Centre for Access to Justice and Inclusion adds leading human rights duo to its ranks

Angus Nurse (pictured left) joins as Professor of Law and Environmental Justice and becomes Director of the Centre for Access to Justice and Inclusion and Dr Sebastian Smart as Research Fellow in the Centre, with a particular focus on human rights and artificial intelligence (AI).

Professor Nurse is one of the world's leading academic voices on environmental harms and species justice. He has written six books, co-authored two and jointly edited two academic collections.

Previously, he was Head of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Nottingham Trent University (2021 to 2023) and prior to that was Associate Professor, Environmental Justice and Director of Policing Programmes in the Department of Criminology and Sociology at Middlesex University School of Law. Angus is also a member of the Wild Animal Welfare Committee, an independent group providing an evidence base for evaluating, monitoring, assessing and improving decisions affecting the welfare of wild animals in the UK.  

Dr Smart is a former regional director of the Chilean National Human Rights Institution and has worked extensively for NGOs in Chile, the UK and Haiti, focusing on diverse human rights issues, including economic, social, and cultural rights and the impact of digital technology on human rights. He is also currently a Research Fellow in Human Rights and Technology at Harvard University focusing on welfare state and algorithmic discrimination.

Sebastian's research has received support from the Chilean Government, after he co-authored a paper on AI and human rights in the Chilean domestic regulatory framework and Chilean foreign policy, which is due to be published this week. In addition to his academic work, Sebastian plays an active role in human rights policy and advocacy globally. He currently chairs the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions' working group on business and human rights and is a member of the Advisory Network of the Freedom Online Coalition.

Professor Angus Nurse says: “Along with Sebastian, I am delighted to join the Centre for Access to Justice and Inclusion. The Centre is doing some seminal work to promote the important values of access to justice and inclusion across law and society, the digital economy and arbitration law, and criminal justice. I fully intend to ensure our work is at the centre of influencing policy and society.”