Aoife Nolan
Aoife Nolan, LL.B (Dublin), PhD (EUI) is Professor of International Human Rights Law and Director of the University of Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre. Aoife is President of the Council of Europe’s European Committee of Social Rights, the leading European monitoring mechanism on economic and social rights, including the right to a health environment, having joined the Committee in 2017 and served as Vice-President in 2021-2. She is an Academic Expert at Doughty Street Chambers, where she co-leads the Children’s Rights Group and sits on the Steering Group of Doughty Street International. In 2025, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Background
A leading scholar in in the area of human rights, particularly in relation to economic and social rights and children’s rights, Professor Nolan’s work in recent years has focused on the constitutional and international human rights of future generations, child rights and intergenerational justice, as well the theory and practice of climate justice litigation and adjudication.
Professor Nolan has acted as an expert advisor to a wide range of international and national entities working on human rights, climate change, sustainable development and inter-generational justice issues.
In addition to previous full-time positions at Durham Law School and Queen’s University Belfast, she has had visiting positions in institutions in Europe, the USA and Africa, including Fordham University School of Law, Columbia University Law School, the University of Washington, the Faculty of Law of Stellenbosch University, the University of Cape Town Faculty of Law, the Centre for Children’s Rights, School of Education, Queen’s University Belfast, and the Faculty of Law and Criminology at the Université Catholique de Louvain. In 2017, she was a Visiting Professorial Fellow at UNSW Law and a Hauser Senior Global Research Fellow at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU School of Law. In spring 2022, she was appointed a Visiting Professor at Ulster University and Roma Tre University.
Research interests
- Climate justice litigation and adjudication
- Economic and social rights
- Children’s rights
- Future generations’ rights