Mr Alex Batesmith up for major article prize!
His article with Professor Kieran McEvoy (Queen's University Belfast), “‘Closeted’ cause lawyering in authoritarian Cambodia”, has been shortlisted for the SLSA Article of the Year Prize.
The paper, in Law & Society Review, is the result of 11 years of writing and revising, grounded in a longitudinal study (2014–2021) of 37 Cambodian lawyers and human rights defenders working in politically sensitive areas.
The open access article explores what Mr Batesmith and Professor McEvoy term “closeted cause lawyering”: how lawyers in repressive environments pursue legal and social change while concealing their intentions in order to protect their clients, themselves, and the fragile spaces in which they work.
They identify how the lawyers quietly advance rights‑focused goals through dignity‑restoration work with clients, professionalism in court, and the cultivation of a moral community among like‑minded colleagues.
The article also reflects on how lessons from Cambodia resonate elsewhere. As more democracies experience authoritarian tendencies, including sustained attacks on institutions, legal accountability, and those who represent politically disfavoured clients, the paper argues that defending the rule of law may increasingly require lawyers – across the legal profession – to recognise their shared responsibility to resist such pressures, both publicly and, where necessary, more quietly.
Mr Batemith and Professor McEvoy say:
We're delighted to be shortlisted, and want to acknowledge the 37 Cambodian lawyers and human rights defenders who contributed to this seven‑year study. Their steady and often necessarily low‑profile commitment to legal accountability under authoritarian control is what gives the research its value, and their experience is becoming ever more relevant as similar pressures appear in more traditionally democratic states.
The shortlist was recently announced by the Socio-Legal Studies Association ahead of the prize ceremony at the Annual Conference in Brighton on 31 March.
Mr Batesmith is the Co-Director of the Legal Professions Research Group, and is a member of the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies and the Centre for Innovation and Research in Criminological and Legal Education. He can be found on LinkedIn here.
