Alice Welsh

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Profile

Biography

Dr Alice Welsh

LLM in International Human Rights Law and Practice (York), PhD Law (York)

Lecturer in Law

I joined York Law School in 2011 as undergraduate student. But most recently started as a Lecturer in 2023 after completing an ESRC-funded PhD on EU migrant workers’ social rights in the UK.

My research interests include migration and rights in the UK, with a focus on the rights of EU citizens in the UK after Brexit. I am particularly interested in how the law operates ‘on the ground’ using social-legal methods, such as advice-led ethnography.

Prior to my current role, I worked as a Research Fellow on the EU Rights and Brexit Hub - a ESRC Governance After Brexit project. The EU Rights and Brexit Hub was a project in advice-led ethnography based in the Baroness Hale Legal Clinic, to give advice to organisations working with EU nationals and documenting evidence of problems encountered. We have contributed to strategic litigation, supporting claimants and/or interveners in high profile test cases – working with the3million; the AIRE Centre; the Child Poverty Action Group; and 4-5 Grays Inn Square Chambers.

I have also worked at the Public Law Project as a Research Fellow looking at the EU Settlement Scheme and as a caseworker at the Refugee Council.

Research

Overview

The EU Rights and Brexit Hub 2020 to 2023

A major ESRC Governance After Brexit project. We set up a nationwide legal action research hub – the first of its kind. From within the Baroness Hale Legal clinic, we offered second tier advice and support to organisations working with EU/EEA nationals, and documented the problems encountered in a parallel ethnography. The team included: Principal Investigator Professor Charlotte O’Brien; Co-Investigators Professor Simon Parker, (University of York, Department of Politics and International Relations) and Madeleine Sumption (COMPAS, University of Oxford), and research fellows Dr John Evemy, Denis Kierans and Marina Fernandez Reino.

We produced parliamentary briefings, drafted parliamentary questions, gave evidence to the London Assembly, which formed the basis for a letter from the Assembly to the Mayor of London. One major output from this project includes the Open Access monograph 'The Market Citizenship Illusion: Free Movement rights for Atypical Workers' which examines case studies from the project and from the AIRE Centre on the rights of part-time, temporary or casual workers.

Although the ESRC project has concluded, we are continuing to receive cases through the clinic, give advice and analyse the problems encountered.

The work of this project was recognised with an ESRC Outstanding Public Policy Impact Prize awarded to Professor Charlotte O’Brien in 2024.

Teaching

Undergraduate

I teach on the following modules:

Foundations in Law, Public Law
Migrants’ Rights: Law and Policy Clinic, module leader
Legal Concepts, module leader
Clinic case supervisor

Publications

Selected publications

Welsh A, The Market Citizenship Illusion: Free Movement Rights for Atypical Workers (Hart, 2025).
O’Brien C and Welsh A, ‘Court of Appeal decides the secretary of state is wrong, wrong, wrong: the Charter applies to people with pre-settled status’ (2024) 46(1) Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 133.
Meers J, Tomlinson J, Welsh A, O’Brien C, ‘Does digital status unlawfully penalise EU citizens accessing the UK’s private rented sector?’ (2024) 88(1) Modern Law Review 33.
Welsh A, ‘Secretary of State for Work and Pensions v AT (Aire Centre and IMA Intervening) [2022] UKUT 330 (AAC)’ (2023) 37(2) Journal of Immigration Asylum and Nationality Law 195.
Welsh A, ‘Permission to Discriminate – EU nationals, pre-settled status and access to social assistance’ (2022) 44(1) Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 133.
Welsh A, ‘A genuine chance of free movement? Clarifying the ‘reasonable period of time’ and residence conditions for jobseekers in G. M. A.’ (2021) 58(5) Common Market Law Review 1591.
Tomlinson J, Maxwell J and Welsh A, ‘Discrimination in digital immigration status’ (2022) 42(2) Legal Studies 315.
Tomlinson J and Welsh A, ‘Will Digital Immigration Status Work?’ (2020) 34(4) Journal of Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Law 306.

External activities

Memberships

Cases Editor, Journal of Social Security Law
Peer Reviews, e.g.: Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies, Journal of Common Market Studies, Bristol University Press
Member of Socio-Legal Studies Association
Volunteer at York City of Sanctuary
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Member of the EUSS Alliance
Member of the EEAS Monitoring Network