Richard Kotter interestes in rights-based approaches to disaster-risk reduction and empowerment of marginalised communities. He has a sustained level of activity in Holocaust and Genocide Education within and outside of the university, both field-based (Poland, Germany) and city-based (Newcastle HMD working group). He has a strong activist and organisational background in this field through Amnesty International as a national volunteer country co-ordinator for European issues, trainer for AIUK, and past Chair of Steering Committee of Country Co-ordinators. He is current member of Case Management Group of AIUK. He is developing research in this area examining capability building in human rights campaigning and evaluation of impact contribution and attribution, which has led to contributions to the TransEuropa festival and currently the York City of Human Rights project.