Audience at lecture

Events archive 2014/15

LSE Law hosts events that play a major role in policy debates & in the education of lawyers and law teachers from around the world.

Public lectures at LSE Law in 2014/15 included:

Jaseem Ahmed 
Islamic finance standardization: Is it a mirage?

Dan L. Burk 
The gene patent controversyThe software patent puzzlePatenting information technologies

Judith Butler 
Human shield

Hilary Charlesworth 
Rituals and ritualism in the international human rights system

Conor Gearty 
On Fantasy Island: British politics, English judges and the European Convention on Human Rights

David Garland 
What is the welfare state? A sociological restatement

Jan Kleinheisterkamp; Martti Koskenniemi 
Investor protection in TTIP: fading democracy or new generation?

Douglas Kysar 
Who is legally responsible for climate change?

Geoffrey Ma 
The rule of law in changing times 

Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd
In conversation with the Lord Chief Justice


For a complete listing of our events in 2014/15, including videos of some key lectures, please see below:

Michaelmas term 2014

Tuesday 14 October 2014   
LLM Seminar
Minilateralism: How trade alliances, soft law and financial engineering are redefining economic statecraft
Professor Chris Brummer (Georgetown Law)
Chair: Professor David Kershaw (LSE Law)

Wednesday 15 October 2014   
LSE FORUM IN LEGAL & POLITICAL THEORY
Law and democratisation: Protest and inclusion
Glenn Patmore (Melbourne)

Wednesday 15 October 2014   
LAW MATTERS PUBLIC DEBATE
When sexual infidelity leads to murder: a gender perspective on sentencing under the Criminal Justice Act 2003
Professor Jeremy Horder
Respondents: Bernard Richmond QC; Professor Nicola Lacey
 
Thursday 16 October 2014   
CRIMINAL LAW & CRIMINAL JUSTICE THEORY FORUM
The responsible subject as dangerous subject: criminal law’s ambivalences
Dr Henrique Randau da Costa Carvalho (City University London)

Thursday 16 October 2014   
SYSTEMIC RISK CENTRE
Perpsectives on systemic risk
Johyn Danielsson (SRC) and Eva Micheler (LSE Law)
 
Systemic financial risk can be caused by many factors such as: financial decisions, legal and accounting rules, and politics. While all of these factors can on their own trigger systemic events, it is the interaction between them which is especially dangerous because it creates new avenues for vicious feedback loops. Unfortunately, these channels for systemic risk are usually studied within disciplinary silos, giving us a rather fragmented understanding of how systemic risk is created. The aim of the conference is to bring together speakers from accounting, economics, finance, law and political science to break down these silos and present a more complete analysis of the nature of systemic risk.

Tuesday 21 October 2014   
LAW MATTERS PUBLIC DEBATE
Rituals and ritualism in the international human rights system
Professor Hilary Charlesworth
Chair: Professor Susan Marks

Watch on YouTube

Wednesday 22 October 2014   
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE SEMINAR
Fit for purpose? Does UK company law contribute to short-termism in UK companies?
Ian Gilham (Chairman, Horizon Discovery Plc); Professor David Kershaw (LSE); William Underhill (Partner at Slaughter & May)
Chair: Sir Geoffrey Owen (LSE)

Tuesday 28 October 2014   
LEGAL BIOGRAPHY PROJECT
Slavery and biographies at Jefferson's Monticello
Professor Annette Gordon-Reed (Harvard)
 
Professor Annette Gordon-Reed will speak as part of Black History Month. Annette Gordon-Reed is Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard Law School and Harmsworth Visiting Professor of American History in the University of Oxford. She is the author of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (1997) and The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (2008), which won the Pulitzer Prize in history and the National Book Award for Non Fiction. She is also the author of Race on Trial: Law and Justice in American History (2002).

