Dr Jesse Bachir BA, LLB, AM, PhD, Dunelm

Dr Jesse Bachir

Birmingham Law School
Fellow in Law

Contact details

Address
Birmingham Law School
Office 234
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Legal philosopher and public lawyer working at the intersection between the philosophy of freedom and free expression jurisprudence.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Law, Durham Law School, 2024
  • AM in Legal & Political Philosophy, University of Chicago, 2016
  • LLB in Law, Durham Law School, 2015
  • BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Psychology, New York University, 2012

Biography

Jesse recently completed his doctoral thesis at Durham University Law School, titled ‘Hybrid Republicanism: Freedom as Orthonomous Non-Domination.’ In it, he argued for a hybrid conception of neo-republicanism, linking non-domination to traditionally positive conceptions of freedom. Namely, that neo-republican non-domination requires active democratic citizenship. He went on to argue that this theory of freedom provides a strong presumptive case for hate speech proscriptions. 

Prior to this, Jesse studied philosophy, politics, psychology and law, completing his BA at NYU, LLB at Durham, and AM at the University of Chicago. In addition, he spent some time in private practice in the US.  

Before joining BLS, Jesse was Lecturer (Teaching) in Law at University College London. And prior to that was Teaching Fellow in Public Law & Human Rights at Durham University Law School. He has teaching experience across many subjects, including legal philosophy, ethics, public law, criminal law, trusts law, and land law. 

He is currently continuing his research on the philosophy of freedom and free expression, and has special interests in critical race theory and feminist philosophy. 

Teaching

  • Public Law
  • Law, Justice, & Ethics

Research

Jesse is currently researching on the philosophy of freedom, primarily around neo-republican non-domination. This extends to understanding the freedom impact of ‘nudges’, otherwise known as manipulations of choice matrices, as well as the normative dimensions of such manipulations. In addition, he is currently researching how hate speech proscriptions are democratically presumptively necessary to secure freedom, upending the traditional notion that hate speech proscriptions are freedom-limiting. 

He does occasional research within criminal law as well, where is he currently interested in the criminalisation of HIV transmission, and whether or not such laws actually reduce instances of HIV transmission, or if a public health centred approach would better serve those currently living with HIV, as well as the public policy goal of reducing HIV transmission.