Room 6.32 - Kramer Law Building

Dr Nicola Palmer is a Senior Lecturer in Public Law and a member of the Centre for Criminology at the University of Cape Town. She has written on the relationship between international criminal law and border control and legal pluralism in Rwanda with support from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Leverhulme Foundation and the British Academy. Her first monograph 'Courts in Conflict: Interpreting the Layers of Justice in Post-Genocide Rwanda' (OUP, 2015) was awarded the King’s College London Research Project of the Year. Nicola is currently a Research Associate at the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford was previously a Reader in Criminal Law at King’s College London and the Global Justice Research Fellow at St Anne’s College, University of Oxford.

Nicola received her DPhil in law from the University of Oxford in 2011 where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. Prior to this, she worked at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (UN ICTR) having completed her undergraduate and honours degrees in law and economics at Rhodes University, Makhanda. She has engaged in advisory work for numerous organisations including the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the United Nations University, swisspeace, Redress, and the Aegis Trust. She has given briefings to the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the UK Metropolitan Police and has engaged in various media appearances including on Al Jazeera, the BBC World Service, TRT World and France24.  

Research Interests

Nicola’s areas of interest are in international criminal law, border criminology, Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), refugee law, legal anthropology, and central African studies. 

Books

Courts in Conflict: Interpreting the Layers of Justice in Post-genocide Rwanda (Oxford University Press 2015) – recipient of the King’s Research Project of the year 2015.

Critical Perspectives in Transitional Justice with Phil Clark and Danielle Granville (eds) (Intersentia Publishing, 2012).

Peer-Reviewed Journals Articles

‘Legal Humility and Perceptions of Power in International Criminal Justice’ (2023) 23 (3) International Criminal Law Review 416-442 (with Tomas Hamilton).

‘Immigration Trials and International Crimes: Expressing Justice and Performing Race’ (2021) 25 (2) Theoretical Criminology 1- 18.

‘International Criminal Law and Border Control: The expressive role of the deportation and extradition of genocide suspects to Rwanda’ (2020) 33 (3) Leiden Journal of International Law 789-807. 

‘Ways of Knowing Atrocity: A methodological enquiry into the formulation, implementation and assessment of transitional justice' (2015) 30 (2) Canadian Journal of Law and Society) 173-182 (with Briony Jones and Julia Viebach).

‘Rethinking the ‘International Law of Crime’: Provocations from Transnational Legal Studies’ (2015) 6 (1) Transnational Legal Theory 55-88 (with Prabha Kotiswaran).

‘Re-examining resistance in post-genocide Rwanda' (2014) 8 (2) Journal of Eastern African Studies 231-245.

 'Family justice centres: A model for empowerment?' (2014) 20 (2) International Review of Victimology (with C Hoyle): 191-210.

‘Transfer or Transformation?: A Review of the Rule 11 bis Decisions of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda’ (2012) 20 (1) The African Journal of International and Comparative Law 1-21. 

Book Chapters

‘Racialized Exclusion through Universal Jurisdiction Trials: Thinking with and Against Transitional Justice’ in Neha Jain and Sarah M.H. Nouwen (eds), Race and Transitional Justice (Oxford University Press 2026). 

‘Connecting Transnational and International Criminal Law in the Classroom’ in Jean-Pierre Gauci and Barrie Sander (eds), Teaching International Law: Reflections on Pedagogical Practice in Context, (Routledge 2024). 

‘Personalising Comparison in International Criminal Law’ in David Nelken and Claire Hamilton (eds), The Handbook of Comparative Criminal Justice (Edward Elgar 2022).

‘Genocide’ in Mariana Valverde, Kamari M. Clarke, Eve Darian Smith and Prabha Kotiswaran (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Law and Society (Routledge 2021).

‘Transnational Criminal Law: A Field in the Making’ in The Oxford Handbook of Transnational Law, Peer Zumbansen (ed) (Oxford University Press 2021) (with Prabha Kotiswaran).

‘The Place of Consultation in the International Criminal Court’s approach to Complementarity and Co-operation’ in Olympia Bekou and Daley Baley (eds), Cooperation and the International Criminal Court (Brill Nijhoff 2016). 

‘Understandings of International Law in Rwanda: A Contextual Approach’ in Edda Kristjansdottir, André Nollkaemper and Cedric Ryngaert (eds) Importing International Law into Post-Conflict States: The Role of Domestic Courts (Intersentia Publishing 2012).   

‘Challenging Transitional Justice’ in Nicola Palmer, Phil Clark and Danielle Granville (eds), Critical Perspectives in Transitional Justice (Intersentia Publishing 2012) (with Phil Clark). 

