Brice Dickson is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Law at Queen’s University Belfast.

Having served from 1999 to 2005 as the first Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, a body set up as a result of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement, Brice Dickson was employed in the School of Law from 2005 to 2017 as a Professor of International and Comparative Law. From 2008 to 2011 he was Director of Research in Human Rights and Director of the School’s Human Rights Centre. He also spent time as a visiting research professor at Fordham University New York, the University of New South Wales and the University of Melbourne.

Although retired from full-time employment since 2017, Brice Dickson has continued to engage in legal research. In 2020 he was awarded an LLD by the University for his research portfolio on ‘Judicial Activism in the UK and Ireland, with particular reference to Apex Courts and Human Rights’. In the same year he was granted an Emeritus Fellowship by the Leverhulme Trust for research on international human rights monitoring mechanisms.

Brice Dickson still takes a keen interest in the work of the Human Rights Centre in the School of Law and remains an Emeritus Fellow of the University’s Senator George J Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice. He is also an non-executive Commissioner on the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery.

Brice Dickson’s recent books include the following:

• Key Ideas in Law: The Concept of Fairness (Hart Publishing, 2025, forthcoming)
• The Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland (Bristol University Press, 2024, with Conor McCormick)
• International Human Rights Monitoring Mechanisms: A Study of their Impact in the UK (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022)
• Law in Northern Ireland (Hart Publishing, 4th edn, 2022): new edition forthcoming in 2026
• The Judicial Mind: A Festschrift for Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore (Hart Publishing, 2021, co-ed with Conor McCormick)
• Writing the United Kingdom Constitution (Manchester University Press, 2019)
• The Irish Supreme Court: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (Oxford University Press, 2019)
• Electoral Rights in Europe: Advances and Challenges (Routledge, 2017, co-ed with Helen Hardman)
• Human Rights in Northern Ireland: The CAJ Handbook (Hart Publishing, 2014, co-ed with Brian Gormally)
• Human Rights and the United Kingdom Supreme Court (Oxford University Press, 2013)
• The European Convention on Human Rights and the Conflict in Northern Ireland (Oxford University Press, 2010)
• Judicial House of Lords 1876–2009 (Oxford University Press, 2009, co-ed with Sir Louis Blom-Cooper QC and Gavin Drewry)
• Judicial Activism in Common Law Supreme Courts (Oxford University Press, 2007, ed)

Brice Dickson’s recent journal articles and book chapters include:

