Bethany Shiner

Bethany Shiner is a Dphil (PhD) candidate at the Faculty of Law. Her thesis research is on the right to freedom of thought under article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights and is under the supervision of Professor Kate O’Regan and Dr Nazila Ghanea. Bethany has several peer-reviewed publications on the right to freedom of thought, military accountability and other subjects. She co-convenes the Freedom of Thought Network, an academic research group, and is a founding member of the European Expert Group for Human Rights and Emerging Technologies.

Bethany is a senior lecturer in law at Middlesex University London, where she has taught Public Law since 2015. 

Before joining academia, Bethany was a judicial review solicitor specialising in the Human Rights Act 1998. She was involved in the so-called ‘Iraq litigation’ which refers to hundreds of judicial review claims brought against the Secretary of Defence in regard to alleged human rights violations against Iraqi civilians and detainees during the Iraq war and occupation. 

Edited Books

The Cambridge Handbook of the Right to Freedom of Thought, co-edited with Patrick O’Callaghan (CUP, 2025)

Peer-reviewed articles

'The Right to Freedom of Thought: an Interdisciplinary Analysis of the UN Special Rapporteur’s Report on Freedom of Thought' with Patrick O’Callaghan, Olga Cronin, Brendan D. Kelly, Joel Walmsley and Simon McCarthy-Jones [2023] The International Journal of Human Rights 

‘Ministry of Defence Impunity: The Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act 2021’ with Tanzil Chowdhury [2022] 2 Public Law 289-310

‘The right to freedom of thought in the European Convention on Human Rights’ with Patrick O’Callaghan, [2021] 8(2-3) European Journal of Comparative Law and Governance 112-145

‘A Distinct Right to Freedom of Thought in South America: The Jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Neurotechnology and the application of Bioethics principles’ with Cláudio de Oliveira Santos Colnago, [2021] 8(2-3) European Journal of Comparative Law and Governance 245-270

‘Introduction to a comparative study of the right to freedom of thought’ with Patrick O’Callaghan [2021] 8(2-3) European Journal of Comparative Law and Governance 107-111

‘Big data, small law: how gaps in regulation are affecting political campaigning methods’ [2019] 2 Public Law 361-378

Book chapters

‘Anti-accountability: the military agenda and the Conservative Government’ with Conall Mallory in Conall Mallory and Adam Ramshaw (eds) Human Rights in the United Kingdom under Conservative Governments (2010-2024) (Hart, forthcoming)

‘The right to freedom of thought and the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment: examining the relationship in the case of the coercive and interrogational use of neurotechnology’ in Emma Dore-Horgan, Sjors Ligthart, Gerben Meynen, Philipp Kellmeyer (eds) The Cambridge Handbook on Human Rights for the Mind: Emerging Technologies, Law and Philosophy (CUP, forthcoming)

‘Privacy 6:0: Privacy as Mental Autonomy’ with Patrick O’Callaghan in C. Bublitz and M. Blitz (eds) The Law and Ethics of Freedom of Thought, Palgrave Series on Law, Neuroscience & Human Behavior (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025)

‘Introduction: mapping and implementing legal protection of the right to freedom of thought’ in P. O’Callaghan and B. Shiner (eds) The Cambridge Handbook of the Right to Freedom of Thought (CUP, 2025)

‘The Right to Freedom of Thought in the United Kingdom’ in P. O’Callaghan and B. Shiner (eds) The Cambridge Handbook of the Right to Freedom of Thought (CUP, 2025)

‘The Right to Freedom of Thought under the American Convention on Human Rights’ with Cláudio de Oliveira Santos Colnago in P. O’Callaghan and B. Shiner (eds) The Cambridge Handbook of the Right to Freedom of Thought (CUP, 2025)