Warwick Law School News

Ten law students from the University of Warwick are about to travel to the United States to help provide legal representation on behalf of prisoners who have been sentenced to death.

They are taking part in a unique internship programme, which provides an exclusive opportunity to work on some of the country’s most prominent capital punishment cases.

Warwick’s Death Penalty Project, which is now in its 10th year, is run through the Centre for Human Rights in Practice and has proved to be a life-changing experience for dozens of aspiring lawyers.

Kevin Hearty, Research Fellow at Warwick Law School, writes for The Conversation:

Looking at the violence that broke out in North Belfast on July 13, you could be forgiven for thinking you’d taken a quantum leap back in time by about 20 years. But the sad reality is that violence over parades is as much a part of the “new” Northern Ireland as Game of Thrones.

If remained unanswered the immediate necessity of liquidity might develop into a “humanitarian crisis”, argues leading European banking and law analyst Dr Giuliano Castellano of the University of Warwick.

Dr Castellano also argues that “While the Greek Government intends the ‘no’ vote as to strengthen its bargaining power and reduce the austerity measures asked by the international creditors; the results of the referendum cast a shadow on the possibility for the Eurozone leaders to extend a guarantee over a new ECB emergency loan”

Postgraduate student Nkechikwu Azinge was this month recognised as a Queen’s Young Leader in the inaugural awards in Buckingham Palace. The awards were presented by the Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth II, to 60 exceptional young people from across the Commonwealth, who are taking the lead in their communities and using their skills to transform lives.

Warwick Law School has received a special mention on the front cover of the Socio-Legal Newsletter for hosting the 2015 SLSA Conference.

The annual conference was held from 31 March to 2 April and hosted the most amount of delegates to date, with 450 delegates gathering for three days of academic debate, networking and socialising.

The prison pen pal scheme ‘Prisoners’ Penfriends’ has an important role to play in helping to rehabilitate convicted offenders, new research from the University of Warwick has found.

The findings are revealed in a report from the Law School’s Criminal Justice Centre, which is being presented at the House of Lords on Thursday (25 June).

Professor Jacqueline Hodgson and PhD student Juliet Horne focused their research on the work of the small charity Prisoners’ Penfriends, which puts offenders in touch with trained volunteers.

The CJC is delighted to have been awarded funding by the ESRC to host an event as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science on Saturday 14 November 2015.

The CJC multi-format event aims to bring together different perspectives on the experience of punishment, in order to raise awareness of, promote social science research on and generate debate on prisoner wellbeing and its consequences to criminal justice policy and practice. The full-day event will encourage an interactive open debate between academics and non-academics through drawing on a range of perspectives on the topic, from that of those responsible for formulating and implementing prison policy, and that of social scientists researching punishment and criminal justice, to that of those with first-hand, lived experiences of punishment within prisons. Interactive sessions will include: screening and discussion of the film ‘Herman’s House’ (a movie about the communication between an architect and a life prisoner in the US); a workshop run by the Empty Cages Collective about the conditions and experience of imprisonment in England and Wales; and an exhibition of prisoners’ creative self-expression (letters, photography, paintings, etc.) followed by discussion.

A researcher from the University of Warwick is to warn about the potentially “unforeseeable outcomes” of constitutional change under the current Conservative government at a conference in Coventry.

Professor John McEldowney will address delegates at Coventry Cathedral tomorrow (Tuesday 23 June) during a day-long event being held to mark the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta.

He is one of five speakers on the panel for ‘The Allure of Magna Carta: Freedom, Democracy and Reconciliation’, alongside three other academics and Chris Bryant MP.

Professors Dallal Stevens and Philip Kaisary have been recognised in this year’s Warwick Awards for Teaching Excellence, a University award scheme which celebrates excellence in teaching and the support of learning throughout students’ careers at University.

Following her recent Family Court Study, Dr Maebh Harding has featured on BBC Radio Humberside to discuss the findings. 

The discussion also included an interview with Glen Poole, author of ‘Equality For Men’.

Listen to the full show here, with the interviews commencing at 14:00.

Professors Jackie Hodgson and Roger Leng have been funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), and will be conducting a research study into“Securing a fair trial through excluding evidence? A comparative perspective” . The project runs from 2015-2017 and is a collaboration between the criminal Justice Centre at Warwick and scholars from Switzerland, Germany, China, Taiwan and Singapore.

The June issue of Social and Legal Studies has been jointly edited by John Snape and Dominic de Cogan from Cambridge.

The issue focusses on Tax Law: Complexity, Politics and Policymaking.

Details can be found at http://sls.sagepub.com/content/current

The special issue features contributions from, among others, Sol Picciotto (Lancaster), who retains links with Warwick Law School.