Marina Kurkchiyan

Foundation for Law, Justice and Society Research Fellow

Marina Kurkchiyan joined the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies in 1999 as the Peter North Fellow and Research Fellow of Keble College. In 2001 she was appointed Centre Research Fellow. From 2003 she was Paul Dodyk Fellow and Research Fellow of Wolfson College and took up her present position in 2007.

Dr Kurkchiyan is a sociologist who specialises in legal culture and the impact of public policy on social structure and human behaviour. She has conducted research in many countries including Ukraine, Russia and the regions bordering on the Black Sea and the Caspian. As a consultant to the World Bank, the DfID, the Open Society Institute and the UNDP she has completed a number of official reports on the interaction between law and society in relation to development. Her academic papers have appeared in several languages and have dealt with the socio-legal aspects of education, poverty relief, the informal economy, respect for law and health care. Her current research examines the transplanting of legal institutions from the West into Post-Communist societies, particularly the efforts made in Russia since 2000 to create voluntary councils for media outlets that would enable newspapers, TV and radio to regulate themselves and thereby avoid censorship, litigation and intimidation.