International Women’s Day falls on 8 March, and this year the theme is Rights. Justice. Action.

Women’s rights mean nothing if we cannot defend them. When justice fails, women pay the price.

Without justice, rights are just words. With justice, rights become power.

 

• Laws that protect women and girls from violence, discrimination, and exploitation.
• Courts that believe ALL women and girls and end impunity.
• Legal aid that women and girls can access and afford.
• Support to recover when rights are violated.

~ International Women’s Day, UN Women

In keeping wih this theme, the OER Service has collated this collection of open educational resources created by colleagues around the university that address law, rights, equity and justice.

Flourish: Fighting for Feminist Cities

Feminist Cities presents Flourish: Fighting for Feminist Cities a podcast series featuring interviews with activists reimagining cities through a feminist lens and fighting urban violence with care, courage, and collective action. In this first episode, Feminist Cities co-founder Dr. Roxana Pessoa Cavalcanti interviews two activists: Carolina Peterli, a PhD candidate in Interdisciplinary Studies on Women, Gender, and Feminism, and Yasmin Curzi  a practicing lawyer and postdoctoral research fellow at UVA’s Digital Technology for Democracy Lab with an interest in human rights law, digital law, gender studies, and digital sociology (2025).

Perception and use of urban green spaces by Iranian women of different generations: a study of gendered spatial injustice

In this recording from the OPENspace Research Seminar series at Edinburgh College of Art, Mana Taheri Talesh, an Iranian architect, landscape architect, researcher and programme coordinator at the Estonian University of Life Sciences, presents ‘Perception and use of urban green spaces by Iranian women of different generations: a study of gendered spatial injustice’. This presentation examines the impact of generational changes on Iranian society and emphasises the cultural and social shifts, particularly in the recent generation that faces constant restrictions and growing up with the Islamic regime (2025).

Watch Perception and use of urban green spaces by Iranian women of different generations: a study of gendered spatial injustice directly on Media Hopper Create.

Improving Justice in Child Contact

An episode of IRISS, Scotland’s Social Services podcast, featuring Professor Kay Tisdall from the Childhood and Youth Studies Research Group at the University of Edinburgh, and Dr Marsha Scott from Scottish Women’s Aid discussing the Improving Justice in Child Contact (IJCC) project (2020).

Listen to Improving Justice in Child Contact on Media Hopper Create.

Controversies in the Data Society

Controversies in the Data Society, 2018 – 2026, is a public, postgraduate lecture series offered by the Critical Data Studies Network at Edinburgh Futures Institute and Science Technology and Innovation Studies, highlighting current research from across the University of Edinburgh. Topics include:

• Surveillance, Discretion and Governance in Automated Welfare by Dr Morgan Currie (2022).
• Fairness in the Algorithmic Economy by Michael Rovatsos (2021).
• Deep Fakes, Post-Reality and the Law by Burkhard Schafer (2020).

Data Ethics, AI and Responsible Innovation

Our future is here and it relies on data. Medical robots, smart homes and cities, predictive policing, artificial intelligences – all are fuelled by data and all promise new benefits to society. But will these innovations benefit everyone? Who stands to gain and who is put at risk? How can we ensure that data is part of a just and sustainable world?

These videos are free, open resources originally created for the short online course Data Ethics, AI and Responsible Innovation available on EdX. You can watch these videos on Open.Ed and Media Hopper Create. Topics include law, ethics, crime and justice. (2019)

Data Citizens and the Right to Data

As part of the Centre for Data Culture and Society seminar series, Prof Jennifer Gabrys, University of Cambridge, presents her work on citizen sensing and the data rights issues it raises (2021).

Watch Data Citizens and the Right to Data on Media Hopper Create.

Political Settlements Research Programme

The Political Settlements Research Programme was a four year research programme, undertaken by The Global Justice Academy, University of Edinburgh, Conciliation Resources, the Institute for Security Studies, the Rift Valley Institute, and the Transitional Justice Institute, Ulster University.  The Programme examined how political settlements come into being, how open and inclusive they are, and how internal and external actors shape them. Seminar recordings include:

• The Missing Piece: The limits and possibilities of the Womem Peace and Security Agenda in addressing women’s participation in conflict and post-conflict settings by Fionnuala Ni Aolain, University of Minnesota / University of Ulster (2015).
• Women, Peace And Security Research Agendas, a round table featuring Claire Duncanson, Christine Bell, Gerhart Anders, and Zoe Marks (2015).
• Serving women in Iraq and Syria: has UNSCR 1325 made a difference? by Frances Guy, Head of Middle East Region at Christian Aid (2015).
• Different Violence, Different Justice? Transition and Transformation in Colombia by Daire McGill, University of Ulster (2016).

Edinburgh Student Law Review

The Edinburgh Student Law Review (ESLR) is a peer-reviewed Open Access academic journal, with an editorial board comprised of students, dedicated to fostering scholarly discourse and advancing legal knowledge within the student community. Thejournal has a broad scope, covering any legal field under domestic and international law, as well as interdisciplinary articles with a strong legal focus.  The ESLR provides a forum where emerging legal scholars can explore diverse perspectives, challenge existing norms, and address pressing legal concerns. Recent papers include:

• Beyond the Verdict: Pointing to the Issues Relating to Antenatal Gender Revelation in Bangladesh by Md Raisul Islam Sourav (2026).
• A Comparative Critical Analysis of the Financial Remedies for Cohabiting Couples upon Relationship Breakdown in Scotland and Germany by Leonard Lusznat (2024).

The Edinburgh Student Law Review is published on Edinburgh Diamond.

Why Can’t a Woman be More Like a Man 

An open ebook by Fionnuala Doran featuring two original comic illustration works, created in the style of graphic novels: Why Can’t a Woman be More Like a Man (2018) and Granny Alice in Slumberland (2018).

Why Can’t a Woman be More Like a Man is a single loose-leaf comic illustration exploring Christine Blassey Ford’s accusation of sexual assault against the Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh in 2018; a case that achieved instant notoriety for exposing the machinery of political power. Doran’s work presents itself as a feminist critique of this case, and employs comic illustration to interrogate the dynamics of male-dominated political institutions.

Granny Alice in Slumberland is a single looseleaf comic illustration consisting of 9 full-colour panels. The work presents a critique of the work of de Beauvoir and other first-wave feminists in their relative oversight of workingclass and other marginalised women. It does so through a quasi-fictional account of Doran’s great-grandmother’s career as a writer – which explores conflicts within the female identity. Text and image are combined in such a way as to explore a world where barriers to female cultural participation do not exist.

Why Can’t a Woman be More Like a Man is published on Edinburgh Diamond.