Leeds researchers inform government report on Libya

Dr Adrian Gallagher and Georgiana-Silvia Epure provided evidence which highlights that the failure of the UK has to be understood within the broader context of the failures within Libya.

Research carried out by Dr Adrian Gallagher and undergraduate student Georgiana-Silvia Epure, from the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds has been cited in the recently published UK Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee report: Libya: Examination of intervention and collapse and the UK’s future policy options. Their research mentioned in the report has also been cited more widely in press articles, including the Guardian.

Written evidence provided by Dr Gallagher and Georgiana-Silvia Epure from their research work highlights that the failure of the UK has to be understood within the broader context of the failures within Libya and the international community. It may be that in future, intervening forces need to secure international commitments to post-conflict assistance prior to intervening.

Dr Gallagher is an Associate Professor in International Security in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds. He specialises in studies of mass violence and is Convenor of the British International Studies Association Working Group on Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect @IR2PWG. He has previously acted as an Oral Witness to the UK Defence Committee on 'The situation in Iraq and Syria and the threat posed by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant' (October 2014).

Georgiana-Silvia Epure, now an MPhil International Relations and Politics student at the University of Cambridge, graduated with a BA in International Relations from the University of Leeds in 2016. Georgiana helped to carry out the research work as an Undergraduate Research and Leadership Scholar whilst studying for her degree, working with the Intervention and International Society Research Cluster. She is the founder of the R2P Student Coalition at Leeds and the Editor-in-chief of the R2P Student Journal.