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.

Dr. Ming-Sung Kuo will present a paper entitled ‘Beyond Constitutionalism: Thinking Hard about Multilevel Constitutional Ordering in the Shadow of the State of Emergency’ at the ‘Legal Theory and Legitimacy beyond the State: What’s Law Got to Do with It?’ panel on the 2016 ICON-S (International Society of Public Law) conference in Humboldt University (Berlin), Germany on 17-18 June, 2016. To find out more click here.

Dr. Ming-Sung Kuo will present a paper entitled ‘Between Trailblazer and Trend-Follower: Political Rights and the Taiwan Constitutional Court’s Role in Democratic Transition’ at the ‘Bills of Rights and Regional Institutions: Comparative and Transnational Perspectives on European and East Asian Cases’ International Workshop in University of Tuebingen, Germany on 16-17 June, 2016. To find out more click here.

Paul Raffield has been invited by the British Council to give two “Knowledge is GREAT” lectures in Singapore and Malaysia, as part of “Shakespeare Lives 2016”, a global programme organised by the British Council to celebrate the life and work of William Shakespeare on the 400th anniversary of his death. The lectures will take place on 4th April 2016 (Singapore Management University) and 7th April (Kuala Lumpur Regional Centre for Arbitration, the former Shariah Court). The title of the lecture is: “Henry IV, Part 2, Common Law, and the English Utopia”. The lecture in Kuala Lumpur will be followed by a reception to mark the formal launch of “Warwick Alumni in Malaysia”. In addition, he will be giving a lecture at the University of Malaya on the subject of Shakespeare and the Law, and running seminar workshops for A-level students at schools in Singapore and Malaysia. To read Paul's synopsis please click here.

Dr Illan rua Wall gave a keynote at the 2015 Critical Legal Conference in the Aula Leopoldina at the University of Wroclaw in Poland. He presented five theses on crowds. In response to the events of Occupy, the Indignados, the so-called Arab Spring and the miriad of other recent disorders, he developed a legal theory of disorder and political turbulence.

In the UK Research Excellence Framework results (announced 18 December 2014), Warwick Law School was assessed as coming 6th out of 67 Law Departments in terms of its Research Environment, 7th in terms of the Quality of its Research and 10th overall.

Full details can be found on the REF website.

Alan Norrie will present a keynote address on ‘Criminal Justice and the Blaming Relation’ at the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology (ANZSOC) Conference in Sydney, Australia from 1-3 October 2014.

Professor Norrie's address will expand upon his longterm research in criminal law and social theory as well as the development of a new project that will move from the standard legal form of criminal justice (“blaming relation”) to criminal justice's connection with social injustice, the problems of justice when societies perpetrate genocide, the nature of the preventive turn in recent criminal justice, and issues concerning law, transitional and restorative justice.

Alan Norrie’s essay ‘Justice on the Slaughter-Bench: The Problem of War Guilt In Arendt and Jaspers’ is being translated into Spanish and published as a short book (La Justicia en el banquillo de la muerte : El problema de la Culpa de la guerra en H. Arendt y K. Jaspers) by the Universidad Libre, Bogota.

He will discuss it at a seminar in Bogota on ‘Constitutions for Peace’ for law students, legal academics and practitioners on 25 September 2014. The purpose of the seminar is to think about the role of law in Colombia’s postconflict situation, following peace negotiations in Habana.

Since the mid 1990s, the focus of European employment and social policy has shifted from protection to promotion. This book provides a timely analysis of this new form of governance, and the new forms of policy delivery and audit which accompany it.

Social Movements, Law and the Politics of Land Reform investigates how rural social movements are struggling for land reform against the background of ambitious but unfulfilled constitutional promises evident in much of the developing world. Taking Brazil as an example, it unpicks the complex reasons behind the remarkably consistent failures of its constitution and law enforcement mechanisms to deliver social justice. Using detailed empirical evidence and focusing upon the relationship between rural social struggles and the state, the book develops a threefold argument: first, the inescapable presence of power relations in all aspects of the production and reproduction of law; secondly their dominant impact on socio-legal outcomes; and finally the essential and positive role played by social movements in redressing those power imbalances and realising law’s progressive potentialities.

Ralf Rogowski been elected as one of seven members to the Board of the Research Committee of Sociology of Law (RCSL) of the International Sociological Association (ISA) for the period 2014-2018.

For more information about the RCSL click here

On September 12th 2013, Professor Gary Watt delivered a public lecture at Duke Law School on his new book Dress, Law and Naked Truth: A Cultural Study of Fashion and Form (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013)

Why are civil authorities in so-called liberal democracies affronted by public nudity and the Islamic full-face ‘veil’? Why is law and civil order so closely associated with robes, gowns, suits, wigs and uniforms? Why is law so concerned with the ‘evident’ and the need for justice to be ‘seen’ to be done? Why do we dress and obey dress codes at all? In this, the first ever study devoted to the many deep cultural connections between dress and law, the author addresses these questions and more. His responses flow from the radical thesis that ‘law is dress and dress is law’.