Departmental news

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.

On 14 September 2003 Baha Mousa, a hotel receptionist, was arrested in Basra by British troops and taken to a military base for questioning. Less than forty-eight hours later he was dead. In A Very British Killing A.T. Williams tells the inside story of this crime and its aftermath, exposing the casual brutality, bureaucratic apathy, and instituional failure to hold people criminally responsible for Mousa's death. What it reveals about Britain and its political and military institutions is explosive.

Law School PhD Candidate Natalie Byrom has been awarded the University of Warwick’s 2014 Research Impact and Public Engagement Award for Early Career Research Impact.

The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) reshaped the debates about slavery and freedom throughout the Atlantic world, accelerated the abolitionist movement, precipitated rebellions in neighboring territories, and intensified both repression and antislavery sentiment. The story of the birth of the world’s first independent black republic has since held an iconic fascination for a diverse array of writers, artists, and intellectuals throughout the Atlantic diaspora. Examining twentieth-century responses to the Haitian Revolution, Philip Kaisary offers a profound new reading of the representation of the Revolution by radicals and conservatives alike in primary texts that span English, French, and Spanish languages and that include poetry, drama, history, biography, fiction, and opera.

Jackie Hodgson (Warwick) and Asher Flynn (Monash) have been awarded A$13,398 + £7,165 from the Monash-Warwick Alliance Seed Fund for the project: Access to Justice: A Comparative Analysis of cuts to the civil and criminal Legal Aid systems in England, Wales and Victoria, August 2013 – June 2014.

The project brings together Warwick colleagues Jackie Hodgson (PI) James Harrison, Andrew Williams and Nathalie Byrom (Co-Is) with Monash colleagues Asher Flynn (PI) Jude McCulloch, Bronwyn Naylor and Arie Freiberg (Co-Is). The study is a comparative analysis of the impact of cuts to the civil and criminal legal-aid systems operating in England, Wales and Victoria. This will be achieved through consultations with academic, legal and government/non-government stakeholders and the development of an online presence for external engagement. A conference will be held in Warwick on 19 March 2014, with the participation of Monash colleagues. Within the framework of access to justice, the conference will bring together leading academics and practitioners to consider (i) the changing face of the legal profession; (ii) the lawyer-client relationship; and (iii) the broader social consequences of the cuts. A second event will be held in Monash in early July 2014, with the participation of Warwick colleagues. The project will build international and comparative expertise with stakeholders, with a view to future funded research.

Philip Kaisary and Amaka Vanni have been accepted to participate in Harvard Law School’s Institute for Global Law and Policy (IGLP) 5th Workshop in Doha, Qatar. The workshop is an intensive residential program designed for young scholars and faculty from around the world developing innovative ideas and alternative approaches to issues of global law, economic policy and social justice in the aftermath of the economic crisis. The Workshop will bring together specialists from many fields focused on the intersections between law, economics and global policy.

The admissions process this year was extremely competitive, with more than 450 applications from 86 nations. As participants, Amaka and Philip will engage in debate and seek serious research collaboration. Amaka will discuss with participants her on-going PhD research on the TRIPS Agreement, Access to Medicine Debate and the Emerging Third World Jurisprudence while Philip will discuss the concept of "disaster justice" and the 2010 Haitian earthquake. The 2014 IGLP Workshop is to be held from January 3-11, 2014.

For more details CLICK HERE

In October 2013 Jackie was elected to the governing Council of JUSTICE, the all-party law reform and human rights organisation.

JUSTICE (www.justice.org.uk ) works largely through policy-orientated research; interventions in court proceedings; education and training; briefings, lobbying and policy advice. It is the British section of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ).

JUSTICE also has a Student Human Rights Network (www.justice.org.uk/shrn_home.php ), an online forum that aims to encourage interest in, and improve awareness of, human rights.

The Early-Career Fellowship from the Independent Social Research Foundation (worth £48,000) provides funds for 12 months to enable a researcher to do interdisciplinary work that takes new approaches and suggests new solutions to real world social problems. Kim's project will focus on the ethics of sociability, the evils of social deprivation, and the merits of social human rights. In particular, it will look at the human rights implications of socially privative environments such as long-term solitary confinement in prison.

To find out more click here: http://www.isrf.org/grant-competitions/

Octavio Ferraz continues his work for the World Bank as an expert on right to health litigation in Brazil. After writing his report on this topic he will now to give a presentation on Webinar.

Lynas, the Law and the People: What’s Temporary and Permanent about “Licence”?

(Friday, 4 January 2013)

Abstract

The ongoing saga of the Lynas Rare Earth processing plant in Gebeng may be read in many different ways. It may be viewed as a conflict between the developmental priorities of the Malaysian government keen to enhance its export earning through Foreign Direct Investment arrangements and the environmental and health concerns of local and national sectors of the population weary of such ventures into hazardous industries. Or, it might be understood as a conflict between the commercial motivations of profit and economic opportunities of a multinational company (through its local subsidiary) and the values of environmental protection. Differently, we may read the conflict as one pertaining to issues of transparency and accountability, of technical best-practice and stringent enforcement of environmental regulations, of government policy-making and public participation. Variously, these many issues may be seen to underlie the still on-going legal challenge surrounding the grant of the Temporary Operation Licence to Lynas Malaysia Sdn. Bhd.

This presentation does not seek to repeat the legal arguments along the lines of conflict mentioned above. The focus of the talk will instead be twofold: first, to interrogate the ‘identity’ and meaning of the three social ‘institutions’ involved - Lynas, the law (and by implication the state), and the ‘people’ – as they emerge, find expression, and are discursively constructed in the conflict. Secondly, to explore the wider implications of the notion of ‘license’ that go beyond its limited scope in terms of the TOL dispute. What is revealed from this different reading of the story of Lynas, The Law, and The People, are more pressing questions regarding the nature of the geography and distribution of rights, responsibilities, privileges and risks associated with differentiated 'citizenship' in a globalised political economy, and on the varying consequences of the 'temporary' and the 'permanent', of located and dislocated temporality, that follow from the affirmations of 'licence', on the one hand, and the imposition of containments/bans, on the other. From this understanding of the present contexts of variegated 'citizenship', some preliminary (and perhaps provocative) thoughts might be put forward on the politics of encounter between the 'corporation' and the 'people' within globalised states.