‘The Preventive Turn in Criminal Law’, a new book by Dr Henrique Carvalho, offers the latest addition to the Oxford Monographs on Criminal Law and Justice published by OUP (Oxford University Press).

This new book seeks to understand where the impulse for prevention in criminal law comes from, and why this preventive dimension seems to be expanding in recent times.

The series aims to cover all aspects of criminal law and procedure including criminal evidence and encompassing both practical and theoretical works.

The general idea of a ‘preventive turn’ in criminal law is a modern spate of new criminal offences that criminalise conduct that happens much earlier than the actual harm which they are trying to prevent.

Dr Carvalho, Assistant Professor at University of Warwick’s School of Law, explains...

Dr Dallal Stevens has been awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for £49,622.

The year-long project, starting October 2017, calls for new thinking on the crucial issue of access to refugee protection in the Middle East.

It argues that existing law and policies are failing refugees and that an innovative, multi-dimensional analysis is now needed.

Such an approach requires exploration and assessment of the many factors that influence protection in the region.

Law, language, history, policy, practice and politics will all be examined along with their interrelationship and the implications for “protection” as currently interpreted and delivered.

The work will involve interviews with key stakeholders on the protection situation on the ground - in particular, the UNHCR, (I)NGOs and legal advisors in Amman, Jordan; Beirut, Lebanon; and Ankara, Turkey.

The study will provide a roadmap for the future at this critical juncture in the international and local refugee regime.

In a change to her normal research focus, Dr Alison Struthers has published an article discussing the fascinating world of magic and grand illusions.

Against the backdrop of an historical lack of interaction between Intellectual Property regulation and the magic profession, the article considers the groundbreaking judgment in the US case of Teller v Dogge.

Whilst there has been much commentary about the decision in the US, it has received little attention in the UK. The article therefore explores UK copyright protection for magic tricks and investigates the important question of how magic should be protected.

The citation for the article is: Struthers, A., ‘Copyright Protection for Magic Tricks: A danger lurking in the shadows?’ (2017) 39(3) European Intellectual Property Review 136-145

Dr Henrique Carvalho’s co-authored paper ‘Why punishment pleases: Punitive feelings in a world of hostile solidarity’, a collaboration with colleague Anastasia Chamberlen (Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick), has been published in the international, peer-reviewed journal Punishment & Society.

The paper raises the possibility that the reason why we believe punishment to be useful, and why we are motivated to punish, is because we derive pleasure from the utility of punishment.

Simply stated, punishment pleases.

Fiona Smith is Professor of International Economic Law at Warwick Law School and has a specialist interest in international agricultural trade. She is working on the impact of BREXIT on UK agricultural policy, specifically how the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) rules will affect the UK’s trade in food and agricultural policy after BREXIT.

Fiona was a member of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society’s Farmers Scientist Network expert group that produced the influential ‘The Implications of BREXIT for UK Agriculture’ (2016). Following the June 2016 Referendum, Fiona has given written evidence to the Welsh Assembly, and the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly on BREXIT and agriculture. Find out more. In December 2016, she also gave oral evidence to the House of Commons’ International Trade Committee.

Fiona was also interviewed by Jonty Bloom for the Radio 4 programme, ‘In Business: BREXIT and the Future of British Farming.’

Professor Alan Norrie visited Colombia and Chile in November 2016, giving lectures and classes at Universidad Libre, Bogota and the Pontifical University, Valparaiso.

In Bogota he gave a lecture entitled ‘Feeling Guilty In and Beyond the Law’, and in Valparaiso he participated in a seminar ‘Justicia Transicional’ presenting a paper entitled ‘’Working Through to the Polis’: Transitional Justice and Psychoanalytic Method’. The papers represent developments of his research project (‘Criminal Justice: the Blaming Relation’) as a Leverhulme Senior Research Fellow.

Dr Ania Zbyszewska has co-organized an international workshop “Theorising Labour Law in a Changing World: New Perspectives and Approaches”, which will be held on 13-14 December 2016 at the Maastricht University in Netherlands. Organized in collaboration with Dr Miriam Kullmann (Maastricht) and Dr Alysia Blackham (Melbourne) and with funding support from Warwick, Maastricht and Melbourne Law Schools/Faculties, and Hart Publishing, this two-day event will feature the work of early-career labour law scholars who seek to pushe the conceptual boundaries of labour law. A number of established scholars have been invited to comment on these contributions, with our key objective being to promote a broader, more inclusive and critical dialogue on an issues of fundamental contemporary importance. https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/events/theorising-labour-law

A push to reform Islamic divorce could make Sharia councils redundant in Britain

Controversy over Sharia councils in Britain has resulted in an ongoing parliamentary enquiry on their role and remit. Some of those giving evidence before MPs on the Home Affairs Select Committee suggest Sharia councils should be abolished altogether, while others are calling for reform or for a code of conduct to be introduced to regulate these institutions. A separate independent review is also ongoing about whether Sharia law is being used to discriminate against women.

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On Friday 4th November at Conway Hall in London Alice Panepinto hosted a public event on 'Can Law Stop the Demolition of a Bedouin School in the West Bank? Spotlight on al-Khan al-Ahmar' based on her socio-legal research on the significnce of the al-Khan al-Ahmar school demolition case. The event is part of a series of impact activities, funded by the ESRC-IAA Global Challenges Research Fund, which included a briefing with the Middle East Minister at the FCO.

Professor Ann Stewart will be going to Kenya to pursue research associated with her Leverhulme Fellowship: Caring for older women in Kenya’s plural legal system.

The study assesses the contribution of community-based ‘woman to woman’ marriage practices in Kenya to the provision of care, particularly for the elderly, when there is little social welfare available.

The everyday practices of caring for older people particularly women, traditionally woven into communal relations, are changing in the socio-economic and political circumstances of contemporary Kenya.

Are woman to woman marriages, historically understood as a means of tackling infertility, evolving into a way of recognising and ‘rewarding’ caring labour for those with assets? How are claims for recognition understood now in the ‘formal’ courts and within community dispute resolution practices?

On 19^th October 2016, the Academy of Social Sciences announced that it had conferred the award of Fellow on 84 leading social scientists, and Vanessa Munro was amongst them!

Fellows are recognised by the Academy after an extensive process of peer review for the excellence and impact of their work through the use of social science for public benefit.

Vanessa, who was nominated for the award by the Socio-Legal Studies Association, was described by the Academy as “the leading scholar of her generation in the socio-legal study of sexual offences.”

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