People

Ioannis Klaras

Postgraduate Research Student
Essex Law School - Human Rights Centre
 Ioannis Klaras

Profile

Ask me about
  • Law as Discourse
  • Human Rights and Critical Discourse Analysis
  • Human Rights and Neoliberal Hegemony
  • Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights & Resistance

Biography

Ioannis Klaras is a PhD researcher at the Human Rights Centre, School of Law, University of Essex. Ioannis' research focuses on the discourse of human rights (especially ESCR) and its relationship to neoliberalism. He has a particular interest in the performativity of law and the discursive capabilities of the human rights discourse. In his doctoral research project, he uses Critical Discourse Analysis, a socio-linguistic approach, to examine discursive instances of resistance to neoliberalism. His research takes a post-structuralist and post-Marxist perspective applying a variety of conceptual tools, as they have been developed by those schools of thought, to critically analyse law and human rights. Among others, his research and academic interests include Feminist approaches to human rights, Foucauldian and Deleuzian studies on discourse and change, Critical Legal Theory, and post-Marxist studies on ideology. Prior to joining the research community of the University of Essex, Ioannis was working as a research assistant at the Krateros Ioannou Research Institute for International Law and International Relations, at the Democritus University of Thrace in Greece, where he also studied law. He contributed to several research projects including a review of the Jurisprudence of the Permanent Court of International Justice, which was published in 2019 in Greece by Nomiki Bibliothiki. He also holds an LLM in International Law and Social Justice from the University of Brighton, UK. Ioannis has also worked at the Hellenic Parliament as a trainee researcher in the semi-academic Department for Parliamentary History, Directorate for Scientific Supervision, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece, and at the Harris Politis Law Office with various roles and responsibilities.

Qualifications

  • LLM International Law and Social Justice University of Brighton (2022)

Research and professional activities

Thesis

Critical Discourse Analysis of Socio-Economic Rights and Resistance: The Way Out(!)

This interdisciplinary thesis attempts to critically analyse the ESCR discourse using a model of CDA developed by Fairclough in order to examine how neoliberal ideology hegemonises the ESCR discourse with a special focus on instances of resistance, ie instances that the discourse resists the neoliberal hegemony. This focus on instances of resistance (lines of flight) can reveal the emancipatory possibilities of the ESCR discourse and the obstacles towards a needed re-articulation. The project fo

Supervisor: Dr Koldo Casla , Dr Jessica Lawrence

Research interests

Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights

Critical Discourse Analysis

Post-structuralism and Law

Contact

i.klaras@essex.ac.uk

Location:

Colchester Campus