Centre for the Study of Law in Theory and Practice research and impact projects
Many of our LTAP colleagues engage heavily in individual, collaborative and/or impact project work.
Below are some examples of research and impact activities:
Dr Baumeister
Dr Baumeister has been working on (conflict-related) sexual and gender-based violence, publishing on this, for example, in the Journal of Modern Slavery (with Helen McCabe and Wendy Stickle, 2022). In 2023, Dr Baumeister won AHRC Follow-On Funding for Impact and Engagement to develop a comic about forced marriage to teach young teenagers about this harmful practice and support their development as allies to those at risk or already experiencing it.
The project output was highly commended by the Hidden Ref 2024 and findings have been published in Law Teacher. As an engaged scholar, Dr Baumeister has worked in partnership with artists, charities, local government, and secondary schools. She shares her research in blog posts, podcasts, and at public events.
Dr Baumeister and her project team have been interviewed by the media, such as BBC News, BBC Merseyside, and BBC Nottingham. Dr Baumeister contributes her research experience and expertise as Savera UK Advisory Board Member.
Professor Chengeta
Professor Chengeta served as a Commissioner for the Global Commission on Responsible AI in the Military Domain (GC-REAIM), co-researching and co-authoring the landmark report, “Responsible by Design: Strategic Guidance Report on the Risks, Opportunities, and Governance of AI in the Military Domain” (2025).
Serving as Chair of the Governance and Regulation Workstream and a lead member of the Drafting Committee, he ensured that principles of human dignity, accountability, and international law anchored the report’s framework. Part of the report was formally submitted to the UN Secretary-General in accordance with UNGA Resolution A/RES/79/239, acknowledging Chengeta’s authorship.
The GC REAIM report was launched at the UN Security Council by the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mr. Dick Schoof, and represents the first unified international framework for responsible military AI. It is endorsed by several states. As a member of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters (ABDM), Chengeta researched and co-authored the ABDM’s Report on Peace and Security Implications of AI and Emerging Technologies (2025), and was consulted by the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee in its study on “Human Rights Implications of New and Emerging Technologies in the Military Domain” (2025).
At the regional level, as Principal Investigator on the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) Study on AI and Human Rights in Africa (2025), Chengeta produced the first comprehensive regional analysis of AI’s human rights implications. Through extensive multi-stakeholder and grassroots consultations across the continent, the ACHPR report captures diverse African perspectives and identifies region-specific challenges and opportunities presented by AI. Part of the report output was accepted by the UN Secretary General in his report.
In recognition of this impact, Chengeta has been appointed to several prestigious roles: UN Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters (2026–2028), appointed by the UN Secretary-General; UNICEF Expert Advisory Board on AI and Children (2025–2026), Advising on AI’s impact on children, particularly in contexts of armed conflict. He has been featured in the UN Media Services’ High-Level Educational video on Military Governance (2025).
Dr Alison Lui
Dr Alison Lui is the author of two books, the first of which (Financial stability and prudential regulation: A comparative approach to the UK, US, Canada, Australia and Germany, Routledge 2016) has been listed as one of the best Banking Law books and one of the best-selling Banking Law books of all time.
The second book with Nic Ryder appeared in 2021 with Routledge (FinTech, Artificial Intelligence and the Law: Regulation and Crime Prevention). Dr Lui has also provided written evidence to the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee on numerous occasions regarding topics such as automation and the future of work; digital currency; financial inclusion and the rule of law.
Since 2021, Dr Lui has been working on a funded project focusing on access to digital financial payment services for women and minority groups in urban-rural areas of Nigeria.
Professor Mariniello
Professor Mariniello's research paved the way to his appointment as Legal Representative for Gaza Victims before the ICC since 2020. In this capacity, throughout 2025, he engaged in sustained dialogue with the ICC Prosecutor’s Office, the Victims’ Office, and the Outreach Office, as well as with EU institutions and major civil society actors, facilitating exchanges on victims’ rights, accountability, and the operational challenges of international justice.
Between 2020-2024 Mariniello led the ‘international policy-facing impact’ working package of two AHRC-funded research projects (AH/T007540/1 and AH/2006782/1; £590,790.70) on Palestinian Bedouins at risk of forced displacement. In this role, he co-produced a 30-minute documentary screened at major human-rights festivals worldwide, and published the edited book, Ending Impunity for International Law Violations: Palestinian Bedouins and the Risk of Forced Displacement (Hart, Oxford).
In 2025, he co-authored a comprehensive Draft Code of International Crimes for the Italian Parliament, a 71-article proposal that would incorporate genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and aggression into domestic law. Since 2020, Mariniello has regularly been presenting his research on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the Italian Parliament; the Canadian Parliament; French Senate; and the UK House of Commons.
