Skip to main content
School of Law
  1. School of Law
  2. People
  3. Academic Staff
  4. Items

Dr John Adenitire

John

Senior Lecturer in Law

Email: j.adenitire@qmul.ac.uk
Room Number: Mile End
Website: https://twitter.com/JohnAdenitire

Profile

Dr John Adenitire is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Law and a Co-Director of the Forum on Decentering the Human. Prior to joining Queen Mary, he was a Lecturer in Law at the University of Birmingham. He completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge, Faculty of Law and Fitzwilliam College. He has taught or researched at Cambridge, Durham, Birmingham, the UCL Constitution Unit, the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law and the UK Commission on a Bill of Rights. He has been a research visitor at Yale, Oxford, NYU, Fordham, and Chicago.

Download Dr John Adenitire's full CV. [PDF 304KB]

Research

His research is primarily focused on Public Law, Legal Theory, and Comparative Constitutional Law, with a distinct specialisation in two major areas of fundamental rights:

  • Conscientious Exemptions and Freedom of Conscience: He is a leading scholar on the legal right to conscientious exemption, advocating for this right to be extended beyond religious privilege to encompass all deeply held, non-religious conscientious beliefs. His monograph on this subject is 'A General Right to Conscientious Exemption: Beyond Religious Privilege' (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
  • Non-Human Animals in Constitutional Law: Dr Adenitire's current major work is pioneering a field he terms 'sentience-based constitutionalism.' This research challenges the human-centred nature of constitutional law and theory, arguing for a new framework to protect the interests of all sentient beings. Together with Dr Raffael Fasel he has published, 'Animals and the Constitution: Towards Sentience-Based Constitutionalism' (Oxford University Press 2025).

Publications

Monograph

  • ‘Animals and the Constitution: Towards Sentience-Based Constitutionalism’ (Oxford University Press, 2025) (with Raffael Fasel).
  • ‘A General Right to Conscientious Exemption: Beyond Religious Privilege’ (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
    • Book symposium (2022) in the Keele Law Review – Contributions from Prof Kent Greenawalt, Prof Robin Fretwell Wilson, Prof Richard Moon, Prof Yossi Nehushtan, and Dr Stella Coyle.
    • Reviewed by Mr Guy Baldwin in the Cambridge Law Journal [2022] 81(2), 430-433.
    • Reviewed by Dr Lucy M Davis in the Medical Law Review by [2021] 29(3), 587–592.
    • Reviewed by Prof Yossi Nehushtan in the Modern Law Review [2022] 85(4) 1097-1102.

Edited Volumes

  • ‘Fundamental Rights for Non-Humans: Foundations, Flaws, and Futures’ (co-edited with Raffael Fasel). Under contract with Hart Publishing, forthcoming 2026.
  • ‘From Toleration to Religious Freedom: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives’ (co-edited with Marietta Van Der Tol, Carys Brown and Emily Kempson) (Peter Lang Publishing, June 2021).
    • Reviewed by Prof Benjamin Kaplan in [2022] Journal of Church and State 329–331.
  • ‘Religious Beliefs and Conscientious Exemptions in a Liberal State’ (sole editor) (Hart Publishing, June 2019).
    • Reviewed by Dr Stephen Smith in [2020] Medical Law Review.

Editor of Special Journal Issues

  • Book symposium on Raffael Fasel’s ‘More Equal Than Others: Humans and the Rights of Other Animals (OUP 2024)’ (sole guest editor) [2026] Res Publica (forthcoming).
  • ‘Conflicts between Religious Freedom and Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination: Should “Mere Civility” Suffice?’ (sole guest editor) [2020] (2) Oxford Journal of Law and Religion.

Journal Articles (peer reviewed)

  • ‘Should Animals be our Equals?’ [2026] Res Publica (forthcoming).
  • ‘Do Future Generations have Rights?’ [2026] Asian Journal of Philosophy (forthcoming).
  • ‘A Liberal Defence of No-Platforming’ [2024] 22(3) International Journal of Constitutional Law 710-740.
  • ‘Religion as Liberal Politics’ [2024] 39(2) Journal of Law and Religion 151-172.
  • ‘Religion, Diversity, and Conscientious Exemptions: Reply to Contributors’ [2022] Keele Law Review 68-83.
  • ‘The Rule of Law for All Sentient Animals’ [2022] (1) Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence 1-30.
    • Identified by Maneesha Deckha as one of the best works of recent scholarship relating to equality law in Maneesha Deckha, Excluding Animals: A Rule of Law Violation, JOTWELL (June 1, 2023).
  • ‘Protecting Solitary Beliefs against Indirect Discrimination’ [2020] Industrial Law Journal 196–225.
  • Editorial of ‘Conflicts between Religious Freedom and Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination: Should “Mere Civility” Suffice?’ [2020] Oxford Journal of Law and Religion 229–237.
  • ‘Conscientious Exemptions: From Toleration to Neutrality; From Neutrality to Respect' [2017] Oxford Journal of Law and Religion 6(2), 268-292.
  • ‘A Conscience-Based Human Right to be “Doctor Death”’ [2016] Public Law 613, 613-630.
  • ‘The BMA’s Guidance on Conscientious Objection May be Contrary to Human Rights Law’ [2017] Journal of Medical Ethics 43(4), 260-263 (special JME issue ‘Conscientious Objections’).
  • ‘SAS v France: Fidelity to Law and Conscience’ [2015] (1) European Human Rights Law Review, 78-86.

