Aisling’s research explores both theory (politics of international law) and history in the fields of international criminal law and international human rights law. 

Her research on debate over universal jurisdiction in international criminal law involved a theoretical critique and an intellectual history of the debate among international lawyers, contextualized within the history and theory of international criminal justice since the end of the 19th century. The originality, rigour and significance of her research is in its complex investigation from different perspectives, integrating critical legal theory (using the work of Martti Koskenniemi), intellectual history and doctrinal law, to unpack patterns of argumentation that underpin liberal internationalist debates over global responses to mass atrocities and in turn, use the debate over universal jurisdiction as a foil to critique the international criminal justice regime as whole. Her monograph ‘Universal Jurisdiction in International Criminal Law: The Debate and the Battle for Hegemony’ (Routledge London 2017) expertly illustrates how opposing ideals of ‘justice’ merge into each other in every legal argument within this debate, leading to a ‘middle ground’ with a particular hegemonic choice, all of which reflects the internal split in the minds of international lawyers between a ‘court of humanity that never adjourns’ and the impossibility of it being realized.

Her research into histories of human rights law involve analyses of Irish and British political actors engagement with landmark developments in the historical evolution of the field into a global phenomenon. She is working on two collaborative projects that draw on archival research in the Irish National Archives (Dublin) and the British National Archives (London). The ‘Internment on Trial’ project involves a wide-ranging archival study of the Irish and British Governments and their legal teams deliberating upon, consulting over, negotiating and battling the first inter-state case to reach an international human rights court in the late 1970s. This research will be published as a co-authored monograph with Professor William A Schabas (Middlesex and Leiden University) by Cambridge University Press.

The ‘Diplomacy and Advocacy’ project explores how a multiplicity of actors (diplomats, activists, parliamentarians) appealed human rights law in support of wider political objectives and how (and why) they invoked those rights claims before international and domestic institutions. This research will be published as a co-edited book with Prof Roja Fazaeli, University of Galway and Dr Joel Hanisek, University of Galway by Routledge. It involves 9 contributors, including Professor Ivana Bacik (Senator, Irish Parliament and Prof of Criminal Law, Trinity College Dublin), Dr Anthony Cullen (Senior Lecturer in International Humanitarian Law, Middlesex University) and Dr Andrea Breslin (Concern and United Nations).

She is willing to supervise PhD researchers in the fields of international human rights law, international criminal law, histories in international law regimes, critical approaches to international law and studies involving archival research in the field of international law.