Review Articles 

‘Book Review: Transnational Legal Ordering of Criminal Justice. By Gregory Shaffer and Ely Aaronson’ (2022) 116 (1) American Journal of International Law 235-235.

‘Anthropology, transitional justice and criminal law’ (2019) 13 (2) International Journal of Transitional Justice (with Felix Kroner): 398-407.

‘Book Review: The Nuremberg Military Tribunals and the Origins of International Criminal Law. By Kevin Jon Heller’ [2012] (2) European Human Rights Law Review 246.

‘Book Review: Truth Commissions and Procedural Fairness. By Mark Freeman’ (2008) 6 (1) International Commentary on Evidence. 

Select Media and Online Publications

‘Rwanda’s economic surge reflects unseen impact of conflict and critical raw minerals’ Daily Maverick (3 April 2025)

‘Life and Law at the Border: UK Immigration Law After Rwanda’, Border Criminologies (5 February 2025)

‘After the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill’, Border Criminologies (26 April 2024)

‘AAA and Others (2023-4): Judging Rwanda’, Border Criminologies (24 November 2023)

‘Whither the Refugee Convention? R (AAA) v SSHD and a vision of refugee law that applies only to the Global South’ Border Criminologies (3 July 2023)

‘Who gets to belong in the UK? Rwanda and the Illegal Immigration Bill’ Border Criminologies (23 March 2023)

‘Diplomatic Ties, Financial Incentives and a Narrowing of International Legal Obligations: A Reading of the UK High Court’s Decision on the ‘Rwanda Policy’- Border Criminologies (20 December 2022)

‘Why Rwanda: Border Control and Transnational Penal Power in an Unequal World’ Border Criminologies Blog (28 April 2022)

‘The UN Security Council’s impact on Transitional Justice in Rwanda’ (with R Leslie) in R Brubaker (ed) The UN Security Council and Transitional Justice (New York: United Nations University, 2021). Completed as part of an expert opinion for the United Nations University, swisspeace and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)

‘Traversing and Reinforcing Borders in the Pursuit of Justice in Rwanda’ Border Criminologies Blog (14 September 2020)

‘Who should try Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga’ Al Jazeera News (2 June 2020)

‘Bolstering Rwandan voices in writing about Rwanda’ (with Felix M Ndahinda, Phil Clark, Sandra Shenge and Jason Mosley) British Academy Blog and LSE Africa blog (17 April 2019)

‘Tensions in domestic and international criminal justice’ OUPBlog (29 June 2015)

‘Finding It within Ourselves’ (with P Clark), a radio documentary on forgiveness and reconciliation in Uganda & Rwanda - broadcast in South Africa, Uganda and Rwanda, profiled on the BBC World Service & broadcast at the Internazionale media festival in Ferrara, Italy (4-5 October 2014)

‘Testifying to Genocide: Victim and Witness Protection in Rwanda’ (with Phil Clark), Redress (October 2012). Completed as part of an expert opinion for REDRESS

'Transitional Justice Methods Manual: An exchange on researching and assessing transitional justice' swisspeace Essentials Series (December 2013) with Oxford Transitional Justice Research 

Teaching

PBL5848F Law and Society in Africa

PBL4501F Criminology: Selected Issues

PBL5615F International Law: Theory and Practice

PBL5815S Human Rights and Punishment

PhD Supervision

I am happy to receive inquiries about supervision within my areas of research interest and expertise. Research undertaken by my current and past PhD students includes:

Nolundi Luwaya – Considering holistic interventions for advancing land justice in South Africa: Exploring the role of law in social change (registered in 2026)

Joanna Rahmatoulay Bakilana – The Double-Edged Sword of Engagement: African State Agency and the International Criminal Court, and the Internalisation of Legal Legitimacy (registered in 2026)

Wendy Okun - Redefining Motherhood and Sexuality in Armed Conflict: Feminist Questions on Forced Pregnancy in Tigray (registered in 2024)

Mansha Mohee - Accountability for protracted refugee displacement in Africa (registered in 2024)

Franka Pues - Bridging the evidentiary gap: the use of AI-Derived social media open source evidence in international criminal prosecutions (completed 2026)

Tomas Hamilton – The arms trade and international criminal law (completed 2020)

Robyn Gill-Leslie - Bodies, law and art: challenging conceptions of interdisciplinary transitional justice through the Marikana Commission of Inquiry (completed 2020)

Estelle Marks – Policing the European Arrest Warrant: an empirical study of transnational policing tools (second supervisor - completed 2020)

Izzy Rhoads – Property in Transition: Uncertainty, Agency and Belonging  in Yangon, Myanmar (second supervisor – completed 2019)

Su Wan Justin Yang – The Incorporation of domestic legal pluralism at the International Criminal Court: the case of Shari’a law in Nigeria (completed 2019)