Dr. Kirsten Ainley’s research is in the field of global ethics and is concerned with relationships between politics, law and ethics in international relations.

Kirsten is Co-Director and Deputy Principal Investigator of the UKRI GCRF Gender, Justice and Security Hub, which is a five year project working at the overlap of Sustainable Development Goal 5 on gender equality, Goal 16 on peace, justice and strong institutions, and the implementation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda. She is principal investigator on the Hybrid Justice project, analysing the impact of ‘hybrid’ domestic-international criminal justice mechanisms in post-conflict and transitioning states, and on the ESRC Conflict, Justice and Development project, researching the links between transitional justice and development in Colombia, Sri Lanka, Syria and Uganda.

She focuses on the history and development of international criminal law, human rights and humanitarian intervention and has published on international criminal law, transitional justice, the International Criminal Court, the Responsibility to Protect and the notion of evil in international relations in journals such as Ethics and International Affairs, the International Journal of Transitional Justice, International Affairs and Global Responsibility to Protect. She is the co-author, with Chris Brown, of Understanding International Relations (2009) and co-editor (with Rebekka Friedman and Chris Mahony) of Evaluating Transitional Justice: Accountability and Peacebuilding in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone (2015). Ainley has a PhD and an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics and a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford.