News
Professor Norman Doe has been awarded the degree of Doctor of Law (LLD) by the University of Cambridge.
The LLD, the second most senior degree at Cambridge, is awarded on 'proof of distinction by some original contribution to the advancement of the science or study of law'. Professor Doe has been awarded the degree for his work in Canon Law.
Professor Doe was presented for the degree by the Regius Professor of Civil Law on 14 May. Professor Doe said, “It was great to be with my family and friends on this memorable occasion at the Senate House and afterwards in college.”
The degree was awarded by Magdalene College, where Professor Doe obtained a PhD in the 1980s. Professor Doe was awarded a Doctor of Civil Law (DCL) by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2005 and earlier this year was also honoured by publication of a book, The Confluence of Law and Religion: Interdisciplinary Reflections on the Work of Norman Doe (Cambridge University Press, 2016) C. Kenny, F. Cranmer, M. Hill, and R. Sandberg (eds).
This is the first time a Cardiff Law School member of staff has received the Cambridge LLD, as it was for Professor Richard Lewis to receive the Oxford DCL in 2014.
A team of Cardiff Law students took part in the UK’s first Sports Law Negotiation Competition last month hosted by Leeds firm, Shulmans LLP.
Available to 16 universities across the UK, the competition took place on 16 April at the University of Law, Leeds.
Sports Law is an exciting and evolving concept and brings together practitioners from a variety of disciplines including solicitors, sports agents, representatives from sporting bodies and sports officials. Consequently, the first Sports Law Negotiation Competition aimed to promote Sports Law to students and to encourage engagement with the Sports Law industry.
Cardiff’s team comprised of two final year students, Adam Munn and Roma Raja Rai who are both studying Sports Law. Adam and Roma were assisted in their practices by fellow final year students, Fidel Otafirre and Calvin Cheng who also attended the event as observers together with team coach, Sports Law PhD student Matthew Parry.
The students were given one side of two separate problems and had to prepare to represent their client in the negotiation. They had 50 minutes to demonstrate their skills in representing that client, often having to overcome emotional issues as well as pragmatic concerns. After the negotiation, each team had ten minutes to prepare a reflection that required them to analyse their performance and identify how they could have improved.
Adam and Roma both received positive feedback from the judges and after the inevitable nerves that afflict every team’s first negotiation, they thoroughly enjoyed their second negotiation, establishing a welterweight boxing match, despite being faced with a deluge of information and complications. Due to technical issues, two of the teams that had signed up to participate were unable to attend so the organisers asked Fidel and Calvin if they would like to take part. They too performed with incredible serenity and discipline and were complimented by one of the judges who said that “with 30 minutes preparation…I felt like I was watching an actual negotiation rather than an artificial one.”
All negotiations took place in front of a judging panel of 24 industry experts, including representatives from Shulmans, St. Philips Chambers, ASDA, The Sports Consultancy, Synergy Sports Management, Sport Works, Disability Sport Yorkshire, West Riding FA and Mike Riley, the renowned international FIFA referee.
The event was won by the University of Leicester however all four members of the Cardiff team were delighted to take part in the experience and said that they had learned a great deal.
Team coach, Matthew Parry said, “The commitment of all four of the squad was remarkable, especially as they balanced pending exams. Their skills came on in leaps and bounds during the time that I worked with them, and they all represented the School of Law and Politics with diligence, passion and skill.”
This May the School of Law and Politics Global Justice Pro-Bono programme held an event to showcase the work of students carried out during the 2015-2016 academic year. The event was co-hosted with the Welsh Centre for International Affairs and took place at the Temple of Peace in Cardiff.
The Global Justice Pro Bono programme was established within the School’s award-winning Law Clinicwith the support and advice of the Hingorani Foundation, New Delhi, which supports practical training for law students in advocacy for social justice. The Foundation is named after the late Kapila Hingorani, a pioneer of public interest litigation in India and the first South Asian woman to graduate from Cardiff University (1947)
The Global Justice programme ran as a pilot in 2015-16 under the supervision of Professors Ambreena Manji, Julie Price and John Harrington. From a large number of applicants, six undergraduate students were selected to take part. They have worked closely with Deighton Pierce Glynn solicitors, London and Bristol and with Amnesty International in London and Nairobi.
The case on which the students worked was selected through discussions with Deighton Pierce Glynn and draws on the underlying research of Ambreena Manji and John Harrington on road building and the right to the city in Kenya; on social and economic rights including the right to housing and the right to health in Kenya’s 2010 Constitution; on the legal framework governing UK development aid; and on judicial review of aid decisions.
The workshop provided an opportunity for students to showcase their ongoing research on the legal and political background to the ‘Kenya Slum Clearance Case’ and on the specific problems and opportunities for securing effective accountability for possible human rights violations in this context.
Opening the workshop, Professor John Harrington said that the Global Justice programme was inspired by legal theorist William Twining’s challenge to take a truly cosmopolitan approach to legal education. Participating students had moved beyond the traditional Britain and Europe-centred view of law, engaging with international, regional and national legal systems relevant to securing accountability in the case. A combination of socio-legal and blackletter skills was necessary to ‘take suffering seriously’, as the Indian legal scholar Upendra Baxi has put it and the students had clearly done this in their project.
