Professor Emilie Cloatre is a socio-legal scholar whose main research interests lie in the intersection between law and medicine. She is particularly interested in exploring how law and health knowledges shape each other, and in questioning the impact of law in furthering, perpetuating or, potentially, challenging health inequalities. She has studied these issues in a range of areas, including access to healthcare; pharmaceutical flows, medicine and global (in)equalities; and the regulation of alternative and traditional medicine. Her approach to law is influenced by insights from Science and Technology Studies, socio-legal studies and legal anthropology, and her work has been informed by qualitative research across a number of socio-cultural settings. Her research has been funded by Wellcome, the AHRC, and the ESRC.

From May 2025, she will lead a Wellcome Discovery Award entitled: “Between Deception and Dissent: Regulating Unproven, Disproven and Misleading Health-Related Claims”. This collaborative project will explore how contested health-related claims are regulated in contemporary states; examine the socio-political implications of current strategies; and imagine and propose alternative legal models. The research will be based in three regional zones: Europe (France, Greece, Ireland, and the UK), West Africa (Ghana and Senegal), and North America (Mexico and Canada), and bring together well-established qualitative methods, innovative cross-disciplinary strategies, and critical approaches to law and to the making of legitimate knowledge. In addition to its key empirical and conceptual contributions, this Discovery Award will aim to build capacity for interdisciplinary research at the crossroad of law and the health social sciences and humanities, disrupting persistent barriers to the development of critical knowledge on law, health, and society.

Before joining King’s College London, Emilie Cloatre worked at the University of Kent and the University of Nottingham. 

Emile currently has capacity to take on PhD supervisions. 

Research interests 

Professor Cloatre’s research interests include:

• The relationship between law and medicine
• Law and the politics of healthcare
• The effects of law on health inequalities
• The regulation of health claims and health knowledges
• The regulation of alternative and traditional medicine
•  The role of law in shaping the boundaries of what is deemed legitimate healthcare

Teaching interests 

Law, health and society.