Dr Kirsteen Shields

Senior Lecturer in International Law and Food Security

Biography

Background

My first degree was in in Law with French at the University of Glasgow and Universite de Nanterre, Paris. I honoured in Public International Law and European Human Rights Law and continued on to an EU subsidised place on the European Masters Degree in Human Rights and Democratisation at EIUC, Italy. Thereafter I interned for UNESCO in Paris and then returned to Glasgow to work as a paralegal for Glasgow Housing Association whilst applying for PhD funding.  

My doctoral research was funded by the AHRC and attached to a wider project team at Queen Mary, University of London researching the law and economics of the Fairtrade Movement. My research focus was on how social movements such as the Fairtrade movement could encourage corporations to comply with human rights and environmental international law when the UN could not. My field work with agricultural workers and cooperatives in Bolivia, Cuba, and South Africa was about ground truthing claims made by the Fairtrade Movement. It opened up many questions that could not ignored about the success and failures of international law to realise human rights and improve livelihoods, and so began my fascination with the significance of relationships to land; proprietorial, non-proprietorial, human, and non-human.

I am now a Senior Lecturer in International Law and Food Systems at the RDSVS, University of Edinburgh. I hold a portfolio of research and teaching encompassing food and land governance, human rights, and the environment.  My research and analysis on human rights law and land governance has been commissioned by the World Bank 2016-17, 2021-22, Scottish Government 2022-23, and the Scottish Land Commission 2018, 2023.

Recently, I was seconded from the Global Academy of Agriculture and Food Systems to contribute to the establishment of the Edinburgh Futures Institute as an EFI Fellow from 2020-22. During that time I co-designed the new EFI MSc on Sustainable Lands and Cities, which I now lead as Co-Director (with Prof John Brennan, Edinburgh College of Art), post parental leave in 2023-24.

Qualifications 

  • PhD Law (2014), School of Law, Queen Mary, U of London, UK.
  • MA in Human Rights Law, Politics and Philosophy (2005), European Inter-University Centre, Italy.
  • LLB Honours Law with French (2004), School of Law, University of Glasgow, UK & Universite de Paris X, France.

Research Projects

Research Projects on Edinburgh Research Explorer

Postgraduate teaching

Current:

  • Programme Co-Director, EFI Sustainable Lands and Cities. MSc.
  • Course Lead; Land, Community, Power. MSc.
  • Course Lead; Envisioning Sustainability. MSc.
  • Co-Lead: EFI Knowledge Integration Projects. MSc.

Previous:

  • Food Policy (2020). Lead.
  • Envisioning Sustainability (2023). Lead.
  • Land, Community, Power (2023). Lead.
  • Professional Skills 4 and Dissertation. Co-Lead with Jon Hillier

Teaching awards:

  • Nominee, ‘Cohort Lead of the Year’, nominated by students, Edinburgh University, Students Association Awards, 2025.
  • Nominee, 'Lecturer of the Year', nominated by students, Edinburgh University Students Association 2024.
  • On maternity leave 2023.
  • Winner, Edinburgh University, 'Changemaker', for services to the wider community throughout the coronavirus pandemic. 2022.
  • Nominee, ‘Outstanding Commitment to Social Justice and Sustainability’, Edinburgh University Students Association Awards, 2021.

PhDs:

  • Martin Val Delle Menendez, Primary Supervisor, GAAFS, Chilean Government funding. “The Role of Data Governance in Food and Nutrition Security: Insights from a Multi-Method approach to Public Policy and Practices in Chile." Completed April 2025.
  • Aditya Singh, Primary Supervisor, EFI /GAAFS, Baillie Gifford EFI studentship. "A Common Harvest – Theories and Models for Collective Data Governance in Agriculture."
  • Olivia Oldham, Primary Supervisor.
  • Karla Molina Galindo, Primary Supervisor. "The Nexus of Soil, Gender, and Health Inequalities in Guatemala."
  • Deksha Kapoor, Second Supervisor. "A Data-Driven, Community-Based Approach to Evaluating and Improving Scottish Food Environments."

I have served as a doctoral thesis examiner for PhDs on questions of food and land governance at external institutions and internally at the University of Edinburgh.

