Dr Lucia Kula
3 July 2025
Biography
Dr Lucia Kula (SFHEA), is an International Human Rights lawyer and Lecturer in Law and Gender at SOAS, University of London and a visiting fellow at Newcastle Law School. She is the programme convenor for the LLM and MA in Law and Gender at SOAS. Her research focuses on an interdisciplinary study of international law, forced displacement and gendered violence through an auto-ethnographic lens. With a background in EU law and human rights law, her interest in the language and the epistemology of legal scholarship weaves together the lived experiences of those at borders and borderlands. Her work examines how legal theory understands (il)legality and (im)mobility, and how conflict and violence affect understandings of citizenship and belonging. Whilst her research focus is the central and southern African region, her work also reflects the paradigms of cross-border migration and asylum in the European context.
Project
As a visiting academic at Newcastle Law School I am currently working on one edited book collection and one co-authored book with colleagues at Newcastle Law School. My co-edited book collection with Dr Nikki Godden-Rasul is a collection that focuses on an interdisciplinary collection of Gender, Law, and Violence across different regional focus and legal expertise. This edited collection brings together senior and early career legal scholars, practitioners and more to centre the different voices in the scholarship. For the co-authored book on the Law of War and Peace, I am honoured to join colleagues Professor Gina Heathcote and Dr Emily Jones at Newcastle Law School, and Dr Sheri Labenski at Goldsmith University of London for the second volume of the book.
Key Publications
Article: Heathcote, Gina & Kula, Lucia. (2024). The Force Intervention Brigade in the drc, Civilian Security and Women Peace and Security. Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies. 15. 1-20.
Book Chapter: ‘Decolonising Feminist Policymaking: interrogating white and liberal feminisms dominance in feminist policy spaces’, in Partis-Jennings, H., & Eroukhmanoff, C. (eds) Feminist Policymaking in Turbulent Times: Critical Perspectives, (Routledge 2024)
Article: What Women Want before Justice: Examining Justice Initiatives to Challenge Violence against Women in the DRC, International Journal of Transitional Justice - Oxford University Press (co-author Bilge Sahin), 2018