Elaine Webster is an interdisciplinary researcher whose work centres on the ways in which human rights-based thinking can influence the way we understand, talk about, and act in ways that protect dignity and promote relationships of care. Her work explores the journey from interpreting legal human rights standards to implementing them in practice from diverse perspectives and through diverse disciplinary lenses. Her research has spanned the rights to health, water, housing, and participation in cultural life. Elaine’s key interests are in ways of understanding and putting into practice the right to be free from degrading treatment, and in the influence of human rights standards in environmental (particularly oceans) governance. She is currently developing a project that links these two areas, which includes exploring the power of more-than-human design to influence how we understand the relationship between rights of humans and rights of nature.

Since the beginning of her career as a human rights academic, Elaine has been interested in non-textual approaches to engaging with law and in creative research methodologies and pedagogies. A particular interest is in theatre-based practice. Through her work as a Co-investigator on the One Ocean Hub project (2019-2025) she also developed an interest in systems transformation approaches. Elaine is based at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, where she is a Reader in Human Rights Law. She is an Associate of the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland, and a Trustee of cultural rights charity Art 27 Scotland.