Dr Suwita Hani Randhawa
Associate Professor in International Relations University of the West of England (UWE Bristol)
Suwita is the founder of the Ecocide Researchers Network.
She is an interdisciplinary International Relations/International Law scholar, with academic expertise on the history and politics of international criminal justice. Her current research centres on ecocide and its historical construction as an international crime in global politics.
She previously served on MSP Monica Lennon’s Expert Advisory Group for the Ecocide (Scotland) Bill.
She co-convenes the International Law and Politics working group of the British International Studies Association, and serves as an Advisory Board Member for the journal Global Constitutionalism.
At UWE Bristol, Suwita co-leads the Justice and Security research group. She is also co-founder and co-convenor of Thought in Action: Conversations About Cinema, a film discussion series jointly organised by UWE Bristol and the Watershed cinema in Bristol.
Dr Heather Alberro
(She/her)
Lecturer in Sustainability, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester
Heather is a multidisciplinary academic-activist with expertise and interests in the (critical) environmental social sciences and humanities, including radical and decolonial environmental politics (social movements), green utopianism, critical sustainabilities, and post-anthropocentric environmental ethics. She’s especially interested in examining human attitudes to, and ways of valuing, the other-than-human, and in fostering post-anthropocentric visions of sustainable worlds for multispecies justice.
Heather is also a co-convenor for the Political Studies Association’s (PSA) ‘environmental politics’ specialist group, and a member of the Climate Justice Universities Union’s (CJUU) coordinating team.
Jodie Bettis
PhD Candidate, Department of Geography & Environmental Studies, The Open University
Jodie is a UKRI ESRC funded Grand Union Scholar doing interdisciplinary doctoral research in legal geography, environmental law, and socio‑legal studies. Her thesis (forthcoming) explores the theory and practice of the criminalisation of ecocide in England through an ecological lens.
Jodie was adviser to Baroness Boycott on the UK Ecocide Bill and an active member of MSP Monica Lennon’s Expert Advisory Group for the Ecocide (Scotland) Bill. She has held a UKRI Policy Fellowship at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) in Westminster and is an Associate Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
Rose Bevan-Smith
PhD Candidate, Department of Politics, Languages & International Studies, University of Bath
Rose’s PhD research explores national applications of ecocide law. Her thesis is developing an understanding of the strengths and limitations of adopting ecocide legislation to protect nature. Rose’s PhD research has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) under the South West Doctoral Training Partnership (SWDTP).
Dr Bea Gassmann de Sousa
British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, University College London, Centre for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Inquiry (CMII), School for European Languages, Culture and Society
Bea is a British Academy funded Postdoc pursing interdisciplinary research in pe-Independence intellectual and cultural history mainly in Nigeria. Her forthcoming monograph introduces a new filed of ecocide historiography, based on recently discovered archival visual evidence of the ‘cheap nature’ effect of extraction and industrial scale deforestation in late nineteenth century Niger Delta.
Bea was the lead researcher for the Tate Modern exhibition “Nigerian Modernism “, 2025/26. She is an advisor to the Yinka Shonibare Foundation’s archival think thank and Ecotones research cluster “Re: assemblages”, based in London and Lagos (NIG). She is currently trialling ecocide historiography as an expansion of the debate on ecocide law.
Dr Alex Hoseason
Teaching Fellow, Department of Society and Politics, Aston University
Alex’s research situates the politics of ecocide, and ecocide law, in the context of broader changes and structural changes of the international system. His current projects focus on exploring how ecocide campaigns have intersected with scientific knowledge and forms of legal expertise both historically (during the Vietnam War) and the present day. He has previously conducted research in theoretical fields including the problem of harm and theories of recognition.
At Aston Alex teaches extensively across international relations including a module on global climate politics and an interdisciplinary module on business, politics and society. He makes extensive use of simulations and games in the classroom, as well as leading Aston’s participation in events and crisis games including BISA’s Model COP and Model NATO.
Dr Leah Owen
Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the School of Social Sciences, Swansea University
Leah Owen is a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the School of Social Sciences, Swansea University. She is a specialist in the study of mass violence – genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity – with a particular focus on perpetrator mobilisation, securitisation, discourse, and bureaucracies. She is currently developing a research project on borders and climate, which investigates the bureaucratic, sociological and technopolitical foundations of the tendency to fortify borders between the Global North/Global South as part of a response to climate change.
Membership is free and provides opportunities to help shape and co-create the network, connect with researchers working on ecocide across the UK, share research and ideas, receive updates on events and publications, and participate in collaborative activities.
Join the Network
This includes, but is not limited to, activists, artists, educators, journalists, lawyers, policymakers, politicians, practitioners, postgraduate students, and representatives of civil society and non-governmental organisations.