The students then presented their work in two sessions. First setting the context and giving an overview of the relevant Kenyan legislation and then considering the avenues of accountability in European and UK law. They ably fielded questions on both parts of their presentation and provoked a lively discussion among the audience as to the means of doing justice in these cases. Members also shared useful insights on how this model of clinical legal education could be developed in future.
The event also included presentations by practitioners in the field of research and advocacy on law and global justice. Daniel Cullen, Programme Assistant, human rights and refugees at the Quaker United Nations Office, Geneva spoke on children and international law and Justin Prosser of Hub Cymru gave a lecture on the campaign for the Well Being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.
Speaking of the students’ work, Professor Ambreena Manji said ‘our students are to be congratulated on their commitment to developing a legal strategy for this case. Our preparation was very wide-ranging: from Kenya jurisprudence on the right to housing, to the politics of road building, from the legal framework for UK development assistance to judicial review.’ Adam Hundt, partner at DPG, thanked the students for their thoroughness in preparing a detailed legal brief. Malavika Vartak from Amnesty International added that she would now be discussing the students’ proposals and strategy with colleagues in Nairobi and London, and thanked the students for their work during the academic year.
All involved were delighted with the Global Justice showcase event. Cardiff School of Law and Politics is working with Deighton Pierce Glynn to build on the pilot Pro-Bono Programme and open it to a new cohort of students next year.
The School is grateful to Ede and Ravenscroft for making a bursary available to fund three students who gained valuable work experience in the summer of 2015 to put in place the foundations for the pilot and to our Careers and Employability Service for facilitating that opportunity.
David Dixon, Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Professional Legal Studies (CPLS) was recently celebrated at the Cardiff and District Law Society Annual Dinner after being President of the society for the last year.
On the 22nd April at Cardiff’s City Hall, David was joined by his colleagues from the School of Law and Politics to mark the 130th anniversary of the society. Around 300 practising solicitors, barristers, chartered legal executives, law students, and members of the judiciary, plus guests enjoyed an entertaining and informative evening.
David spoke at the event on a range of legal topics including some differences in laws between Wales and England and current proposed changes to legal education and training. With expected good humour, his much applauded speech also contained the titles of 25 Beatles song titles - a feat that will probably not be replicated in legal speeches in the near future.
The guest speaker was Sir Keir Starmer QC MP, a friend of the School who has previously spoken as part of our public lecture series. The former DPP told of his unusual experience as a victim of identify fraud as well as stressing his links to Cardiff.
Professor Julie Price, Head of Pro Bono and Employability, said, “It is a remarkable achievement for an academic to become President of this prestigious Society that serves legal practitioners, so we congratulate David on this and recognise his hard work in nurturing essential links between academia and legal practice”.
Professor Angela Devereux, Director of the CPLS, acknowledged a colleague whose commitment to the integrity of his profession, and the betterment of its new members, remained undimmed after 23 years at the University. Adopting the spirit and style of his speech she said, “David will never ‘Let it Be’, even if he ‘Should Have Known Better’. He'll stay quiet ‘For No One’, that's why ‘This Boy is Something’, and he'll ‘Carry that Weight’, even ‘When I'm Sixty four’.”
Dr Elisa Wynne-Hughes, Lecturer in International Relations, recently co-organised a research workshop in Cairo on ‘Anti-Street Harassment Tactics’.
The workshop, which took place on 31 March, was entitled ‘Anti-Street Harassment: Reflecting Diversity in Tactics’ and was sponsored by the Independent Social Research Foundation. Dr Wynne-Hughes co-organised the event with Jutta Weldes and Karen Desborough, both of the University of Bristol.
The workshop brought together members of anti-street harassment groups Hollaback! London and HarassMap (who are based in Cairo) to compare the strategies they use to address and combat street harassment in different contexts. The main focus of this workshop was to look at who is potentially included and excluded through their various tactics. The workshop asked how these groups can target and reach a diverse audience of harassers, bystanders and victims/survivors of harassment?
Based on the needs previously identified by these groups, the workshop aimed to collectively develop ideas for future strategies that are as inclusive as possible, taking into account diversity along the lines of gender, race, class sexuality and age.
Lively discussions took place which covered the similarities and differences in the challenges faced in countering myths around street harassment, the role of social media in attracting selective audiences, and the barriers to participation for more marginalised communities.
Based on this research and follow-up interviews, Dr Wynne Hughes and her co-organisers will write a report and a journal article to be presented to the anti-street harassment groups and at the Pan-European Conference of the European International Studies Association in September 2016.
Further reports on the event are available on both the Independent Social Research Foundation and Hollaback!London websites.
Matthew Parry, a Sports Law PhD student, has been awarded GW4 funding to hold research training for postgraduate students.
The GW4, an alliance comprising of the Universities of Bristol, Bath, Exeter, and Cardiff appealed for applications to fund student led discipline specific research training for postgraduate research students who are studying at one of the four universities.