Wednesday 29 October 2014   
LSE FORUM IN LEGAL & POLITICAL THEORY
Rights adjudication in the UK and Canada: Engaging the legislature
Robert Leckey (McGill)

Thursday 6 November 2014   
LSE DEPARTMENT OF LAW PUBLIC EVENT
On Fantasy Island: British politics, English Judges and the European Convention on Human Rights
Professor Conor Gearty
Chair: Keith Best (Heythrop College)

Monday 10 November 2014   
LAW MATTERS PUBLIC DEBATE
What is the welfare state? A sociological restatement
Professor David Garland (Arthur T. Vanderbilt Professor of Law and Professor of Sociology, New York University)
Chair: Professor Craig Calhoun

Watch on YouTube

Wednesday 12 November 2014   
LSE FORUM IN LEGAL & POLITICAL THEORY
On theories of federalism
Stephen Tierney (Edinburgh)

Wednesday 12 November 2014   
CRIMINAL LAW & CRIMINAL JUSTICE THEORY FORUM
What is penal populism? Politics, the public and penological expertise
Professor David Garland (Arthur T. Vanderbilt Professor of Law and Professor of Sociology, New York University)
 
Event Co-organised with the LSE Mannheim Centre for Criminology

Monday 17 November 2014   
TAXATION
Arbitration in international tax disputes: Why it works, and why having a permanent tribunal would further improve it
John Avery Jones (former Judge of the Upper Tribunal) and Hans Mooij (Independent international tax adviser)
 
Event Co-organised with STICERD/Financial Markets Group

Wednesday 19 November 2014   
LSE DEPARTMENT OF LAW PUBLIC EVENT
Dirty Old London
Lee Jackson
Chair: Professor Nicola Lacey
Respondent: Sarah Wise

Thursday 20 November 2014   
CRIMINAL LAW & CRIMINAL JUSTICE THEORY FORUM
Fair play without retribution
Dr Patrick Tomlin (University of Reading)

Monday 24 November 2014   
LAW DEPARTMENT PUBLIC EVENT
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: Implications for multilateral economic integration
Mr Pascal Lamy and Mr Ignacio Garcia Bercero
Chair: Ambassador Pekka Huhtaniemi (Finnish Ambassador to the UK)
 
Tuesday 25 November 2014   
LEGAL BIOGRAPHY PROJECT
In conversation with the Lord Chief Justice
Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd
Chair: Mr Justice Ross Cranston

On 25 November, as part of the Legal Biography project, Sir Ross Cranston will interview the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, about his career in the law. Called to the bar in 1969, Lord Thomas practised as a commercial barrister, becoming a QC in 1984, before his appointment as a judge in the Queen’s Bench Division in 1996. After being appointed to the Court of Appeal in 2008, he became President of the Queen's Bench Division in 2011. In 2013, he succeeded Lord Judge as Lord Chief Justice, Head of Criminal Justice and President of the Courts of England and Wales. 

Wednesday 26 November 2014   
LSE FORUM IN LEGAL & POLITICAL THEORY
On separation of powers theory
Josh Chafetz (Cornell)

Thursday 4 December 2014   
CRIMINAL LAW & CRIMINAL JUSTICE THEORY FORUM
The social contribution injustice of punishment
Dr Kimberley Brownlee (University of Warwick)

Monday 8 December 2014   
LSE LAW / SITCERD / FMG TAXATION SEMINAR
Devolved taxation in the UK: Challenges and consequences
Sam Mitha CBE (former Deputy Director of HMRC Tax Policy Group)

Lent term 2015

Wednesday 14 January 2015   
LSE LAW PUBLIC CONVERSATION
In conversation with Chaloka Beyani
Dr Chaloka Beyani (LSE)
Chair: Professor Conor Gearty

Thursday 15 January 2015   
CRIMINAL LAW & CRIMINAL JUSTICE THEORY FORUM
Private security and regulatory space: in search of the public interest
Professor Ian Loader (University of Oxford); Dr Adam White (University of York)

Thursday 29 January 2015   
CRIMINAL LAW & CRIMINAL JUSTICE THEORY FORUM
Wrongs and Crimes
Professor Victor Tadros (University of Warwick)

Wednesday 4 February 2015   
LONDON REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL LAW ANNUAL LECTURE SERIES
Human shield
Professor Judith Butler (University of California, Berkeley)
 
LSE Law, LRIL and OUP invite you to the London Review of International Law Annual Lecture, Human Shield by Judith Butler. 

