Piergiuseppe Parisi
Lecturer

Profile

Biography

Single-Cycle Master’s Degree in Law (University of Trento, Italy), LLM in Legal Studies (London South Bank University), PhD in International Studies (University of Trento, Italy), PGCAP (University of York, UK)

Lecturer and Joint Programme Leader, LLM in International Human Rights Law and Practice

I joined the York Law School as a Lecturer in February 2022. Prior to that, I was a research associate at the Centre for Applied Human Rights, where I worked as part of the Generating Respect Project and the Human Rights Defender Hub, and as an associate lecturer at the York Law School.

Before joining the University of York, I was a research assistant for the HERA-funded MELA (Memory Laws in European and Comparative Perspective) Project, while completing my PhD at the University of Trento, where I also worked as a Teaching Assistant. During my doctoral studies, I held visiting positions at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the University College London.

I am legally trained in Italy and have worked as a Protection Strategies Intern at the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. I have also interned at REDRESS, assisting in the preparation of ground-breaking torture cases before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights. 

Publications

Selected publications

Latest Peer Reviewed Journal Articles

• ‘Confronting rifles with words: the High Islamic Council of Mali and non-State armed groups’ (forthcoming) Special Issue of the Journal of Human Rights Practice (In press).
• ‘In Pursuit for Greater Accountability for Torture: The Case of Giulio Regeni After Judgment No. 192/2023 of the Italian Constitutional Court’ (with Mattia Pinto) (2024) Italian Yearbook of International Law (In press).

Latest Book Chapters

• ‘Una corte penale internazionale per il reato di corruzione?’ (with Pietro Insolera and Emanuela Fronza) in Héctor Olasolo, Federico Freydell Mesa, and Andrés Sánchez Sarmiento (eds), Respuestas a la Corrupción Transnacional desde el Derecho Internacional Penal. Parte I: Mecanismos de aplicación y cooperación internacional (Tirant lo Blanch 2024).
• ‘Article 41’, ‘Article 51’, and ‘Article 58’ in Micaela Frulli, Sara de Vido, and Adriana Di Stefano (eds), Commentary to the Istanbul Convention (Elgar Publishers, 2023).  

Research

Overview

• Indigenous peoples’ rights
• Human rights practice
• International human rights law
• International humanitarian law
• International criminal law
• Public international law
•  Transitional and transformative justice

I have varied research interests within the broad field of human rights. Methodologically, I largely – though not exclusively and often experimentally – conduct Participatory Action Research (PAR), employing collaborative anthropological, ethnographic, and arts-based data collection, analysis, and dissemination methods.

My three strands of research are:

Indigenous Peoples’ Rights

Currently I conduct collaborative research in the area of indigenous peoples’ rights. Funded projects I am, or have been part of are:

1. Rethinking accountability from the bottom: Setting a research agenda on traditional grassroots justice mechanisms (TGJMs) – funded through the University of York’s internally distributed funding, this pilot project is co-developed with a Nasa Indigenous community in the northern Cauca Department (Colombia) in partnership with the regional Prosecutor's office in the Department’s capital, Popayán. The project seeks to challenge narrow views of accountability for human rights violations by drawing lessons the Nasa indigenous justice system.
2. Beyond Compliance Consortium (BCC) – as a contributing researcher to the BCC, I conduct collaborative research with the Nasa Indigenous Reserve of Huellas, Caloto, and the Association of Indigenous Councils of the northern Cauca Department (ACIN) on the impact of child recruitment by non-state armed groups (NSAGs) on indigenous communities in the Southwest of Colombia, as well as on the strategies employed by these communities to demand that such groups comply with international humanitarian law.
3. ‘Ritualising’ protection in conflict: A collaborative visual ethnography of the cultural and spiritual protection practices of the Nasa people in Colombia – funded by the Creating Safer Space Network Plus, this project was collaboratively developed with the Nasa Indigenous Reserve of Huellas, Caloto (Colombia). It sought to shed light on how ancestral spiritual and cultural practices protect indigenous communities in the midst of armed conflict and what coordination mechanisms could be put in place to ensure that these practices are effectively supported by the state. One of the outputs of this project is a three-part participatory documentary, which has been shown at the WOW Wales One World Film Festival in Aberystwyth.

Human Rights at the Local Level

I am interested in how cities and local state entities (mis-)use human rights. Funded projects I am, or have been part of include:

1. Mapping Local Human Rights Practices in Triveneto – based at, and internally funded by the University of Padova (Italy), this pilot project is aimed at laying the foundations for a broader inquiry into local human rights commitment in the Northeast of Italy, and it constitutes the basis for an exchange between local civil servants in Italy and abroad. Specifically, it focuses on local human rights practices in four specific policy-areas: right to housing, gender-based violence, inclusion and non-discrimination of migrants and minorities, and initiatives to promote human rights education.
2. Shaping a Human Rights-Based Approach to COVID-19 in the City of York –working in partnership with the City of York Council and York Human Rights City, I have coordinated research on co-production practices between the Council and the charitable sector in decision-making and policy development across the city, as well as on existing framework for assessing the human rights impacts of Council’s policies and decisions. As part of the ongoing collaboration with the City of York Council, I have developed a human rights impact assessment tool that is currently being piloted by Council officers.

Human Rights Monitoring and Fact-Finding

I am interested in how human rights monitoring and fact-finding mechanisms could be used to promote compliance with human rights and international humanitarian law standards, and as a form of accountability for violations of such standards. In particular, my doctoral research focused on the impact and effectiveness of Human Rights Council-mandated human rights inquiries in Israel and Palestine. My doctoral dissertation proposes a novel conceptualisation of these mechanisms as socialisation tools. Currently, I am developing a book proposal partially based on my doctoral dissertation.

Teaching

Undergraduate

• Public International Law (co-convener)
• International Criminal Justice
• International Human Rights Law
• Dissertation (supervisor)

Postgraduate

• Applying International Human Rights Law
• Human Rights Placement (convener)
• Human Rights Defence Clinic (convener)
• Dissertation (International Human Rights Law and Practice) (supervisor)

Current PhD supervisees

• Brook Morrison
• Zaki Kaf Al-Ghazal

External activities

Overview

• Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy (AFHEA)
• Chair of the Board of Trustees, Colombian Caravana
• Member of the Advisory Board, Citizen Religious Hate Crime Tracker: India
• Editorial Board Member, Peace Human Rights Governance
• Regular reviewer for academic journals in the areas of human rights