Dr Ciara Hackett

Biography

Dr Ciara Hackett Joined BIICL as a Visiting Research Fellow in 2024. Ciara is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in the School of Law at Queen's University Belfast. Her research focuses on the intersection between business and human rights. She is particularly interested in how corporations, international and domestic law have shaped the corporate obligation to respect human rights and how, in cases where these obligations have not been fulfilled, a remedy can be sought. Regarding remedy, she researches access to and enforcement of remedy. She is further interested in the corporate form, corporate governance and corporate social responsibility.

Ciara is the author of a monograph entitled "Development in an era of Capital Control" (published by Palgrave in 2017). This focussed on the relationship between and within states and other organisations and the impact this has had on regulatory capital. Her current research investigates how the language of international guidelines within business and human rights equips and empowers corporations to respect human rights. In so doing, she is interested in the effect that this has had on those seeking a remedy as a result of human rights violations caused by corporate harm. Whilst at BIICL, she will be developing her research on (1) the language contained within Pillar II of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and (2) what motivates a corporate actor to be responsible.