Watch on YouTube

Wednesday 4 February 2015   
LSE FORUM IN LEGAL & POLITICAL THEORY
Habeas corpus and the American constitutional tradition
Amanda Tyler (Berkeley)

Wednesday 11 February 2015   
LSE FORUM IN LEGAL & POLITICAL THEORY
Positivism and the separation of justice and morals in Hobbes’s legal philosophy
Johan Olsthoorn (LSE)

Thursday 12 February 2015   
LAW AND ECONOMICS FORUM
Independent directors in Singapore: Puzzling compliance requiring explanation
Dan W. Puchniak (Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore)
 
Thursday 12 February 2015   
LSE WORKS: LSE LAW PUBLIC LECTURE
Investor Protection in TTIP: fading democracy or new generation?
Dr Jan Kleinheisterkamp (LSE); 
Respondent: Professor Martti Koskenniemi (LSE Centennial Professor of Law)
Chair: Shawn Donnan (World Trade Editor at the Financial Times)

Watch on YouTube

Thursday 12 February 2015   
ISLAMIC FINANCE
Islamic finance standardization: Is it a mirage?
Mr Jaseem Ahmed (Secretary General, Islamic Financial Services Board, Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia)
Chair: The Hon. Mr Justice Blair (High Court Judge, Queen's Bench Division)
 
The growth and transformation of Islamic Finance has been scrutinized from various perspectives, both before and after the global financial crisis. Standardization of the regulatory and supervisory framework of Islamic finance has its own pros and cons for industry stakeholders such as regulators, policy-makers, and Islamic legal experts. The lecture will explore these areas in light of the new regulatory architecture being developed in the post-crisis banking industry.

Watch on YouTube

Friday 13 February 2015   
LSE LAW PUBLIC LECTURE
Greece: The future of Europe
Simon Glendinning (Professor of European Philosophy, LSE European Institute; Director of the Forum for European Philosophy); Leila Simona Talani (Professor of International Political Economy, Jean Monnet Chair of European Political Economy, Department of European & International Studies, King’s College London); Costas Douzinas (Professor of Law, Birkbeck School of Law; Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities); Paul Mason (Economics Editor, Channel 4)
Chair: Emmanuel Melissaris (Associate Professor of Law, LSE Law)
 
What is the significance of the SYRIZA victory for Europe? Is its importance exhausted in the immediate question of the Greek debt and the future of the Eurozone or will it bring to the fore deeper tensions or different visions of a democratic Europe? Might this the beginning of an alternative future for Europe? 

Tuesday 17 February 2015   
LSE LAW PUBLIC DISCUSSION
Leaving the EU?
Professor Damian Chalmers (LSE); Professor Carol Harlow (LSE); Dr Jan Komarek (LSE); Dr Jo Eric Khushal Murkens (LSE)
Chair: Professor Niamh Moloney (LSE)
Responses by Professor Simon Hix (Government, LSE), Professor Sara Hobolt (European Institute), and Professor Anan Menon (European and International Studies, KCL)

Watch on YouTube

Thursday 19 February 2015   
CRIMINAL LAW & CRIMINAL JUSTICE THEORY FORUM
Rehabilitation, risk and rights: a gendered approach to therapeutic interventions in prison
Professor Elaine Player (King’s College London); Elaine Genders (University College London)

Wednesday 24 February 2015   
PUBLIC LECTURE
The rule of law in changing times
Chief Justice of Hong Kong Mr Geoffrey Ma

Watch on YouTube

Thursday 25 February 2015   
LAW AND ECONOMICS FORUM
Funding dynamics in crowdinvesting
Prof Lars Hornuf (Professor of Law & Economics, University of Trier)

Wednesday 25 February 2015   
LSE FORUM IN LEGAL & POLITICAL THEORY
Schmitt on dictatorship and emergency
David Dyzenhaus (Toronto)

Thursday 26 February 2015   
LSE FORUM IN LEGAL & POLITICAL THEORY
Roundtable on Pierre Bourdieu's On the State (Polity, 2014)
Matthew Eagleton-Pierce (SOAS), Insa Koch, Andrew Lang, Martin Loughlin (LSE Law) & Mike Savage (LSE Sociology)
Chair: Jacco Bomhoff (LSE Law)& Daniel Laurison (LSE Sociology)

Thursday 26 February 2015   
CRIMINAL LAW & CRIMINAL JUSTICE THEORY FORUM
The authority of the criminal law
Dr Christopher Bennett (University of Sheffield)

Saturday 28 February 2015   
LSE LITERARY FESTIVAL DISCUSSION
Digital personhood and identity
Luke Dormelh (author of The Formula: how algorithms solve all our problems ... and create more); Aleks Krotski (author of Untangling the Web: What the Internet is Doing to You); Professor Sonia Livingstone (LSE, Department of Media and Communications); Professor Andrew Murray (LSE Law)

