Georgina Firth

Overview
Publications and media appearances
Memberships

Overview

Georgina was one of the original members of Garden Court North Chambers, having joined as a tenant in 1997. She is now a full-time Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Lancaster in the areas of Criminal law, Crime and Criminal Justice, Evidence, Gender and Immigration and Asylum law.

Georgina continues to retain strong links with Chambers as a non-practising Associate Member. This partnership helps to foster important links between academia and the legal world. In her academic career, Georgina is now responsible for a full programme of teaching, research and other activities. Georgina works with other members of Chambers in her Lancaster Law School initiatives:

Georgina was the staff convenor of the Lancaster University Innocence Project from its beginnings until 2016. The Project is now part of the Lancaster University Miscarriages of Justice Clinic. An Innocence Project (IP) is a student led project focusing on the study of wrongful criminal convictions, with a view to referral back to the Court of Appeal via the Criminal Cases Review Commission. Students are involved in investigating real criminal cases. Assistance is provided pro bono to prisoners who maintain their innocence and have exhausted their appeal rights. The Lancaster Project has been operating since 2007 and was officially launched in October 2008 with a public lecture from Paddy Hill and Gerry Conlon. Mark George QC regularly advises and trains members of the Project. Pete Weatherby QC and Mark Barlow have also provided training in the past;
Georgina is currently working to establish a Northern Refugee Network and organised a conference entitled Contemporary issues in Refugee Law Conference (2015) as a starting point for this. Guest speakers included Chambers' Lucy Mair, Denise McDowell (GMIAU) and Professor Antony Good (University of Edinburgh);
Georgina is also involved with a network of academics, professionals and third sector workers looking at sexual crime and in particular rape; and
She is a Contributor and Co-Editor of Textbook on Immigration and Asylum Law (Clayton OUP), the only student textbook in this field.

In practice as a tenant at Chambers (1997 to 2012), Georgina focused primarily on civil actions against the police, prison law, immigration and asylum, inquests and criminal defence. She maintains a particular interest in asylum and immigration law and works with local charities in these fields on a voluntary basis.

Publications and media appearances

Articles

‘Making Difference Matter: Personhood and the Female Refugee’ (2013) International Journal of Refugee Law Vol. 25 No. 3 pp. 470–501 (co-authored with Barbara Mauthe);
‘Not an invitation to rape: The Sexual Offences Act 2003, consent and the case of the ‘drunken’ victim’ – [2011] 62 NILQ (1) pp. 99-118;
‘Still a migrant first? The Detention of Asylum Seeking Children after the BCIA 2009’ (2010) Web Journal of Current Legal Issues, Issue 2;
‘Renegotiating Reproductive Technologies: The ‘Public Foetus’ Revisited’ (2009) 92 Feminist Review pp. 54 -71; and
‘The Rape Trial and Sexual History Evidence: R v A and the (Un)worthy Complainant’ (2006) NILQ 57 (3) pp. 442-464.

Book chapters

Updated chapter 8 on ‘family life’ in Clayton, G (2014) Textbook on Immigration and Asylum Law (6e), OUP, Oxford; and
Updated chapters 8, 14, 15, 16 in Clayton, G (2016) Textbook on Immigration and Asylum Law (7e) 2016, OUP, Oxford.

Conferences and lectures

Organiser and Chair of ‘Contemporary Issues in Refugee Law’ conference, Lancaster University, 7^th July 2015;
‘Consent and the Drunken Victim’ presented at Lancaster University, Re-examining legal and criminal justice responses to rape, 7 May 2015;
Keynote speaker at German Migration Law Network, Stuttgart November 2014. Title of speech ‘“Who is (still) in need of protection? The construction of vulnerability as a barrier to innovation”;
‘Personhood and Refugee Women’ presented at the Feminist Futures Conferences, Brunel University, July 2011;
‘The Detention of asylum seeking children in families’ presented to Richardson Institute conference on ‘Forced Migration’ – October 2010;
‘Testimony in the Asylum courts’ prepared for a series of AHRC Interdisciplinary Research Workshops with Dr. Jane Kilby at Salford University. Assisted in organising one of the seminars at Lancaster University in September 2010;
‘Making Difference Matter: Fitting Women into the Refugee Convention’ – paper presented at CLG conference, Kent, February 2007;
Paper on R v A and the rape trial presented to SLSA conference in 2004; and
Attended relevant conferences including ‘The Business of Immigration Detention’ – Lancaster 2015; ‘Rethinking Rape Law: Akayesu 10 Years On’ – Durham July 2008 and ‘Sexual Offences and Criminal Justice: Challenging myths, supporting victims’ – UWE Sept 2008.

Memberships

ILPA;
Free Movement; and
SLSA and SLS.