Professor Aisling Swaine joins UCD Sutherland School of Law 

Professor Aisling Swaine has joined UCD Sutherland School of Law from 1 January 2024 from the UCD School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice.

In 2023 Professor Swaine was awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant of €2 million to lead ‘GENCOERCTRL’, a project examining women’s experiences of coercive control in armed conflict, and approaches to the issue in transitional justice, which now transfers to UCD Sutherland School of Law.

Professor Swaine’s research is important because, to date, coercive control has received little scholarly attention as a lens to understand women’s experiences of armed conflict. Professor Swaine’s project addresses this gap and specifically examines international legal responses to the issue through transitional justice mechanisms. By developing new methodological approaches to understanding this gendered phenomenon, and speaking with women across Colombia, Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka, ‘GENCOERCTRL’ will uncover the lived experience and nature of coercive control in conflict settings, and expand feminist scholarly critique of international law’s responses to women’s experiences of conflict.

Professor Swaine said: “This funding will push the boundaries of what we, as researchers, currently understand to characterise women’s experiences of armed conflict. There is so much more to conflict-related gendered harm than physical violence. This grant will allow us to uncover the more subtle ways that armed conflict dynamics impact women. By centering women’s own articulation of their lived experience of conflict, the project will advance not just better understanding of gendered harm, but also pathways towards better accountability through international law and global justice mechanisms.”

Commenting on Professor Swaine’s transfer to UCD Sutherland School of Law, Professor Laurent Pech, Dean of Law, said: “We are very pleased to welcome Professor Swaine, a leading scholar in the area of gender studies, to the school. Her project will allow us to create new synergies across several complementary disciplines and important areas of research. The school now hosts four European Research Council funded projects, a rare achievement for any law school in Europe and one that we are extremely proud of."