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Project activity

  • Co-I. UKRI “Connected Treescapes: a portfolio approach for delivering multiple public benefits from UK treescapes in the rural-urban continuum”. 2021-2025. This project addresses the role of landscape-level partnerships in delivering public benefits from UK treescapes. It focuses on three public benefits that link to current policy ambitions for treescapes: (i) biodiversity, ecosystem function and nature recovery; (ii) nature connectedness, mental health and wellbeing; and (iii) cultural and heritage benefits. We combine UK-level analysis with a focus on five community forests in the rural-urban continuum, where treescapes have great potential societal benefits but face considerable environmental pressures. The research shows how decision-makers and those responsible for treescapes can ensure that these benefits can be secured for the future, in the context of increasing uncertainty associated with a range of anthropogenic and environmental stressors.

 

  • Co-I. Wellcome. “Building for health centred, net zero aligned Food Systems Transformation - A Living Good Food Nation Lab” 2023-26. This transdisciplinary consortia of academic and policy partners (including the Scottish Government) builds connections and skills across the Scottish food systems transformation community, support policy partners to deliver the commitments within the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act and to provide analytical support to relevant authorities and showcase how innovative food systems legislation and partnerships can deliver health centred, net zero aligned food systems transformation.

 

  • Co-Investigator GCRF NERC, ‘Ixchel’ project on land rights in Guatemala, 2020-25. NERC GCRF funded Guatemala Disaster Risk Reduction project ‘Ixchel’; 2020-2025. This research project is led by PIs in Geosciences, UoEdinburgh. The project investigate multi-hazards associated with mass flows, namely landslides, debris flows and volcanic pyroclastic flows, that occur in the Guatemalan cordillera, and improves resilience to natural hazard risk by developing rigorous multi-hazard assessments, and by embedding DRR within human rights frameworks.  The research team is led by both science and humanities PIs who are world leaders in our respective disciplinary fields alongside Guatemalan leaders and institutions. The project’s distinctive features include in-depth long-term participatory and ethnographic work with communities, a familiarity with indigenous ways of knowing and being, and an in-depth understanding of existing disaster scholarship in both the physical sciences and the humanities. As Co-I, I designed the work package on human rights into risk governance and policy.

 

  • Principal Investigator RSE, ‘Common Ground’ Royal Society of Edinburgh Network Grant, 2020-21 RSE funded Land Network, ‘Common Ground’; 2020-2021. I acted as PI on this project to develop an interdisciplinary network on land rights. The Common Ground network will build collaboration and consensus around modern meanings and representations of community and the common good. The network will gathered land researchers across arts and humanities to address two significant research gaps: (i) On content, it sought to develop consensus around key terms on community, commons and common goods within the land discourse. (ii) On context, it bridged the Scotland discourse with international land movements in order to establish informed partnerships. The activity developed thinking on comparative approaches to definitions and designs for ‘community’ and placed Scotland’s unique policy focus on community land within the international context.

 

  • Co-Investigator AHRC Changing Landscapes: Towards a new Decision-Making Framework for UK Landscapes and Land Assets’ Network Grant with A. Tindley, C. Dalglish & C. MacLeod, 2019-22. I was Co-I with Annie Tindley (PI) (UoNewcastle), Calum McLeod (Community Land Scotland) and Chris Dalglish (INHERIT) on this network grant. This project’s fundamental aim was to influence future thinking on cultures of decision making to move towards a decision-making framework around land assets and landscapes for politicians, policy makers, but most importantly, communities of place and interest who have already purchased land or are planning to do so in the future. The principal objectives were: (i)To make a targeted intervention that will draw out the various cultures of landscape decision-making and their outcomes in Scotland. This will include interrogation of participatory decision-making practices and other traditions of practice, and the integration of different discourses, values, approaches and data in decision-making, inclusion of diverse communities and addressing conflicts, both contemporary and historical. (ii)To address the critical issue of rural re-population in remote and rural communities, by considering how to enable resilient and sustainable community development and cohesion through new decision-making cultures. This will be defined in terms of environmental, cultural/historical and political/democratic development and long-term planning and perspectives will be prioritised over short termism. (iii)To interrogate the current mechanisms of valuing and characterising landscapes and how they underpin decision-making frameworks and impact on the ability of communities to make or inform decisions. This meshes with the wider aim of nuancing societal understanding of landscape histories and their change over time and environmental/political/cultural drivers. (iv) To deepen future resilience in the post-Brexit political and economic landscape. As the macro political structures and funding regimes that have been in place for decades are set to change or be withdrawn entirely, this network explores how communities of place or interest can maintain and expand their input into decision-making and map future challenges and opportunities for locally-led governance. Read the report: Land Decisions: Final report of the community empowerment and landscape decision-making network

