Dr Alicia de la Cour Venning

Profile

Alicia is a an ESRC postdoctoral research fellow at the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI), based in QMUL’s School of Law. Alicia researches state violence and the nature of resistance it elicits, including the emergence and evolution of rebel governance processes. Alicia is currently working on two key areas of research:

1) Interrogating the ways in which international humanitarian norms and practice, inherently state centric, trigger processes which legitimise criminal governments and delegitimise armed and grassroots forms of resistance which arise in direct challenge to state violence. 2) Examining the failures of international legal and political mechanisms to prevent genocidal processes, using Rakhine state, Myanmar, as a case study.

In the latter half of 2021 Alicia will commence her Swedish Research Council funded project, together with colleagues Bart Klem and Marika Sonowski, investigating the nature of legal identity within guerrilla controlled territories.

Alicia was previously one of two lead researchers on ESRC funded project, Rapid Descent into Genocide in Myanmar? (2014-15), led by Professor Penny Green. This seminal work, which investigated the extent to which the persecution of Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya constitutes genocidal practice, has drawn widespread global attention. The research has been featured by the BBC, The Economist, CNN International, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, TIME Magazine, VOA News, Politico Magazine, and numerous other media outlets. Findings were also cited by a 2017 UK Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry into violence in Rakhine state, evidential submissions to the International Criminal Court (2018), and have contributed to ongoing United Nations investigations into war crimes and genocide in Myanmar.

Prior to this Alicia worked on an ESRC funded comparative project (2011-14) investigating civil society resistance to state crime in Turkey, Tunisia, Colombia, Papua New Guinea, Kenya and Myanmar.

Alicia previously worked with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Nigeria and Vienna, and practiced as a solicitor in New Zealand.

Alicia obtained her Doctorate from Queen Mary University of London in 2019; her LLM (Distinction), from King's College London in 2011; and her LLB (Honours)/BCom from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, in 2008. This same year Alicia was admitted to the bar as a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand.

Research

Publications

• Genocide in motion: Rakhine state and the paradox of prevention (2021 forthcoming), Rutgers University Press, with Penny Green and Thomas MacManus.
• ‘Revolutionary Law Abidance: Kachin Rebel Governance and the Adoption of IHL in Resistance to Myanmar State Violence’ (2019), International Criminal Law Review, 19, pp. 872-904.
• Rakhine Genocide: Social Engineering in Myanmar (2018), 21st Century Global Dynamics Initiative, University of California, Vol. 11 (15).
• Genocide Achieved, Genocide Continues: Myanmar’s Annihilation Of The Rohingya (2018) International State Crime Initiative, Queen Mary University of London: London, (with Penny Green and Thomas MacManus).
• Rohingya crisis: this is what genocide looks like (2017), The Conversation.
• ‘Los rohingya del estado de Rakhine (Myanmar): la evolución de un proceso genocida’ (2017), Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal (GSP), 12(1) (with Penny Green and Thomas MacManus).
• Countdown to Annihilation: Genocide in Myanmar (2015), International State Crime Initiative, Queen Mary University of London: London, (with Penny Green and Thomas MacManus).
• ‘Myanmar’s persecution of Rohingya Muslims is producing a ready supply of slaves’ (2015), The Conversation, (with Penny Green and Thomas MacManus).

Public Engagement

Related news

• Alicia de la Cour Venning, Dr Thomas MacManus and Professor Penny Green write on exposing the genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya
  23 October 2017
• ISCI's Alicia de la Cour Venning and Dr Thomas MacMannus speak to The Diplomat on the Rohingya Crisis
  21 September 2017
• Alicia de la Cour Venning writes on the Rohingya crisis for the Conversation
  15 September 2017
• ISCI Researcher, Alicia de la Cour Venning, interviewed by TRT World on the violence against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar
  5 September 2017
• Aung San Suu Kyi is legitimising genocide in Myanmar, warn state crime academics
  28 November 2016
• International Detention Coalition in Conversation with QMUL's International State Crime Initiative
  6 July 2015
• ISCI Researcher, Alicia de la Cour Venning, interviewed by CNN International on the violence against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar
  20 May 2015