Friday 6 March 2015   
LSE LAW LEVERHULME PUBLIC LECTURE
The gene patent controversy
Professor Dan L Burk (University of California, Irvine)
Chair: Dr Alain Pottage (LSE)
 
One of three Leverhulme Public Lectures by Professor Dan L. Burk

Watch on YouTube

Monday 9 March 2015   
LEGAL BIOGRAPHY PROJECT
The last outlaw: Doing duty over Jimmy Governor
Dr Katherine Biber (University of Technology, Sydney) 

This paper examines some of the archival records created and preserved in relation to the Australian Aboriginal outlaw, Jimmy Governor. Convicted of multiple murders on the eve of Australian Federation, Jimmy Governor, the Aboriginal serial killer and Australia’s last outlaw, was nevertheless given every protection under the law. Whilst most historical accounts of Governor focus upon his dreadful crimes, his ability to elude capture, and his eventual execution, this paper seeks to examine him through the law. The presentation will focus upon a special diary kept by the officers guarding him at Darlinghurst Gaol in 1900-1901 during his time in the condemned cell. It reflects upon the materiality of these records, and in so doing, it advances an argument about archival records as evidence of law, of duty, and of public administration. Whereas in the past Jimmy Governor’s story has primarily been told in the genre of law-breaking, this article proposes using archival records about Governor to reveal him as an agent of law-making. On the brink of Australian Federation, the Jimmy Governor case provides evidence of a commitment to the rule of law.

Tuesday 10 March 2015   
LSE LAW LEVERHULME PUBLIC LECTURE
The software patent puzzle
Professor Dan L Burk (University of California, Irvine)
Chair: Dr Siva Thambisetty
 
One of three Leverhulme Public Lectures by Professor Dan L. Burk.

Watch on YouTube

Tuesday 10 March 2015   
LSE LAW LEVERHULME PUBLIC LECTURE
Sincere cooperation and respect for national identities: The unitary and the pluralist twists of the European integration process
Dr Barbara Guastaferro (University of Naples; Durham University)

Wednesday 11 March 2015   
LSE LAW AND MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS ANNUAL LECTURE
Code and law between truth and power 
Professor Julie Cohen (Georgetown University)
Chair: Professor Nick Couldry

Watch on YouTube

Thursday 12 March 2015   
CRIMINAL LAW & CRIMINAL JUSTICE THEORY FORUM
From slave abuse to hate crime: the criminalization of racial violence in American history
Dr Ely Aharonson (University of Haifa)
 

Thursday 12 March 2015   
SYSTEMIC RISK CENTRE AND LSE LAW
The law, finance and the abyss
Professor Julia Black, Dr Jon Danielsson, Professor Charles Goodhart, Professor Katharina Pistor 
In financial markets law and finance are intrinsically connected. When markets collapse, however, legal rules are pushed into the background and other forces take over.

Thursday 12 March 2015   
LSE MEDIA POLICY PROJECT PUBLIC LECTURE
IPSO and the future of UK press regulation
Sir Alan Moses (Chair of IPSO)

Friday 13 March 2015   
LSE LAW LEVERHULME PUBLIC LECTURE
Patenting information technologies
Professor Dan L Burk (University of California, Irvine)
Chair: Dr Orla Lynskey
 
One of three Leverhulme Public Lectures by Professor Dan L. Burk

Watch on YouTube


Wednesday 18 March 2015   
LSE FORUM IN LEGAL & POLITICAL THEORY
On Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century
David Campbell (Lancaster); with Chandran Kukathas (LSE)

Summer term 2015

Friday 10 April 2015   
CONFERENCE
Resilience or resignation? National parliaments and the EU
Event organised with support from LSE Law, The British Academy and the Newton International Fellowship Scheme.