In 2021, he presented his advanced research report on ‘The role of the ICC since its foundation and possible scenarios for the future: case selection and prioritisation’ before the European Parliament. Since September 2023, he has been acting as Legal Advisor for a ‘Peace Group’ including 30 Italian MPs.
Prof. Mariniello’s research has underpinned invited media appearances, including the BBC and Al Jazeera,across the globe. Since September 2023, he has been regularly interviewed by TV, newspapers and radio in the UK, France, Italy, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, The Netherlands, Vatican, Israel, Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey, Palestine, and Mexico.
Professor Ong
Professor Onghas recently been officially designated as a 'Foreign Expert' at the China Institute of Boundary and Ocean Studies (CIBOS) at Wuhan University, China in recognition of his distinguished expertise in the related fields of the Modern Law of the Sea for Sustainable Development. This follows, inter alia, the 2023 publication of his lead essay on Discerning the Legal Threshold for Sovereignty over Islands: Implications for Judicial Settlement of International Disputes, in an edited volume entitled: Peaceful Management of Maritime Disputes (Routledge).
He has also participated in a UK-Vietnam Track 1.5 Academic Dialogue meeting in Da Nang, Viet Nam on 5 November 2025 and is currently part of a multidisciplinary academic networking group advising the UK Government's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) on the draft UK-ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) 2nd Plan of Action, 2026-2030.
Professor Ong has also undertaken recurring seminars at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in Hamburg, Germany on the 'Management of Transboundary Resources' for the ITLOS-Nippon Fellowship capacity-building and training programme, as well as on 'Brexit and the Law of the Sea' for the EU-Law of the Sea (EULOS) Summer School, based at the University of Genoa, Italy.
Closer to home, he is collaborating with Dr Kenneth Kang on developing a multi-disciplinary LJMU networking team to research the legal, policy, economic, environmental and social implications of the proposed Merseyside Tidal Power (MTP) project.
Professor Pentassuglia
Professor Pentassuglia's latest work(since 2021)has been published in eminent academic journals such as the Nordic Journal of International Law, the Hungarian Yearbook of International and European Law and the International Journal on Minority and Group Rights.
In 2021, Professor Pentassuglia was elected as an expert member to the OSCE Network's Steering Group and served in that capacity until December 2023. Prof Pentassuglia recently received ESRC and Research of England/LJMU funding to support a collaborative project on minority political participation and integration with the University of Glasgow as well as senior practitioners and advisors from the OSCE and Council of Europe.
Part of this work builds on his policy analysis for the OSCE Network at Hamburg University's OSCE Research Centre. Prof Pentassuglia is an officially recognised expert at the Council of Europe and is part of a collaborative network with the University of Glasgow.
In 2024, he was awarded a prestigious Visiting Professorial Fellowship at LUISS Rome to teach and conduct research on matters of internal self-determination, participation and autonomy and their entanglement with issues of nationalism and group belonging.
Prof Pentassuglia is a frequent commentator for political and cultural magazines.
Richard Ridyard
Richard Ridyard has been the principal researcher on a project that seeks to gain a greater understanding of the attitudes and teaching activities of academics in UK Law Schools concerning climate change. That project received research funding from the Society of Legal Scholars as well as LJMU. He has a forthcoming article on bank governance that will be published in the Journal of Banking Regulation.
His research into bank governance has attracted research funding from the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University. Richard also forms part of a Legislative Theatre project team that has developed and delivered a series of workshops. The team have a chapter, based on one of those workshops, featured in an edited collection on Sustainability Teaching for Impact, published by Routledge. And they have a short piece that will be published online by the Times Higher Education.
Richard also has a chapter on game-based learning included in an edited collection, published by Edward Edgar. His published work has been cited by, amongst others, the Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Seattle University Law Review, and the Washington University Law Review.
Richard has been interviewed by the media, such as BBC Radio Merseyside, and BBC North West Tonight. And he is one of the founding co-managing editors of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Risk Regulation, Law, and Policy.
Rachel Stalker
Rachel Stalker has been a solicitor for 20 years. She is currently Reader and Subject Leader in Clinical Legal Education and is a board member, and past Vice President, of the European Network for Clinical Legal Education (ENCLE). Stalker established the Legal Advice Centre (LAC) at LJMU in 2014 which has been recognised locally and nationally for its work. It now delivers more than £1M in free legal advice to the local community each academic year.
