Dr Nazia Yaqub
Senior Lecturer in Law, Leeds Beckett University, United Kingdom
Email: n.yaqub@leeds.ac.uk
Profile
Before joining the University in 2023, I spent several years in legal practice. I am a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales (non-practising) and represented clients in the areas of Prison Law, Crime, Mental Health, Family and Children’s law. After crossing to academia, I completed my PhD research at the University of Liverpool and have since taught Family Law, Children’s Rights, Criminal Law and Contract Law. During this time, I have also held visiting academic posts at Otago (New Zealand) and Antwerp (Belgium), completed a post-graduate teaching diploma and became a fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Research
Publications
Yaqub N. 2022. Parental Child Abduction to Islamic Law Countries: A Child Rights Analysis of the Legal Framework.
Yaqub N. 2024. Can GPS Monitoring Be Viewed as a Bodyguard, Rather than a Prison Guard?: The Use of Electronic Monitoring to Reduce the Risk of Cross-Border Parental Child Abduction. Modern Law Review.
Griffiths M, Jackson N, Woodhouse S, Yaqub N, Stalford H. 2024. 'Unduly Harsh?': An Empirical Examination of Best Interests Assessments in the Context of Parental Deportation. The International Journal of Children's Rights. 690-720 32.3
Yaqub N, Stalford H. 2025. Children, Identity and the Impacts of Parental Deportation on Children: A Famigration Perspective. In: Freeman M; Taylor N (eds.) Children’s Right to Identity, Selfhood and International Family Law. Elgar Studies in International Family Law.
Yaqub N. 2022. “Muslim Women in Britain: Adherence to Islamic Marriage Laws”. In: Bennett Y (eds.) Women and Religion in Britain Today Belonging.
Yaqub N, Stalford H, Byrne S. 2022. Human Rights, Children’s Rights, and Family Law. In: Lamont R (eds.) Family Law.
Yaqub N, Stalford H. 2020. Legal Analysis of the Existing EU and other Frameworks on Children’s Rights. In: Feasibility Study for a Child Guarantee Final Report.
Yaqub N. 2023. Jurisdictional Exceptionalisms: Islamic Law, International Law and Parental Child Abduction. Child and Family Law Quarterly. 82-85 35.1
Yaqub N. 2022. “Muslim Women in Britain: Adherence to Islamic Marriage Laws”. In: Bennett Y (eds.) Women and Religion in Britain Today Belonging.
Yaqub N. 2022. Parental Child Abduction to Islamic Law Countries: A Child Rights Analysis of the Legal Framework.
Yaqub N, Stalford H, Byrne S. 2022. Human Rights, Children’s Rights, and Family Law. In: Lamont R (eds.) Family Law.
Yaqub N, Stalford H. 2020. Legal Analysis of the Existing EU and other Frameworks on Children’s Rights. In: Feasibility Study for a Child Guarantee Final Report.
Yaqub N (2020) The Coronavirus Act 2020 and Child Detention under the Mental Health Act (MHA) 1983
Expertise
My research interests span international human rights law, with my publishing record covering child rights, law and religion, belongingness theory, family and immigration law. I am a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales and have represented clients in Criminal, Mental Health, Family and Children’s law cases before the English courts.My monograph on cross-border parental child abduction is published with Hart Publishing. It reflects on statistical and empirical data I collated to examine how domestic and international law policies could be developed to uphold the rights of abducted children. My monograph has been widely cited and has informed numerous reports by NGOs and charities – including in independent research published by the European Parliament. The research has global impact. I was invited by the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) to share my research expertise with state representatives and members of the judiciary at its Malta Conference (2024). I was also invited by the European Commission (Directorate-General for Justice) and the Council of the European Union to share my research on cross-border cooperation in family matters (Warsaw, 2025).
I continue to work on policy developments in this area, to both prevent abductions from occurring and to assess the implications of Islamic country accession to the Private International Law treaty, the 1980 Hague Abduction Convention. In 2023-24, I was awarded a Michael Beverly Innovation Fellowship which enabled me to examine whether the use of electronic monitoring in a protective capacity could prevent cases of cross-border parental child abduction and whether the use of the technology is compatible with UK and international human rights law.