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Staff Profile

Dr Ruth Houghton

Senior Lecturer

Background

Ruth is a Senior Lecturer at Newcastle Law School.

She joined Newcastle in September 2017 and prior to that she worked at Durham Law School.

She was the founding co-lead of Newcastle's Constitutionalism and Governance ConGov research group and is the thematic lead for "Global Democracy and Legitimacy" for the Global Policy Institute (Durham).


Ruth's research is situated within global constitutional scholarship, with a particular interest in constituent power and democracy. She is currently working on a number of related projects on feminist approaches to global constitutionalism: (1) feminist perspectives on sovereignty; (2) utilising utopias, science-fiction and feminist manifestos as methodology (with Professor Aoife O'Donoghue); (3) a project concerning Madame de Staël's constitutional theory (with Dr Adam Rowe); (4) an exploration and critique of Gertrude Bell's role in constitution-making (with Dr Bronwen Jones). 


Alongside Professor Aoife O'Donoghue and Dr Cher Weixia Chen, Ruth is the editor of the Edward Elgar Research Handbook on Global Governance (forthcoming in Autumn 2025).


Qualifications

  • PhD (Durham University)
  • Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (Durham University)
  • LLM (University College London)
  • GDL (University of Birmingham)
  • BA in English and History (University of York)


Roles and Responsibilities


Memberships

  • Associate Member of the International Association of Electoral Law
  • Fellow of the Global Policy Institute and thematic lead for "Global Democracy and Legitimacy" (Durham University)
  • Society of Legal Scholars
  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
  • Honourable Society of the Inner Temple
Research

Throughout her research in global constitutionalism and international law, Ruth uses feminist methodologies and constitutional and political theory to challenge the disciplinary assumptions on democracy and constituent power. Ruth's most recent work utilises law and humanities methodologies, including work on speculative fiction, utopias and feminist manifestos as well as theatre productions to understand (re)constructions of constitutional moments and provide novel re-imaginings of constituent power.


Research Topics

  • Global Constitutionalism
  • International Law
  • Democratic Theory
  • Constitutional Theory
  • International Organisations
  • Feminist Theory
  • Utopia


Research Projects

AHRC Network, Failure and Utopia

Alongside Professor Mathias Thaler (Edinburgh) and Davina Cooper (KCL), Ruth is organising three workshops as part of this AHRC funded network. This network will explore critical perspectives on utopia and failure alongside others that re-evaluate failure - conceptually, methodologically, and practically. Information about the project is available on the website: https://failingbetter.sps.ed.ac.uk/

Open Research Area 7, Unwritten Constitutional Norms and Principles: A Comparative Study

Led by the Principal Investigator, Dr Se-shauna Wheatle, Ruth is a member of the UK Team on this comparative study investigating unwritten constitutional norms.


Research Funding

  • 2021 - British Academy Virtual Sandpits: 'Understanding international law's role in mis- and disinformation' (with Dr Nora Jansen)
  • 2021 - British Academy Virtual Sandpits: 'Bridging the Local and the Global: Women's Collectives and Spaces of Action/Reflection' (with Dr Jane Rooney and Dr Aliya Khalid, and Dr Kate Spencer-Bennett and Alana Farrell)
  • 2020 - Society of Legal Scholars (SLS): 'Finding Magna Carta in Shakespeare's King John'
  • 2015-2017 - Durham University Institute of Advanced Study: 'Scaling Global Governance' and 'Scale, Constitutionalism and Tyranny' (with Prof. Aoife O'Donoghue, Dr Maria Anna Corvaglia and Dr Alan Greene)
  • 2015 - Durham Global Security Institute: 'Global and Comparative Law' (with Dr Se-shauna Wheatle)


PhD Supervision

I welcome PhD applications within the fields of Global Constitutionalism, Public International Law and Constitutional Theory. 

Current PhD Supervisions

  • Feminist Approaches to Digital Constitutionalism

Completed PhD Supervisions

  • Dr Yuki Motoyoshi - The Legality of Military Operations against Non-State Actors, when the Territorial State is Unwilling or Unable to Suppress the Threat of Non-State Actors
  • Dr Li Wang - An Analysis of Constitutional Environmental Design in China


Invited Papers and Seminars

  • 'Feminist Constitutionalism in Global Constitutionalism' Keio University, Japan (June 2023)
  • 'Feminist Constituent Power in International Law: The City Born Great/The City We Became and The World We Make' (with Aoife O'Donoghue) Birmingham University Law and Gender Research Group (May 2023
  • Feminist Constitutionalism: feminist law-making workshop (6 May 2021)
  • 'Utopias, Colonialism & International Law' (with Aoife O'Donoghue) Warwick Centre for Critical Legal Studies and Critical Legal Thinking Online Seminar Series (February 2021)
  • ‘Utopias, Colonialism & International Law’ (with Aoife O’Donoghue) Birmingham Global Legal Studies Reading Group (10 December 2020)
  • ‘Ourworld’: A feminist approach to global constitutionalism’ (with Aoife O’Donoghue) Global Constitutionalism webinar series (5 June 2020)
  • ‘Constituent Power as a new approach for International Law and Democracy’ Workshop on Constituent Power (The University of Liverpool, 28th June 2019
  • 'Weaving Communities: Reading Feminist Science Fiction for Global Constitutionalisation’ Who are “We the People”? Community beyond the state (Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University, 12 February 2019) (project with Aoife O’Donoghue)
  • 'Constituent Power and Referenda: Tales from Global Constitutionalisation’ The Role of Referendums in the UK Constitutional order (Durham, 31 January 2019)
  • ‘Attempts to democratise the UN: representation, participation, and NGOs’ UN and Global Order Programme (University of Reading, 26 April 2018)
  • ‘International perspectives’ Treaties, Brexit and the Constitution (Jesus College, Oxford University, 23 March 2018)
  • ‘Where is Magna Carta in Shakespeare’s King John’ Dark Side of Magna Carta (Newcastle Law School, July 2015)


Teaching

In 2023, Ruth was named 'Law Teacher of the Year' at the Northern Law Awards. In 2021, Ruth was awarded a Newcastle Teaching Excellence Award (TEA) for Outstanding Contribution to Personal Support.

Ruth has been a Guest Lecturer at the Durham Global Security Institute (DGSI) (2015-2019), the University of Verona (Online in March 2020; May 2024), São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Brazil (Online in July 2023; October 2024), the German Studienstiftung Summer Academy in Flensburg (July-August 2023), Masaryk University (MUNI) in Czechia (November 2024), and Freie Universität Berlin (December 2024).


Undergraduate Teaching

  • LAW3017: Public International Law (LLB) (Module Leader 2021- )
  • LAW3034: Fundamentals of Human Rights Law (LLB) (Seminars 2023)

Previous teaching:

  • LAW1110/LAW1210: Legal Institutions and Methods (LLB) (Module Leader 2018- 2022)
  • LAW2163: Equity (LLB) (Seminars 2017-2019)
  • LAW8091: Legal Research: Theory and Method (PGT Seminar 2022)
  • LAW8559: Contemporary Problems of International Law and Dispute Settlement (LLM) (PGT seminar 2017-2018)


PhD Supervision

I welcome PhD applications within the fields of Global Constitutionalism, Public International Law and Constitutional Theory. 

Current PhD Supervisions

  • Feminist approaches to Digital Constitutionalism

Completed PhD Supervisions

  • Dr Yuki Motoyoshi - The Legality of Military Operations against Non-State Actors, when the Territorial State is Unwilling or Unable to Suppress the Threat of Non-State Actors
  • Dr Li Wang - An Analysis of Constitutional Environmental Design in China


Publications