Gemma Davies

Gemma joined Durham University Law School as Associate Professor of Criminal Law in September 2022. Her research interests and expertise broadly lie at the intersection of criminal law and international law. This includes exploring issues around transnational criminal law, extradition, police cooperation, European criminal law, responses to cybercrime and extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction amongst others. Her work aims to understand barriers to criminal justice cooperation, particularly between the UK and other states and seeks to facilitate better cooperation which also adequately protects the privacy and fundamental rights of citizens. In recent years she has worked on two funded projects which considered the implications of Brexit for criminal justice cooperation between the UK and Ireland and policing of the dark web. She has most recently written on UK access to electronic evidence stored overseas and the continued role EU data protection rules play in cooperation with third states such as the U.S., even after Brexit.

Her focus is on producing research which engages with policy and practice. She draws on her background as a barrister practising in criminal law from 2005 to 2012 and her many years of experience teaching students undertaking the vocational stage of qualification as a barrister at Northumbria University. Maintaining links with the profession continues to be important to her work. Outside of the university Gemma is an elected committee member of the European Criminal Law Association (UK), and founding member of the UK-Irish Criminal Justice Cooperation Network. She also currently sits on the advisory board of the Independent Commission on UK-EU relations focusing on the post-Brexit relationship between the UK and EU in the field of criminal justice and security cooperation. She has been Principal Investigator, Co-investigator or team member in 7 funded research projects which have been funded by the European Commission, Nordsfork, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, the Society of Legal Scholars and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.