and the cultural property project, can be found on twitter: @rkillean and @RestoringCP

Rachel’s first post will examine the most recent Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) judgment. Heartfelt welcome!