Warwick Law School News

Professor Alan Norrie and Dr Henrique Carvalho designed and delivered a hugely successful research workshop on Critical Theory and Criminal Justice at a leading Law School in New Delhi, India.

Building on a fruitful course delivered by Professor Norrie at NLUD (National Law University, Delhi) in 2016; the April workshop, attended by over 50 people, comprised of two days on a diverse and fascinating range of topics offering new and critical dimensions on criminal justice scholarship.

“It was one of the most productive academic engagements on criminal law and critical theory,” remarked Ms Latika Vashist, Assistant Professor at the Indian Law Institute, Delhi.

In recent times, there has been a raft of new legislative initiatives aimed at reducing systemic risk in financial markets.

In their article published in the Journal of International Banking and Financial Law (JIBFL), a leading periodical for practitioners, Dr Stephen Connelly and PhD student Saveethika Leesurakarn from University of Warwick’s School of Law looked at how these initiatives interacted and asked whether there could be problems.

The article is available through LexisNexis, featuring highly in the edition immediately following acclaimed contributors to the field, and headlining the print edition.

‘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...

Following the announcement from The Solicitors’ Regulation Authority about a new route to qualifying as a solicitor, the Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE), we want to reassure all current Warwick Law students that they will continue to have the option to seek qualification as a Solicitor in the way currently expected (by the LPC route following graduation with a qualifying degree).

All students have been emailed with relevant guidance and as more information about the SQE becomes available we will provide further clarity.

View our guidance for current students

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

During a placement last summer (2016) in California for the Death Penalty Internship Programme, third year Warwick Law undergraduate, Natasha Darlington, penned an article analysing the consequences of a real Ohio case whereby a federal judge ruled the current State-prescribed procedure of lethal injection as unconstitutional.

The article, titled 'Federal Judge rejects Ohio’s Lethal Injection Procedure: An Ongoing Constitutional Question', was consequently published by the prestigious University of Pennsylvania Undergraduate Law Journal.

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.

Wednesday, 8 March 2017 – 3:30-6:00pm at the Warwick Arts Centre, University of Warwick, Coventry.

To coincide with International Women’s Day, the University of Warwick’s Criminal Justice Centre is hosting a free, public event at Warwick Arts Centre to start a broad, policy-informed conversation around ways of reducing the risks of harm and suicide for women in prison.

With increasing national dialogue on the state of our prisons, the event comes as a timely opportunity to be part of an agenda that aims to attend to the specific needs of women in prisons.

A variety of voices from key organisations working within UK criminal justice institutions are featured and the event is open to all, including members of the public.

Wednesday, 22 February, saw Warwick Law take victory in the fifth consecutive annual German Law Moot, wrestling back the title from last year’s winners, Bristol Law.

Since its inception in 2013, the Warwick German Law Moot remains the only one of its kind in the UK enabling teams from all Universities in England that offer a “Law with German Law” degree, or similar, to compete entirely in German over a German Law problem.

The closest event in nature is the long-standing French language Law Moot delivered by University of Oxford’s Faculty of Law.

Newly published in 2017, Associate Professor Dallal Stevens’ co-edited book ‘States, the Law and Access to Refugee Protection’, with Maria O'Sullivan (Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law, Monash University), investigates two current, critical challenges for asylum seekers hoping to find refuge within international systems of protection: first, the initial obstacles encountered by refugees in gaining entry to foreign territories; and second, the barriers to accessing quality asylum.

‘Should the state administer a medical screening test on a child against the wishes of the family?’

In the landmark 2001 Irish Supreme Court Case, 'North Western Health Board v HW and CW (the PKU case)', the original judgment was to uphold the family’s wishes and not administer the test.

Dr Maebh Harding has revisited this influential judgment in Irish law, reimagining the case from the feminist perspective, ultimately providing an alternative route that could have been taken to give meaningful protection to the rights of children.