Book Chapters

  • ‘The Ministerial Exception without Religion’ (forthcoming chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Religion and Discrimination).
  • ‘Are There Any Animal Rights?’ in J. Adenitire and R. Fasel, Fundamental Rights for Non-Humans: Foundations, Flaws, and Futures (Hart 2026, forthcoming).
  • ‘Introduction’ in J. Adenitire and R. Fasel, Fundamental Rights for Non-Humans: Foundations, Flaws, and Futures (Hart 2026, forthcoming).
  • ‘Replacing Race, Replacing Religion’ (forthcoming chapter in K. Hughes and V. Khanna, Race and the European Convention on Human Rights (Hart Publishing 2026))
  • ‘Is Liberal Neutrality Possible?’ (forthcoming chapter in Laborde, Tebbe, Schwartzman (eds.), Discrimination by/against Religion (OUP 2025)).
  • ‘Introduction’ in ‘From Toleration to Religious Freedom: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives’ (co-editor) (Peter Lang Publishing, June 2021).
  • ‘Introduction’ in J. Adenitire (ed.), Religious Beliefs and Conscientious Exemptions in a Liberal State (Hart Publishing, June 2019).
  • ‘Who Should Give Effect to Conscientious Exemptions? The Case for Institutional Synergy’ in J. Adenitire (ed.), Religious Beliefs and Conscientious Exemptions in a Liberal State (Hart Publishing, June 2019).
  • ‘Conscientious Exemptions in a Liberal State’ in J. Adenitire (ed.), Religious Beliefs and Conscientious Exemptions in a Liberal State (Hart Publishing, June 2019).

Case Comments

  • 'Ideological Neutrality in the Workplace' [2018] Modern Law Review 81(2), 337–360 (co-authored with Zoe Adams).
  • ‘Has the ECHR Recognised a Legal Right to Glance at a Smile?’ [2015] Law Quarterly Review 131 (Jan), 43-48.

Review Essays

  • Review essay of A. Cochrane, Sentientist Politics (OUP 2018) [2019] Jurisprudence 10(3), 588-596.
  • 'The Irrelevance of Religion' [2017] Jurisprudence 8(2), 405-414.
  • ‘Between Institutional and Moral Discourse: On Alexy’s Legal Philosophy’ [2013] Jurisprudence 4(2), 358-364.

Book Reviews and Reports

  • Book review of H. Bhuiyan and D. Jensen (eds.), Law and Religion in the Liberal State (Hart 2020) [2022] Public Law 168-171.
  • Book review of T. Poole, Reason of State (CUP 2015) [2016] Cambridge Law Journal 75(3), 620-623.
  • (Contributed to legal analysis of Commonwealth jurisdictions) J. van Zyl Smit ‘The Appointment, Tenure and Removal of Judges under Commonwealth Principles: A Compendium and Analysis of Best Practice’ (Report of Research Undertaken by Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law) (July 2015) (Cited by the Indian Supreme Court in Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Ass’n v. Union of India (2016) 4 SCC 1, at n 531).
  • Book review of R. Masterman and I. Leigh (eds.), The United Kingdom’s Statutory Bill of Rights (UOP/British Academy 2013) [2014] Public Law 591, 591-595.
  • Book review of K. Möller, The Global Model of Constitutional Rights (OUP 2012) [2014] Human Rights Law Review 14(1), 159-164.
  • (Co-author) ‘Deestoori Ambassadors and Guides Manual’ (Training manual for public engagement in the drafting of a new constitution for Libya) [2012] (Project by the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law; used by Lawyers For Justice in Libya; Printed by White & Case LLP).
  • ‘Judicial Independence in Europe: The Swedish, Italian and German Perspectives’ (20,000 words research note) [2012] UCL Constitution Unit, The Politics of Judicial Independence project website (Translated into Bulgarian and available at Sŭdebno Pravo).

Legal Blogging (selection)

Public Engagement

Related news

Back to top