Role: Lecturer in Law, University College Cork
Cork, Ireland

  Contact: c.murray@ucc.ie

  Research Interests:
Mental Health Law | Feminist Theory | Vulnerability Theory | Family Law

Claire Murray is a lecturer in law at University College Cork in Ireland.  Her current research interrogates the contribution of feminist theories of rights to the development of modern rights-based mental health law. This work is a progression of her doctoral research which was funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Her research can be located within, and makes a unique contribution to, international discourse on the limitations of rights-based mental health law and the possibilities for re-conceptualising rights in this field. She is particularly interested in the impact of boundaries within mental health law and also exploring how allocations or classifications of vulnerability can mask paternalistic or protectionist policies to the exclusion of the voice of the targeted population.

Before entering academia in 2010, Claire practiced as a barrister and worked for the Law Reform Commission of Ireland where she was the principal researcher on the “Legal Aspects of Family Relationships” project. Claire has spoken at conferences in Ireland, England, Scotland and Germany and delivered papers on mental health law, intersectional feminisms and family law. To date she has published in Irish journals including the Dublin University Law Journal (“Reinforcing paternalism within Irish mental health law – Contrasting the decisions in EH v St. Vincent’s Hospital and Others and SM v The Mental Health Commission and Others,” 2010 and “Safeguarding the Right to Liberty of Incapable Compliant Patients with a Mental Disorder in Ireland,” 2007).