Grace Barnes

PhD researcher at the Centre for Disability Law and Policy

MSc in Gender and International Relations, University of Bristol, 2023 LLB Law, University of Bristol, 2021

Biography

Grace Barnes is a PhD researcher at the Centre for Disability Law and Policy. She holds a first-class law degree from the University of Bristol and a master’s degree in Gender and International Relations. Her PhD project examines on the operation of disability, gender and sexual stereotypes in the European Court of Human Rights and how this shapes disabled women’s sexual and reproductive rights. Grace previously worked in family law at a UK firm and as a volunteer legal advisor at a law clinic.

Research

Research Interests

Disability rights; international human rights law; gender and sexuality studies; participatory research; sexual and reproductive rights; family law

Research Projects

PhD Research Topic: Grace’s doctoral research is a socio-legal project combining human rights law and disability, gender and sexuality studies. She is examining the operation of stereotypes in the caselaw of the European Court of Human Rights and how this shapes disabled women’s sexual rights and their understandings of their own identities. This project is being supported by an advisory group of disabled women based in Europe who inform the research’s objectives, methods and scope. Grace is carrying out qualitative interviews with applicants to the Court, lawyers and judges to understand how identities are constructed during the application and decision-making process and how this shapes the legal reasoning and human rights standards in Europe. This project is based on a human rights model of disability and feminist epistemology. This project is funded by Research Ireland and is supervised by Professor Eilionóir Flynn.

Research Publications

Between July and October 2025, Grace carried out research for Validity Foundation, an international legal advocacy organisation promoting the rights of persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities in Europe. She produced thirteen country factsheets examining how National Preventive Mechanisms and Independent Monitoring Mechanisms monitor and protect rights of persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities in detention settings across the EU. She analysed state compliance with international standards of OPCAT and the CRPD by analysing NPM and IMM reports, domestic legal frameworks and CRPD Committee and SPT reports between 2015-2025.

In 2024, Grace took part in a rapid review of UN States reporting to the CRPD Committee on Article 33 CRPD for the Centre for Inclusive Policy. This was part of her work at the Centre for Disability Law and Policy, and the research was used to inform the world report on disability inclusion co-ordinated by UNICEF.

In 2022, Grace’s MSc dissertation analysed the construction of disabled women’s identities in the European Court of Human Rights.

In 2021, Grace’s research project for her LLB law degree examined whether disabled women in the UK would be made unfree by the draft Domestic Abuse Bill 2020/2021.

Teaching Areas

Grace is employed (2024 – present) as a Graduate Teaching Assistant by the University of Galway library to tutor undergraduate and postgraduate students in academic writing. She hosts workshops and tutorials on the writing process, essay structure, using secondary sources, avoiding plagiarism, paragraph structure, style and language and second language issues.

She has guest lectured on LLB Law and LLM Human Rights courses on topics including disability rights and the UNCRPD; discrimination law and reasonable accommodations; and intersectionality and equality law.