Edinburgh Law School Professor Emerita Christine Bell has been recognised for outstanding global achievement in the first Cambridge Alumni Awards.
Prof Bell began her legal career with a 1st class law degree at Selwyn College Cambridge, going on to work for over thirty years as an academic and practicing mediator focusing on ending violent conflict – including as Principal Investigator of PeaceRep and its predecessor PSRP from 2015 – 2026.
Prof Christine Bell recognised in prestigious alumni awards
Professor Emerita Christine Bell has been recognised in the first Cambridge Alumni Awards.
The shortlist highlights the breadth of alumni impact and the different ways people continue to use their Cambridge experience to make a difference.
Prof Bell was recognised in the Global Achievement Award category, which recognises alumni whose work has reached far beyond their immediate field, creating lasting impact around the world.
Prof Bell said:
“I owe Cambridge my founding legal education, which taught me how to use language to fashion constitutions and laws. This education enabled me to help groups at war to reach agreement. At heart this is a project of finding language which can bridge disagreement and begin to replace violence with politics.”
The award commends Prof Bell’s global achievements as an academic and mediator, including her work with PeaceRep:
Prof Bell has worked for over thirty years as an academic and practicing mediator focusing on ending violent conflict. Obtaining a 1st class law degree at Selwyn College Cambridge and an LLM at Harvard Law School, on returning to her native Belfast she became active in human rights advocacy, working to ensure that the peace agreement improved human rights protections. As a lecturer in law, she established negotiation courses taken by many of Northern Ireland’s politicians, and helped build the Human Rights Centre at Queen’s University Belfast. Later, she established a Transitional Justice Institute at University of Ulster with colleagues.
In 2011, Bell became Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Edinburgh, and has run a PeaceRep project that has produced peace and conflict data that supports groups living in conflict to end it. Alongside her work as an academic, she has been involved in peace negotiations at different stages in countries as varied as Colombia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka and the Middle East, including as a Mediation Advisor with the United Nations.
Now Professor Emerita of Constitutional Law at Edinburgh Law School, from 2021 – 2026 Prof Bell was the Principal Investigator of the FCDO-funded Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep) research consortium, which continues to support peace processes around the world. Previously she led PeaceRep’s predecessor, the Political Settlements Research Programme (PSRP), from 2015 – 2021.
The PeaceRep team extends our congratulations to Prof Bell for this well-deserved recognition of her global achievement.
Read the full announcement and shortlist
Read Christine’s latest monograph, PeaceTech: Digital Transformation to End Wars