Matthew’s successful funding bid was awarded to create a one day training session on the topic, 'Incisive Individual Interview: Techniques and Skills of Interviewing for Quality Qualitative Research’ which will take place on 18 May 2016.
The session, led by Graham Robson, an independent trainer who has significant experience of communication skills, will be an interactive day of training involving socratic teaching, gold-fish bowl exercises and activities. It has been designed to enhance existing interviewing techniques and to explore additional techniques to enable the interviewer to achieve a higher quality of answer from the subject.
Matthew said of his training, “The topic that I chose emanates from my personal interest in communication skills as the foundation of society as a whole, and specifically law. I have long had an interest in what can be termed soft skills, and strongly believe that they are skills that cross over every discipline. This training session demonstrates the importance of communication skills in every context and highlights only one avenue in which they can be deployed.”
All spaces have now been allocated on this training session. However, please contact Matthew Parry should you be interested in any future events on the same subject.
The School of Law and Politics is proud to announce that Ed Poole, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations has been awarded the ‘Welsh Education Champion’ award at the 2016 Enriching Student Life Awards (ESLA).
The award ceremony, which was a black-tie dinner, was held on Thursday 28 April at the University’s Great Hall in the presence of Pro-Vice-Chancellor Patricia Price.
Competition at this year’s awards was fierce with over 500 nominations received across the 12 ESLA categories.
Ed was nominated by Steffan Bryn, the Welsh Language Officer of Cardiff University’s Students’ Union. Ed is Steffan’s personal tutor and Steffan is also a student on a module that Ed teaches, Modern Welsh Politics.
Of his award Ed said, “As someone who learned Welsh as an adult, I was absolutely thrilled to be nominated and to win the Welsh education champion award. If you’ve ever thought about learning Welsh, it’ll be one of the most rewarding experiences of your life, and the Welsh for Adults centre in the John Percival Building is a great way to do it that’s right on your doorstep!”
“The award ceremony was a lovely evening; the Great Hall looked terrific, and it was great to meet with enthusiastic staff and students. I really appreciated that the Students’ Union had made seating arrangements that brought together both the nominees and those who nominated them, which helped make the evening enjoyable and good-natured.”
Congratulations to Ed and all his fellow winners at this year’s Enriching Student Life Awards!
Dr Edwin Egede, Senior Lecturer in International Law and International Relations presented a paper at the prestigious Hamburg International Environmental Law Conference (HIELC) which took place in Hamburg, Germany in April 2016.
The conference was entitled “A Sea Change for Sustainable Ocean Resource Governance” and was attended by academics, legal practitioners, government officials, civil servants, members of NGOs and Civil societies and students.
The focal points of the discussion were on deep sea mining, marine energy and ocean bed pipe and cable systems. Dr Egede presented a paper, The Area: Sponsoring States of Convenience and Developing States, which is to be disseminated as a chapter in the conference proceedings to be published by the renowned Brill Publishers. The trip was funded by the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Hamburg International Environmental Law Conference.
Professor Jiri Přibáň was awarded the SLSA Socio-Legal Theory and History Prize this month for his book Sovereignty in Post-Sovereign Society.
Professor Přibáň accepted the prize in a ceremony which took place at the Socio-Legal Association annual conference, Lancaster on 6 April. The book, which investigates Professor Přibáň’s long term interests in theories of sovereignty and legal and political change in European society, took seven years to write and started with the question, ‘Why does the concept of sovereignty persist in contemporary societies in which the sovereign state's political and legal role is profoundly transformed and increasingly limited?'
Of his award, Professor Přibáň said, “I feel extremely grateful to a great number of friends and colleagues who critically inspired and supported me for many years here in Cardiff and in many other places in Europe. For me, the prize proves that, apart from law, politics, administration and economy, Europe has its thriving social and legal science and the School of Law and Politics is one of its proud centres.”
Professor Přibáň’s achievement is a significant personal accolade but also confirms Cardiff’s reputation as an international centre for socio-legal studies. Professor Přibáň is the director of the Centre of Law and Society which will be launched June 2016. Professor Přibáň said of the research centre, “The Centre for Law and Society is a great achievement of many colleagues from the School and we all hope it will become an umbrella organisation supporting and nurturing the most diverse research in socio-legal studies and sociology of law including legal and social theory. I, therefore, perceive the book as one of many contributions to the Centre's future activities and programme.”
Continuing professional development is a key part of any career and Law is certainly no exception.
This month, the Centre for Professional Legal Studies (CPLS) hosted a Mediation Update and Mock Mediation event for legal professionals and students. The event, the second of its kind, was attended by over 80 delegates and run in conjunction with the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and sponsored by Barristers 3 Paper Buildings with involvement from the Association of Wales and Border Counties Mediators.
Professor Angela Devereux, Director of CPLS welcomed the participating professionals before the start of the event. Barrister Paul Newman of 3 Paper Buildings delivered a legal update. This was followed by a mock mediation which was chaired by Stephen Probert, Deputy Director of the Intellectual Property Office.
The event is part of an ongoing programme of events aimed at building relationships between CPLS and the legal profession. The Centre has over 25 years’ experience in providing legal education and training for the legal professions and has an established reputation for the excellence of its teaching.”