Her scholarly work reflects her commitment to advancing clinical legal education theory and practice. In 2020, she co-authored The Clinical Legal Education Handbook (University of London Press), the first comprehensive national good practice guide for clinical legal education programmes at UK law schools and recommended by the Law Society of England and Wales.
In November 2021, her chapter co-authored with Sarah Buhler on "Place-Based Education: Clinical Legal Education and Ethics" appeared in Thinking About Clinical Legal Education: Philosophical and Theoretical Perspectives, edited by Omar Madhloom and Hugh McFaul (Routledge). Stalker is co-lead editor of Clinical Legal Education in Europe: Innovation and Social Justice which will be published by Bristol University Press in May 2026 and will be the first publication to focus specifically on European practice.
In 2021, Stalker served as co-editor with Dr Alice Diver for a special issue of the Journal of Work-Applied Management where she continues as a peer reviewer. She has also been a peer reviewer for the International Journal of Clinical Legal Education since 2017. The LAC was featured in Joshua Rozenberg's "Law In Action" programme in October 2022. She has made numerous appearances on BBC Radio Merseyside in relation to the LAC generally, and more particularly recently to discuss the clinic set up in 2024 in partnership with Liverpool Advocates for Windrush.
The Windrush Community Law Clinic was shortlisted for an Educate North Award in 2024 and it won Best New Pro Bono Activity in the LawWorks & Attorney General Awards in the same year. She co-authored evidence in the recent Parliamentary consultation on the Rule of Law along with Dr. Alison Lui and Professor Tony Wall, and is a member the APPG on Primodos.
She is also a member of the working group of the Administrative Justice Council which has just published its report on Addressing Disadvantage in the Administrative Justice System.
Dr Stanford
Dr Stanford has been working extensively on parliamentary recall mechanisms, publishing on this in Public Law as the October 2024 issue’s lead article. In May 2025, Ben was invited to provide oral evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee on the Recall and Removal of Members (Scotland) Bill.
This invitation followed his influential written submission. The Committee’s official report (November 2025) cites Ben’s evidence multiple times, incorporating several of his recommendations into its conclusions. Recognising this, Ben has recently been invited to contribute evidence to the Senedd (Welsh Parliament) which is also scrutinising a Bill for recall.
Ben has also recently authored several book chapters on matters of parliamentary sovereignty and UK constitutional values and won a British Academy grant in 2025 to develop key skills in electoral administration.
Dr Wilson
Dr Wilson published his most recent monograph, Constitutional Reform and Brexit (Routledge) in 2023, while a new edition of his earlier The United Nations and Collective Security is in the process of completion for 2026 publication.
He has published widely in areas of international law and constitutional law, with recent contributions including a chapter on constitutional statutes in an edited collection, Constitutional Values, Identities and Rights (Routledge, 2025) (edited by John McGarry) and a co-written article exploring the legal issues arising from Russia's invasion of Ukraine (Netherlands International Law Review, 2022, with Sofia Cavandoli).
He was also awarded for having contributed the best article published in International Journal of Climate Change: Impacts and Responses (2020). Gary is the long-serving editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed, Liverpool Law Review, published by Springer and based at LJMU since its inception in 1979. He has been invited to contribute to The Conversation Africa as a recognised expert on African states at the United Nations, while also often featuring in media coverage of issues falling within his areas of expertise, having been interviewed by various broadcasters ranging from BBC Radio 5 Live to Cape Talk Radio in South Africa.
Gary occasionally submits evidence to parliamentary and governmental inquiries, including contributing to a joint submission to the Ministry of Justice's consultation on the replacement of the Human Rights Act.
Dr Ventrella
Dr Ventrella has published work with Hart (Ventrella M., Post-Brexit Legal Challenges in the Cooperation against Migrant Smuggling in Davies G, Carrapico H. UK-EU Police and Judicial Cooperation Post-Brexit); Border Crossing (Ventrella, M., and Morano Foadi, S., Re-framing European Union (EU) - United Kingdom (UK) Cooperation to Address Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling, and Yearbook of European Union and Comparative Law (Morano Foadi, S., and Ventrella M., Agencification, Fundamental Rights and the non-Delegation Doctrine: Frontex's Mandate on Trafficking in Human Beings).
Ms. Suzanne Hoff, International Coordinator at La Strada International, confirmed the value of the research for frontline NGOs and civil society, while Jonas Grimheden, Head of the Fundamental Rights Office at Frontex, provided written appreciation of this work to the activities of the Agency’s independent Fundamental Rights Office.
Dr Ventrella's written evidence published with Professor Sonia Morano Foadi in March 2025, has been cited by the House of Lords European Affairs Committee in the Report titled Unfinished Business: Resetting the UK-EU relationship.