 

  • Principal Investigator, ‘The Right to Food and Nutrition’, UoE Funded Research Cluster, 2019-21. I was PI on this project with Prof Geraldine McNeill. The project funding was sought in 2019 and planned events have been moved online as a result of Covid-19. This research cluster aimed to gather best practice on schools meals internationally in order to inform UK wide policy change in the context of school meals. It gathered international experts to discuss best practice in school meals across nutrition; sustainability; and empowerment and to consider wider factors of governance, sustainability and empowerment embedded in successful school meal projects internationally. This activity was intended to take the form of in person workshops for early career scholars from LMIC countries for a series of workshops. The coronavirus pandemic necessitated that we revised our plan and workshops were held online in May 2021.

 

  • Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Doctoral Research (4 years funding) 2010. My doctoral research was part of an AHRC funded project on the law and economics of the Fairtrade Movement. My focus was on how movements such as the Fairtrade movement could impact mainstream trade by raising compliance with international law norms and practices. Field work with agricultural workers and cooperatives in Bolivia, Cuba, and South Africa enabled certain ground truthing of claims made by the Fairtrade Movement.

In respect of statutory and policy issues relating to land reform, I have submitted;

  • Oral evidence to the Land Reform Scotland Bills 2015 (subsequently Act 2016).
  • Written evidence on the new Land Reform Bill.
  • Oral evidence to the Good Food Nation Scotland Bills 2019 and 2022 in an individual capacity and as lead respondent for my team at UoE.
  • A written contribution to the UN draft general comment on Land and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights co-produced with Megan MacInnes.

I have been personally cited in the following Parliamentary debates and reports for research and analysis on land governance and human rights:

Prizes and Fellowships:

  • Awarded the 'University of Edinburgh Changemaker Award', for services to 2022 the wider community (designing and managing a volunteer rota for local foodbanks) throughout the coronavirus pandemic.
  • Awarded the Fulbright Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellowship to University 2017-18 of California, Berkeley, USA. 2017-18
  • Appointed the First Academic Fellow to SPICe (Scottish Parliament 2016-17 Information Centre) UK.

Citizenship and Committee Membership:

  • Elected member of Senate 2025-28.
  • Scotland's Landscape Alliance led by NHS Scotland – Working group on Landscape for Health & Well-being. Member. 2019-2020.
  • Scottish Human Rights Commission – Steering group. Member. 2019-present.
  • Convening Member, U of Edinburgh, Food Researchers in Edinburgh Network (FRIED), 2018-present.
  • Elected Co-Chair, Human Rights at American Society of International Law, 2016-2019.
  • Founding Member & Regional Convenor, SULNE, Scottish Universities Legal Network on Europe. (A group of legal academics highlighting the implications of Brexit.) 2016-2019.
  • Expert Witness, Scottish Parliament Consultation on the Land Reform (Scotland) Act, 2015-16.
  • External Examiner in Public Law subjects, University of Strathclyde 2015-2020.
  • (International) Food Systems Dialogues Reference Group Member, 2019-21.

Teaching Awards:

  • Nominee, ‘Cohort Lead of the Year’, nominated by students, Edinburgh University, Students Association Awards, 2025.
  • Nominee, 'Lecturer of the Year', nominated by students, Edinburgh University Students Association 2024.
  • On maternity leave 2023.
  • Nominee, ‘Outstanding Commitment to Social Justice and Sustainability’, Edinburgh University Students Association Awards, 2021.
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