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People & Partners

People

  • Dr Dug Cubie’s research interests are in the areas of humanitarian action, disaster law, climate justice and forced displacement. Dug worked in refugee and humanitarian practice for over 10 years, before completing a PhD on the right to humanitarian assistance in disasters. Dug is a founding co-editor of the Yearbook of International Disaster Law, and has published widely on aspects of international and Irish law and policy. He recently edited A Research Agenda for Disaster Law (Brill, 2025 forthcoming) and proposed a conceptual framework for the law of humanitarian assistance in The International Legal Protection of Persons in Humanitarian Crises: Exploring the Acquis Humanitaire (Hart Publishing, 2017).
  • Dr Marie Aronsson-Storrier conducts research in global law and disasters, with a particular focus on international law-making and disaster risk reduction. She holds a PhD in international law from the University of Melbourne (2017). Her current research explores the role of (international) law in creating and addressing disaster risk, including questions around root causes of risk, the role of nature, and the inclusion of marginalised persons and perspectives in law- and decision-making processes. Marie has published widely on international law and disasters, including the edited collections The Cambridge Handbook of Disaster Risk Reduction and International Law (CUP, 2019) Defining Disaster: Disciplines and Domains (Edward Elgar, 2022), and Research Handbook on Disasters and International Law (Edward Elgar, 2nd edn, 2024).
  • Dr Holly Faulkner is a Senior Post-Doctoral Researcher working on the EU Horizon Europe DIRECTED project (Directed Resilience for Extreme Climate Events providing Interoperable Data, Models, Communication and Governance) at the MaREI Centre, UCC. Holly completed her PhD at the University of Canterbury (Aotearoa New Zealand), her project explored legal preparedness for large-scale urban disasters using the Auckland Volcanic Field as a case study. Holly has also worked as a research associate at the LEAD Institute of Law, Emergencies and Disasters, through which she has been involved in a range of disaster law projects including for post-disaster dispute resolution, early warning systems and disaster recovery.
  • Dr Stefan Kirchner is an Adjunct Professor in the UCC School of Law. As a former emergency medical services worker and firefighter, practising attorney, public servant and law professor, Professor Kirchner combines academic work and legal practice at the intersection of environmental and human rights law, with a focus on disaster risk reduction. Professor Kirchner has lectured on international law at universities in several countries across the European Union, Ukraine, the UK and the US. Previously, he chaired the Disaster Law Interest Group of the American Society of International Law and has (co-) authored more than 500 academic publications and serves on multiple editorial boards, e.g. for International Legal Materials.
  • David Fisher is a late-career doctoral student studying law and crisis recovery at UCC. For approximately a decade, he led the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ (IFRC) Disaster Law programme before taking over IFRC’s overall diplomacy portfolio. He has held additional leadership roles for IFRC in Ukraine, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya and Nepal, where he is currently based. Previously, he was an advisor at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and a practicing lawyer in Hawai’i. He holds a J.D. from the University of California, San Francisco, LL.M from Georgetown University, and B.A from Oberlin College.

 

Previous Disaster Research Cluster researchers

  • Dr Tommaso Natoli completed a 2-year IRC-MSCA CAROLINE Research Fellowship between 2019-2021 in partnership with the International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies’ (IFRC) Disaster Law programme. His research project was entitled “Leave No-One Behind – Developing Climate-Smart/Disaster Risk Management Laws that Protect People in Vulnerable Situations for a Comprehensive Implementation of the UN Agenda 2030.” Research outputs from this project can be accessed here. Tommaso is now the IFRC Disaster Law Focal Point for Europe.

Partners

 

Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights

School of Law, University College Cork, Ireland

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