Staff profile

Natalie joined Durham Law School in September 2022 having previously been a Lecturer in Law at the University of Exeter and a Teaching Fellow at University College London (UCL) and at Queen Mary University of London.

Natalie is on research leave from October 2024 to March 2025. In the academic year 2023-24, Natalie taught Employment and Tort Law on the LLB and International Protection of Human Rights on the LLM, and was the Departmental International Exchanges Coordinator and Placement Coordinator for Durham Law School. Natalie welcomes inquiries for PhD supervision from prospective doctoral students in her areas of research interest.

Natalie’s research focuses on human rights and labour law, with a particular interest in domestic workers and other marginalised workers, and in issues of gender and migration. Her PhD, completed at UCL in 2021, analysed the legal position of domestic workers and their frequent exclusion from protective labour law legislation in relation to two case studies, Chile and the UK, and criticised this from a human rights perspective. Natalie is now working on a book project arising from the PhD, which also includes case studies of South Africa and India. 

From June 2022 to December 2023 Natalie was a co-investigator on the research project 'Access to protection, enforcement & redress? Effects of visas for agriculture & care on migrant workers' vulnerabilities in the UK workforce,' funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council via the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre. Using the agricultural and care work sectors as case studies, the project examined how immigration rules and labour policies can create vulnerabilities to trafficking and other forms of modern-day slavery. Natalie's other research projects include: the human rights implications of the ‘hostile environment’ for migrant women; the rights of domestic workers in the 'gig economy;' and addressing violence and harassment at work. 

Natalie is on the Research Committee for the Society of Legal Scholars, and was previously the joint convenor for its Labour Law section from 2021 - 24. Natalie is a trustee for the migrant domestic worker NGO Kalayaan and is on the Executive Committee of Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights. 

Before entering academia, Natalie was a solicitor specialising in claims against the police and public authorities. She practised in this area for seven years post-qualification. 

Research interests

Labour law; human rights, including as relevant to the rights of marginalised workers such as domestic, care, and agricultural workers, platform work and the gig economy, rights of women and migrants, socio-economic rights, and positive duties; regional protection of human rights, particularly the Inter-American system; feminist and anti-racist approaches, Latin America; business and human rights.

Book review

• Sedacca, N. (2023). Pavlou, Vera, Migrant Domestic Workers in Europe: Law and the Construction of Vulnerability, Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2021, 166pp, hb £76.50. Modern Law Review, 86(1), 302-306. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12775

Chapter in book

• Sedacca, N. (2024). Mass influx of people from Ukraine: social entitlements and access to the labour market: United Kingdom. In I. Florczak, & J. K. Adamski (Eds.), Mass influx of people from Ukraine: social entitlements and access to the labour market (413-426)
• Sedacca, N. (2022). Domestic Work and the Gig Economy. In V. De Stefano, I. Durri, C. Stylogiannis, & M. Wouters (Eds.), A Research Agenda for the Gig-Economy and Society (149-166). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800883512.00016

Journal Article

• Muldoon, J., Sedacca, N., & Apostolidis, P. (online). Matchmakers: Placement Agencies and Digital Platforms in the UK Childcare Market. Work in the Global Economy, https://doi.org/10.1332/27324176Y2024D000000026
• Sedacca, N. (2024). Migrant Work, Gender, and the Hostile Environment: A Human Rights Analysis. Industrial Law Journal, 53(1), 63-93. https://doi.org/10.1093/indlaw/dwad034
• Sedacca, N. (2022). Domestic Workers, the ‘Family Worker’ Exemption from Minimum Wage, and Gendered Devaluation of Women’s Work. Industrial Law Journal, 51(4), 771–801. https://doi.org/10.1093/indlaw/dwac005
• Manoussaki-Adamopoulou, I., Sedacca, N., Benchekroun, R., Knight, A., & Saavedra, A. (2022). Reflecting on Crisis. https://doi.org/10.3167/arms.2022.050111
• Ohana, N., Barazi, T., Barrett, D., Bedeau, J., Bhuckory, P., Bosch, G., Braham, J., Coombs, C., Gola, S., Jaber, N., Hailemariam, H., Lambert, Z., Lawrence, R., Loder, L., Marshall, E., Matt, T., Nousia, K., Ozsoy, E. C., Phiri, T., Rogge, M., …Walsh, K. (2022). Rationale and recommendations on decolonising the pedagogy and curriculum of the Law School at the University of Exeter. The Law Teacher, 56(4), 536-551. https://doi.org/10.1080/03069400.2022.2140512
• Sedacca, N. (2019). The ‘turn’ to Criminal Justice in Human Rights Law: An Analysis in the Context of the 2016 Colombian Peace Agreement. Human Rights Law Review, 19(2), 315-345. https://doi.org/10.1093/hrlr/ngz011
• Sedacca, N. (2019). Migrant domestic workers and the right to a private and family life. Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, 37(4), https://doi.org/10.1177/0924051919884754
• Sedacca, N. (2017). Abortion in Latin America in International Perspective: Limitations and Potentials of the Use of Human Rights Law to Challenge Restrictions. https://doi.org/10.15779/z38125q90z

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

• Sedacca, N. (2023). The family worker exemption revisited: a sustained campaign against the devaluation of domestic work. [Blog Post]
• Mantouvalou, V., & Sedacca, N. (2022). Trapped in Cycles of Exploitation: The UK Overseas Domestic Worker Visa 10 Years On (UK Labour Law Blog)
• Sedacca, N. (2021). A crucial and long-needed step against the devaluation of domestic work: ‘family worker’ exemption dis-applied in Puthenveettil v Alexander & Ors (UK Labour Law Blog)
• Mantouvalou, V., & Sedacca, N. (2020). The Human Rights of Domestic Workers: Mahlangu v Ministry of Labour and the Transformative Nature of the South African Constitution (UK Labour Law Blog)
• Sedacca, N. (2019). International Domestic Workers’ Day 2019: the rights of domestic workers in the UK need far-reaching and urgent reform (Focus on Labour Exploitation Blog)

Report

• Thiemann, I., Alexandris Polomarkakis, K., Sedacca, N., Dias-Abey, M., Jiang, J., Boswell, C., Fisher, O., Cueva, S., Miranda, P., Francisca Silitonga, N., Hayashi, M., & Priyatna, E. (2024). UK agriculture and care visas: worker exploitation and obstacles to redress. Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre
• Sedacca, N., & Sharp, A. (2019). Dignity, Not Destitution: the Impact of Differential Rights to Work for Migrant Domestic Workers. [No known commissioning body]