Dr Steve Foster has taught law at Coventry for over 45 years and was Head of Coventry Law School until 2017. In 2016 he received a long-standing teaching excellence award from the Faculty of Business and Law, and was recentl nominated for OUP's Law Lecturer of the Year. He has taught contract law, employment law, tort, legal system and business law and now specialises in human rights, prisoners’ rights and research skills and legal writing. He has published widely in various journals – such as Modern Law Review, Public Law and European Human Rights Law – on human rights, prisoners’ rights, administrative law and freedom of expression. He is also the author of several textbooks including Human Rights and Civil Liberties (Pearson 2011), Legal Writing Skills (Pearson 2019) and (with Mark Ryan) Unlocking Constitutional and Administrative Law (Routledge 2023). In 2007 he was awarded a PhD by portfolio for his writing on prisoners’ rights – the first member of Coventry University to be awarded that degree. He has been an external examiner at various universities and has been editor in chief of the Coventry Law Journal for 26 years, where he encourages early researchers (and students) to publish. He is also editor for  the Asian Yearbook on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. 

Research:

Steve Foster has researched and published in employment law, administrative law and judicial review, human rights and legal writing. He has written over 300 articles and case notes and several textbooks and chapters in texts: he has co-rdited a text on covid-19 and human rights and will act as an advisory board member on a forthcoming text on constitutional rights in the UK.  He specialises in UK and European human right law and prisoners’ rights. He is currently researching, press freedom and intrusions into privacy, free speech and diversity and equality, the UK’S proposals to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and replace it with a British Bill of Rights, and the continuing saga of prisoner voting rights. He specialises in press freedom and celebrity privacy cases and various aspects of free speech. Steve also collaborates with colleagues who specialise in other areas of law and has written many joint articles on human rights and its relationship with crime and criminal justice, EU law, taxation, tort, contract, corporate law and property law.

Area of Expertise:

• UK Human Rights
• European human rights
• Prisoners’ rights
• Freedom of Speech and Press Freedom
• Academic Writing
• Contract and Tort Law