Conference programme ; Conference flyer  

Thursday 23 April 2015   
CRIMINAL LAW & CRIMINAL JUSTICE THEORY FORUM
Seeing crime & managing security: reflections on the criminological gaze
Professor Mariana Valverde FRSC (Professor of Criminology, Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto)

Thursday 30 April 2015   
LSE LAW PUBLIC EVENT
How free is free speech?
Ulele Burnham (Doughty Street Chambers); Peter Oborne (journalist); Dr Abdul Wahid (Chair, Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain)
Chair: Professor Conor Gearty

Watch on YouTube

Thursday 30 April 2015   
CRIMINAL LAW & CRIMINAL JUSTICE THEORY FORUM
Character in the Criminal Trial
Professor Mike Redmayne (LSE)

Tuesday 12 May 2015   
LSE FORUM IN LEGAL & POLITICAL THEORY
Constitutional Courts and Deliberative Democracy
Conrado Hubner Mendes (São Paulo); with Dimitrios Kyritsis (Reading) and Kai Möller (LSE Law)

Tuesday 19 May 2015   
LEGAL BIOGRAPHY PROJECT
In conversation with Sir Stephen Sedley
Sir Ross Cranston in conversation with Sir Stephen Sedley
 
As part of LSE's Legal Biography Project, Sir Ross Cranston will interview Sir Stephen Sedley on his life and career in the law. After a distinguished career as one of Britain’s leading barristers, Sir Stephen was appointed a high court judge in 1992, and a Lord Justice of Appeal in 1999. During his twelve years on the Court of Appeal, he made a significant contribution to the development of many areas of modern English law, particularly in public law. He has also written widely on English law and the constitution, and is a regular contributor to theLondon Review of Books.

Watch on YouTube

Friday 22 May 2015   
LSE LAW PUBLIC LECTURE
Who is legally responsible for climate change?
Professor Douglas Kysar (Yale Law School; Shimizu Fellow, LSE Law)
 
Activists have called for courts to establish principles of responsibility for harms caused by climate change. Kysar will provide an overview of these efforts.

Watch on YouTube

Monday 1 June 2015   
LSE LAW and BRITISH GOVERNMENT@LSE PUBLIC DEBATE
What has the Magna Carta ever done for us?
Robert Craig; Prof Conor Gearty; Prof Francesca Klug; Dr Mara Malagodi
Chair: Professor Tony Travers
 
What's so great about the Magna Carta? In all the frenzy of celebration, LSE Law academics sound a few warnings against hype.

Watch on YouTube

Thursday 4 June 2015   
LEGAL BIOGRAPHY PROJECT
The U.K.'s first woman law orofessor: an Archerian analysis
Professor Fiona Cownie

Monday 8 June 2015   
LSE/MATRIX SEMINAR SERIES
The Chagos islander award: Marine protection or population resettlement?
Lord Hope of Craighead; Professor John Finnis (University of Oxford); Philippe Sands QC (Matrix Chambers); Dr Michael Waibel (University of Cambridge)

Wednesday 17 June 2015   
CRIMINAL LAW & CRIMINAL JUSTICE THEORY FORUM
Legitimacy and criminal justice
Professor Tracey Meares (Yale Law School)
Chair: Professor Robert Reiner
Respondents: Professor Mike Hough; Professor Alison Liebling; Professor Andrew Gamble

Event co-organised with the LSE Mannheim Centre for Criminology

Thursday 18 June 2015   
CHORLEY LECTURE
Law as information in the era of data-driven agency
Professor Mireille Hildebrandt (Radboud University Nijmegen; Vrije Universiteit Brussel; Erasmus University Rotterdam; European Commission)
 
An event supported by the Modern Law Review

Wednesday 1 July 2015   
LSE LAW PUBLIC LECTURE
When firms become persons and persons become firms: Neoliberal jurisprudence in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores
Professor Wendy Brown (University of California, Berkeley)
 
In the United States, the extension of civil liberties to corporations is transforming democracy through rights adjudication. Best known in this regard is Citizens United v. The Federal Election Commission, the 2010 Supreme Court decision permitting corporate funding to flood the U.S. electoral process on the basis of corporate rights to free speech. In 2014, Burwell vs Hobby Lobby granted firms the right to the free exercise of religion, and hence the ability to withhold insurance coverage of abortions and abortifacients for their employees. This lecture explores the neoliberal logic of the Hobby Lobby decision, makes an argument about the transformations of democracy these decisions entail, and concludes with a critique of Foucault’s formulation of the relation of law, state and economy in neoliberalism. 

Watch on YouTube

Thursday 2 July 2015   
LSE LAW PUBLIC LECTURE
Concepts and rules: A philosophically minded introduction to common law legal reasoning
Professor James Penner