Professor Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos specialises in the application of the ECHR in the domestic criminal process, with a focus on fair trial guarantees, custodial legal assistance and improperly obtained evidence.
Dimitrios holds the Inaugural Chair in Law and is the Head of the Department of Law at Goldsmiths University of London.
In October 2020, he was elected an Academic Bencher at the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Visiting Professor at the Panteion School of Social and Political Sciences in Athens, where he teaches EU Criminal Procedure Law and Policy.
Dimitrios has internationally leading expertise in how human rights norms are applied in national criminal justice systems across different legal cultures, particularly in the common law and civil law. He has published widely on improperly obtained evidence, suspects’ rights, evidence obtained in violation of the right to privacy, confessions, the right to a fair trial, the rule of law, politics and human rights, and the application of ECHR jurisprudence in domestic systems. He has taught criminal law, criminal procedure, criminal evidence, ECHR jurisprudence and comparative law for nearly twenty years.
Dimitrios gained his PhD at the Sorbonne Law School (Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris I), at the prestigious École doctorale de droit comparé. He studied Law at the University of Athens, and holds postgraduate degrees from the Universities of Athens, Aix-Marseille and Brunel. As a doctoral candidate at the Sorbonne, he also spent time undertaking research at Columbia Law School and Yale Law School; his pedagogy was greatly influenced by coming into contact with the Socratic method, and the strong focus on experiential learning, clinical legal education methods and the integration of substantive and procedural law, there.
Linking legal academia with the Bar
In his role as Master of the Bench at the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, Prof Giannoulopoulos supports the strengthening of links between the Bar and legal academia, notably as a member of the Inn’s ‘Education & Training Committee’.
In joining Garden Court Chambers as an Associate Tenant, Prof Giannoulopoulos aims to further develop these links through contributing specialist research expertise in appropriate cases (especially where they lend themselves to the adoption of comparative and international human rights methodologies), supporting widening participation initiatives for prospective barristers from non-traditional backgrounds, and further advancing the integration of theory and practice in legal education (including through creating opportunities for University students to gain professional practice insights from Garden Court barristers and pupils).
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Values
Professor Giannoulopoulos’ work on widening participation, equality, human rights and social justice mirrors those intrinsic in Garden Court Chambers’ mission to ‘fight injustice, defend human rights and uphold the rule of law’.
As the Inaugural Professor of Law at Goldsmiths, Dimitrios designed the LLB and LLM degrees in the Department of Law embedding equality, human rights and social justice as the central values and pedagogic philosophies that define the character of the Law programme. This was achieved through placing central emphasis on socio-legal perspectives in the curriculum, appointing a vibrant and diverse faculty with expertise in human rights and social justice, increasing the accessibility of community impact awards (with a Goldsmiths Law student the winner of the Neuberger Prize 2022), and student scholarships, while also exposing students to legal environments and unique volunteering, Law clinics, and other professional development opportunities that often remain inaccessible to students from non-traditional backgrounds.
Dimitrios worked with the borough of Lewisham to launch the Lewisham Challenge Law programme, engaged hundreds of 16-18 year old students with the debate around the proposed reform of the Human Rights Act (in delivering workshops in schools in the context of the Knowing Our Rights project), led Goldsmiths Law on becoming the only Law department outside the United States to introduce Harvard Law School’s pioneering Zero-L online programme (offered at no cost to Goldsmiths Law students), was a founding board member of the University of London Refugee Law Clinic, inaugurated a collaboration with the Pro Bono Community organisation, which enables students to do 3-6 month social welfare placements in legal advice centres in London, and introduced Goldsmiths Law – Orwell Foundation student awards for excellence in the study of Law and Politics, and human rights impact on local communities, among a number of initiatives designed to empower students to use Law as a tool for good and change while setting out to achieve their career aspirations.
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Public Engagement and Impact
In recent years, Dimitrios has developed a strong interest in the impact of Euroscepticism, populism and Brexit on human rights, drawing on his cross-cultural research and dynamic public engagement work, and his ability for cross-cultural legal analysis. He was the founder and director of the academic thinktank, 'Britain in Europe', which contributed to public debate on EU membership, and provided analysis of the impact of Brexit (between 2016 and 2020), particularly on the rights of EU citizens in the UK. He also directed (2017-2020) the 'Knowing Our Rights' research project (funded by the Open Society Foundations), which sought to raise awareness about the impact of the European Convention on Human Rights in the UK.
His work in this area has been featured in the Guardian, the Times, the Financial Times, Politico, the Prospect magazine, LBC, La Libération, Euronews, France 24, Le Parisien, Open Democracy, the Solicitors’ Journal, the New European, the Express, LSE Brexit, the UK in a Changing Europe, Parliament Magazine, Europe Street News, EU Reporter, ‘Inforrm’, Cyprus’ ‘Fileleutheros’, and the Conversation, while he regularly appears on national radio and television in Greece, and frequently contributes op-ed pieces to Sunday papers there.
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Publications
Dimitrios’ monograph on Improperly Obtained Evidence in Anglo-American and Continental Law (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2019) is the first book to offer an extensive cosmopolitan insight into the ‘exclusionary rule’ debate. It received outstanding reviews in leading journals, including the Modern Law Review, Criminal Law Review, and International Journal of Evidence & Proof, and was longlisted for the Inner Temple Book Prize (Major Prize).
Dimitrios' latest book (with Prof Yvonne McDermott), Judicial Independence Under Threat (OUP, 2022), was published in the prestigious Proceedings of the British Academy series and explores threats to judicial independence in their legal, philosophical, political and historical contexts. Attacks on the UK judiciary and HRA pre and post-Brexit provided the inspiration for this book, which contains possibly the last published contribution of the late Rt. Hon. Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore (the book is dedicated to him).
The full list of Dimitrios’ publications is accessible here.
