A Very British Scandal: A 7-part special series investigating the realities behind the Iraq allegations.

Government and media have denied, dismissed and derided allegations of abuse by British soldiers in Iraq.

And yet despite all the political and media pressure the Iraq allegations haven’t gone away.

Lacuna tells the story as you haven't heard it before.

Over the next 7 days, Lacuna magazine editor-in-chief AT Williams and Open Democracy will be interrogating a very British scandal. From calls from the government to “stamp out” the practice of human rights defence to the mainstream media’s portrayal of the “legal witch hunt” supposedly carried out against UK soldiers, this 7-part series digs deeper.

Ali Struthers organised a successful event on campus on the 11th of November with primary and secondary school pupils as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science. The event saw 60 primary pupils from Widening Participation schools attend campus in the morning and 60 secondary pupils from WP schools in the afternoon. The pupils took part in workshops that addressed challenging issues in the social sciences through literature appropriate to young people. The workshops were run by Ali (human rights), Phil Gaydon (war), James Harrison (labour rights) and Lucy Hatton (immigration), and the event was well-received by all who took part.

Read about James' experience of his morning workshop here.

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.

Alice has been awarded £10,900 for the project "Al-Khan-al-Ahmar. Saving a Bedouin School in the West Bank through International Law" through the ESRC Global Challenges Research Fund: Impact Acceleration Account additional funding. This project seeks to bring some of the findings of an article in Social & Legal Studies to a wider non-academic audience in the UK. An event is provisionally scheduled for the second half of November, which will involve participants from the field as well as academics.

Lacuna publishes a thought-provoking selection of migrant experiences across Europe, with exclusive features from Greece, Germany and the UK.

• The European Commission published yet another version of its Common European Asylum System, detailing ‘fair and efficient’ procedure to ensure the rights of asylum seekers are protected in every EU country they set foot in.
• In an exclusive report Dario Sabaghi shares stories from the borders of northern Greece where tens of thousands refugees waited for Macedonia to open its borders, so they could travel to northern Europe.
• What happens once refugees finally reach their desired destination? Kim Harrisberg reports from Germany, the only European country to say ‘refugees welcome’, where she finds shadows of the country’s past influencing policy towards the new arrivals.
• Here in the UK, Rebecca Omonira reports on a specific aspect of migration policy and how it affects foreign national women fleeing domestic violence.

Feel free to share across your networks - you might also like to sign up to our Newsletter, and find us on Twitter and Facebook. Lacuna magazine (http://lacuna.org.uk) published by the Centre for Human Rights in Practice

With 'Super Thursday' behind us, the countdown to the referendum of 23^rd June is gaining pace.

In the first of a series of short articles on Europe, Lacuna considers some of the history and record of peace in the EU in What has the EU ever done for us? – Peace. Supporters of the ‘remain’ campaign point to the attainment of peace in Europe as one if its highest ranking achievements. Indeed, war between member states seems unthinkable today. [republished in New Statesman http://www.newstatesman.com/world/2016/05/how-valid-claim-eu-has-delivered-peace-europe]

Turning away from Europe, in Inequality is skin-deep: The Buruli ulcer in Benin photojournalist Ana Palacios gives us a glimpse of the human cost of neglecting this tropical skin disease.

Follow Lacuna magazine on Facebook and Twitter to stay updated

" 'The death of one man is a tragedy,' Josef Stalin is said to have mused. 'The deaths of a million is a statistic.' A.T. Williams's prize winning debut, A Very British Killing, was a passionately written investigation into the death of a single man – Baha Mousa, an innocent Iraqi hotel receptionist killed by British soldiers in Basra in 2003. This, his second book, is a study in myriad deaths – the Nazi perpetration of genocide – and a prolonged meditation on Stalin's idea that the human mind cannot comprehend mass murder... His theme is the imperfect efforts made by the Allied military authorities... to bring the criminals responsible for these horrors to justice." (Daily Telegraph)

"This is a fine book that does a great job of debunking one of the most enduring myths in history." (History of War)

"Splendid book... Much more than a historical narrative and assessment… This is a superb book which offers no easy answers but invites the reader to join its author on a grim odyssey." (History Today)

"Earnest, unsettling book... Williams is a thoughtful, lucid writer, with a lawyer’s appetite for detail... A Passing Fury is heartfelt, moving and often powerfully written." (Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times)

"Haunting, sensitive and thoughtful study." (Nigel Jones, Daily Telegraph)

"Williams has put together an original polemic against our assumptions about these trials, including those at Nuremberg. (David Herman, New Statesman)

"... gripping and original ..." (The Catholic Herald)

"... skilfully reveals a chaotic world in which war crimes investigation teams... were left to do their best in extremely trying circumstances." (Scotland on Sunday)

At the April Soroptomists dinner meeting, SI Kenilworth welcomed several guests who joined them for a membership event. The highlight of the evening was a talk by Professor Shaheen Ali, from the Law department of Warwick University, who gave us a fascinating talk on Women’s Rights. To find out more click here

The School of Law would like to congratulate Professor Shaheen Sardar Ali, the special symposium issue of the First Max Planck Symposium on Child Law in Muslim Countries published by the American Journal of Comparative Law (2015) Volume 63 has been dedicated to Professor Shaheen Sardar Ali. The citation at p. 827 reads:

"This symposium issue is dedicated to Shaheen Sardar Ali in appreciation of her inspiring scholarly

work and her profound humanity."

Sharif Sekalala is presenting a paper at a workshop on 'The emerging norm of global representation in global health' as part of 'Brown University's international Advanced Research Institute' which is focusing on global health in Madrid from the 10th - 16th of January 2016. Click here to read on.

Areas being discussed are politics of health care provision in the era of globalization. What are the bases of health policymaking in different countries and contexts? How does health care provision play out on the ground in particular places? Which public, private, and civil society organizations are involved and to what effect? What roles do international organizations and agencies play in health care funding, provision, and agenda-setting? Where do scientists, and scientific agencies, fit in? And how do the norms governing health care provision evolve over space and time?

Shaheen Sardar Ali was an invited panelist at an international conference organised by the Nuremberg Academy, Germany to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the start of the Nuremberg Trials (19 to 21 November 2015). She presented a paper entitled: 'What is the measure of ‘universality’? Critical reflections on International criminal justice, the Nuremberg principles, ICC and pluralist Islamic legal traditions.' To find out more click here.

Shaheen Sardar Ali was invited to present a paper entitled: 'In Search of Authority and Authenticity? UK Shari'a Councils and Muslim Women's Rights' at an international conference: Legal Pluralism and human rights within family disputes in Europe organised by the Ghent University Human Rights centre 26-27 October 2015 to find out more click here.