• ‘In Defence of Northern Ireland’s Legacy Commission’ [2025] European Human Rights Law Review (forthcoming)
• ‘Extrajudicial discourse and legal change’ in Connall Mallory and Hélène Tyrrell (eds), Extrajudicial Communication: Perspectives and Practice, Hart Publishing (forthcoming)
• ‘The Dalton case and Article 2 of the ECHR’ in Lewis Graham and Jennifer Boddy (eds), The United Kingdom Supreme Court at 15 (title to be confirmed), Routledge (forthcoming)
• ‘Nationality and Citizenship in Ireland, North and South’ (2024) 35(2) Irish Studies in International Affairs 164–197, with Tom Hickey
• ‘Appeal routes in Northern Ireland’ in Niamh Howlin (ed), A Century of Courts: The Courts of Justice Act 1924, Dublin, Four Courts Press (2024), Ch 21
• ‘The United Kingdom: The constitutional consequences of ambivalence towards European integration’ in Alberto Nicòtina, Patricia Popelier and Peter Bursens (eds), EU Law and National Constitutions: The Constitutional Dynamics of Multi-Level Governance (2023), Ch 7
• ‘Coercive Institutions’ in Peter Cane and H Kumarasingham (eds), The Cambridge Constitutional History of the United Kingdom (2023), Vol 1, Ch 15
• ‘Devolution and international human rights monitoring mechanisms’ (2023) 74 Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 155–186
• ‘The “Gay Cake” Case and the Scope of Discrimination Law’ in Daniel Clarry (ed), UK Supreme Court Yearbook 2018-19, Vol 10, Appellate Press, 2021, 225–247
• ‘Northern Ireland Dimensions to the First Decade of the United Kingdom Supreme Court’ (2020) 83 Modern Law Review 1133–1167 (with Conor McCormick)
• ‘Common Law and Constitutional Rights at the Devolved Level’ in Mark Elliott and Kirsty Hughes (eds), Common Law Constitutional Rights, Hart Publishing, 2020, Ch 12
• ‘The Limitations of a Criminal Law Approach in a Transitional Justice Context’ in Laurens Lavrysen and Natasa Mavronicola (eds), Coercive Human Rights: Positive Duties to Mobilise the Criminal Law under the ECHR, Hart Publishing, 2020, Ch 11
• ‘Why does the United Kingdom now need a written constitution?’ (2020) 71 Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 59–72 (with Andrew Blick)
• ‘Barriers to High Court Appointments in Northern Ireland’ (2020) 71 Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 479–501 (with John Morison and Andrew Godden)
• ‘Apex Courts and the Development of the Common Law’ in Paul Daly (ed), Apex Courts and the Common Law, University of Toronto Press, 2019, Ch 2
• ‘Work in Progress: A Country Study of Constitutional Asymmetry in the United Kingdom’ in Patricia Popelier and Maja Sahadžić (eds), Constitutional Asymmetry and Multinationalism: Managing Multinationalism in Multi-tiered Systems, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, 461–488
• ‘La diffamation and United Kingdom Judges’ in Laurence Burgorgue-Larsen and G Calvès (eds), La diffamation saisie par les juges en Europe, Éditions Pedone, 2019, 95–108
• ‘The ECHR’s Influence on Convergence between Common Law and Civil Law Systems’ in Marko Novakovic (ed), Common Law and Civil Law Today: Convergence and Divergence, Vernon Press, 2019, Ch 14
• ‘The problems with human rights’ (The Stephen Livingstone Lecture) (2019) 70 Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 467–477
• ‘Devolution in Northern Ireland’ in Jeffrey Jowell and Colm O’Cinneide (eds), The Changing Constitution, Oxford University Press, 2019, 9th edn, Ch 9
• ‘How does today’s Supreme Court conceptualise human rights?’ (2019) 1 Irish Supreme Court Review 15–30
• ‘Taking the Politics out of Human Rights in Conflict Resolution: Northern Ireland and Beyond’ in O Grech (ed), Contemporary Issues in Conflict Resolution, Centre for the Study and Practice of Conflict Resolution, Malta, 2018, 18–28   
• ‘The Constitutional Governance of Counter-Terrorism’ in Genevieve Lennon, Colin King and Carole McCartney (eds), Counter-terrorism, Constitutionalism and Miscarriages of Justice: A Festschrift for Professor Clive Walker, Hart Publishing, 2018, Ch 2
• ‘The European Convention in conflicted societies: The experience of Northern Ireland and Turkey’ (2017) 66 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 263-294 (with Onder Bakircioglu)
• ‘The Charter of Fundamental Rights within Ireland’ and ‘The Charter of Fundamental Rights within the United Kingdom’, in Laurence Burgorgue-Larsen (ed), La charte des droits fondamentaux saisie par les juges en Europe, Paris, Éditions Pedone, 2017, 465–474 and 673–689
• ‘The Planning and Control of Operations Involving the Use of Lethal Force’ in Lawrence Early et al (eds), The Right to Life Under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights: Twenty Years of Legal Developments Since McCann v the United Kingdom: In Honour of Michael O'Boyle, Wolf Legal, 2016, 47–59
• ‘The Extra-Territorial Obligations of European States Regarding Human Rights in the Context of Terrorism’ in Federico Fabbrini and Vicki Jackson (eds), Constitutionalism Across Borders in the Struggle Against Terrorism, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016, 213–232
• ‘The right to education for humanity’ (2016) 67 Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 409–432 (with Conor McCormick)
• ‘Terrorism and Legal Accountability’ in Genevieve Lennon and Clive Walker (eds), Routledge Handbook of Law and Terrorism, Routledge, 2015, 116–130
• ‘Criminal Justice Reforms in Northern Ireland: The Agents of Change’ in Anne-Marie McAlinden and Clare Dwyer (eds), Criminal Justice in Transition: The Northern Ireland Context, Hart Publishing, 2015, 67–86
• ‘The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights’ [2015] European Human Rights Law Review 27–40