Congratulations to Dr Raza Saeed, Dr Sharifah Sekalala, and Professor Ann Stewart, who all successfully put in proposals for funding to the internal GCRF (Global Challenges Research Fund) catalyst and accelerator calls. The call was to develop collaborative interdisciplinary projects with a focus on global south impact.

The Projects

Raza’s project (£19,989 catalyst fund) emerged from his research and teaching in human rights with a particular focus on developing countries. The project is aimed at building the capacity of National Commission for Human Rights Pakistan in the areas of international human rights law, treaty obligations and rights-based investigation and reporting. With NCHR-P placed as the country’s national human rights monitoring organisation, the dialogues and capacity building has the potential to have an impact on ground.

Sharifah’s project (£15,341 catalyst fund) is interdisciplinary with Warwick Medical School and develops her work on using Sustainable Development Goals to achieve better health outcomes in developing countries. The pilot project will be run in conjunction with a leading civil society organisation in Uganda, Centre for Health and Human Rights, and aims to identify and act on underlying factors that hinder the realisation of sexual reproductive health and rights of young women in slums.

Ann’s project (£31,104 accelerator fund) develops her work on gender and ageing in African plural legal contexts with partners at Nairobi Law Faculty and Help Age International’s African regional office. It focuses on the development of contextually grounded, gendered life course approaches to ageing in African contexts. This aim is to encourage debate about what how to recognise, reduce and redistribute caring responsibilities.

Warwick Law School Associate Professor and GLOBE Member, Dr John Snape, and University of Cambridge Lecturer and fellow of Christ’s College, Dr Dominic de Cogan have, in January 2019, published with Hart their new edited book Landmark Cases in Revenue Law. The book has been recognised as Hart's Book of the Month.

About the book: “In an important addition to the [Hart Landmark Cases] series, this book tells the story of 20 leading revenue law cases. It goes well beyond technical analysis to explore questions of philosophical depth, historical context and constitutional significance. The editors have assembled a stellar team of tax scholars, including historians as well as lawyers, practitioners as well as academics, to provide a wide range of fresh perspectives on familiar and unfamiliar decisions. The whole collection is prefaced by the editors' extended introduction on the peculiar significance of case-law in revenue matters. This publication is a thought-provoking and engaging showcase of tax writing that is accessible equally to specialists and non-specialists.”

The editors believe that the volume will be an invaluable resource for scholars looking for sensitive, critical, writing on taxation law and it contains many pointers to further primary and secondary literature. It should be very useful, not only to established legal academic writers and practitioners, but also to undergraduate and postgraduate students seeking new insights into the case-law in this most complex of legal subjects. The emphasis of the various contributions on history and philosophy will also ensure the book’s appeal to scholars working in disciplines adjacent to law, not least history, politics, economics and philosophy.

See here for more details.

Congratulations to Dr Tor Krever who contributed to the London Review of Books’ coverage of European Reporting on Brexit, with a focus on Portugal.
Click here for more details.

Find here, Warwick Law School Reader Dr James Harrison's recent blog post about the 2018 UN Forum on Business and Human Rights.

PhD candidates from Cardiff University and Warwick University Law Schools came together on the 10th and 11th of May 2018 to organise a Workshop on Law and Development, hosted at Warwick University. The workshop allowed PhD students to share and discuss their research. Various topics were explored through the day with subjects ranging from security and aid, to infrastructure and health devolution. The workshop, overall, provided doctoral students with an excellent opportunity to network and focus the discussion on important Global South issues. The participants hope to organise a similar event in 2019 at Cardiff University.

A detailed report of the workshop can be found here.

The second in a new series of briefs bringing current legal thinking to bear on public policy issues and contemporary concerns has been published today by GLOBE, a research centre within the University of Warwick’s Law School.

Dr Andreas Kokkinis, expert in corporate governance, corporate theory, and financial regulation, has been busy discussing Brexit over the last few weeks after his recent briefing paper for the GLOBE centre on ‘The Impact of Brexit on the Legal Framework for Cross- Border Corporate Activity’. He discussed the Brexit withdrawal agreement and whether Northern Ireland will have to follow EU single market rules to avoid a hard border.

“Maintaining membership of the Customs Union after Brexit is the only way to prevent the creation of a border either between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland or between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK (Great Britain). If the UK leaves the Customs Union the only way to avoid setting a border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, as agreed in December 2017 between the UK and EU, would be effectively to set up customs controls between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, which would jeopardise peace in Northern Ireland.

"So, if the UK is not part of the Customs Union there will be two options – both of them politically undesirable for Northern Ireland: either to set up a border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, which will be the Customs Union’s external border just like the border between Poland and Belarus, or to set up a border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain which again will serve as the Union’s external border and to pass legislation that will require Northern Ireland to continue to abide by EU law. Such a solution would also raise questions on the situation in Scotland.

In this light, the change of policy of the Labour Party regarding membership of the Customs Union is very significant”.

His schedule has been packed with media activities and calls for his expert opinion on current issues.

Wednesday 28 February: Radio interview for BBC Coventry & Warwickshire.

Thursday 1 March: TV interview on Russia Today. Take a look.

Friday 2 March: TV interview on TRT World. Take a look.

Tuesday 6 March: Press interview to Lexis Nexis LNB News. Take a look – you will need log in details obtainable via the library

Andreas tells us “I was delighted to be approached by various forms of media on the issue of Brexit and in particular on matters arising out of the Irish border and the decision of the Government to withdraw from the Customs Union. It is hard to fit the academic message within the limitations of such media but I think that it is a duty of academics to take part in the public debate with a view to providing the wider public with objective and accurate information on which they can base their views.”

Warwick Law School is pleased to welcome Dr Anil Yilmaz Vastardis from Essex Law School, University of Essex to our community. Dr Yilmaz Vastardis has been appointed as Honorary Associate Professor with the GLOBE Centre and will be supporting research, teaching, impact and engagement activities, and collaborations with colleagues.

Warwick Law School welcomes IAS Visiting Fellow Dr Basani Baloyi from the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ) in South Africa to our community. She will be working with us until 25 October this year. Whilst at Warwick, Dr Baloyi will be based at the Centre for Law, Regulation and Governance of the Global Economy (GLOBE).

Professor Celine Tan from Warwick Law School has been appointed as Co-Chair of the Academic Circle on the Right to Development.

Dr Stephen Connelly and Professor Celine Tan from Warwick Law School have published proposals for UK legislative reform to support global efforts to resolve sovereign debt crises in developing countries.

'Assessing the Role of Digital Finance for Gender Equality’ by Dr Serena Natile, is the latest in a series of briefs, bringing current legal thinking to bear on public policy issues and contemporary concerns, published by GLOBE, a research centre within Warwick Law School.

Artwork Credit: Pawel Kuczyński