Key themes from the address include:

• Constitutional Evolution: The 2005 transition from the "Law Lords" in the House of Lords to an independent Supreme Court, emphasising the separation of powers and increased transparency.
• The Supreme Court's Mandate: The court acts as a final arbiter for "points of law of general public importance," deciding cases that shape the development of the law across the UK.
• The Value of Dissent: A rigorous defence of the right to issue dissenting judgments, which Lord Lloyd-Jones argues enhances intellectual rigour and signals that the law is a living debate.
• The Global Reach of the Privy Council: An exploration of its role as the final court of appeal for 29 overseas jurisdictions, highlighting its unique ability to apply local laws - from common law to the Napoleonic Code.
• Constitutional Boundaries: A comparison between the UK’s principle of parliamentary sovereignty - where courts cannot strike down primary legislation - and other jurisdictions where the Privy Council may invalidate unconstitutional laws.

Lord Lloyd-Jones concludes by encouraging the next generation of "high fliers" to pursue careers in the law, promising a rewarding and intellectually stimulating path.

For more information about the Conference, see:

https://www.law.cam.ac.uk/access-outreach/exploring-law-conference

Lord (John) Hendy KC and Councillor Nick Denys from the Law Society shared their insights on the parliamentary process, the merits (and weaknesses) of the ERB, and its (practical) future once it is voted into law.

The development of this rather complex piece of legislation has been complicated and the interaction between the Lords and the Commons intense.

Professor Catherine Barnard chaired the session, with an additional contribution from Dr Fotis Vergis.

This event was held by the Cambridge University Human Rights Law Society (CUHRLS) and Clare Politics Society, who hosted renowned human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, best known for his decades-long work with LGBTQ+ and other global social justice movements which has shaped contemporary activism. Peter discussed the rising tide of the far right and why progressive politics has struggled to stem this tide and safeguard human rights in response.

Peter Tatchell is one of the UK’s best-known human rights campaigners, with more than fifty years of work across LGBTQ+ rights, anti-racism, democracy, and social justice. Throughout his career he has taken on governments and institutions around the world, often using bold direct action to highlight abuses and push for reform: he helped found ‘OutRage!' in the 1990s and most recently leads the Peter Tatchell Foundation.

For more on Clare Politics Society see their Instgram page. For CUHRLS see their Instagram page.

The Hamlyn Lectures are normally delivered in the autumn and the annual Hamlyn Seminar, which marks the publication of the lecture, is usually held in London in the following spring.

The lecture was on the title: 'The Paradoxes of Property: What do we Own and What can we Own?'

For more about the Hamlyn Lectures see: https://law.exeter.ac.uk/about/thehamlyntrust/lectures/

CWIL is an exciting social network of alumnae at the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, which features a diverse range of women from all sectors.

In this session, you’ll hear personal reflections on how each panellist carved out a path in human rights practice, and gain insights into:

• The current intersection of human rights, legislation and common law in the UK’s Constitutional framework
• New frontiers for Human Rights litigation including private law and international human rights in a post Brexit UK
• Human Rights and Geopolitics

For more information and to sign up to the CWIL mailing list to receive information about future news and events, see https://www.law.cam.ac.uk/alumni-developmentalumni-events/cambridge-women-law-cwil

Shirley Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby, was one of the 'Gang of Four' moderate Labour politicians who in 1981 founded the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which merged with the Liberal Party in 1988 to form the Liberal Democrats.

Baroness Williams was first elected as an MP in the 1964 General Election to represent the Labour Party in the constituency of Hitchin, Hertfordshire. She rapidly rose to a junior ministerial position and subsequently served as Shadow Home Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection, Secretary of State for Education, and Paymaster General until she lost her seat in the general election of 1979.

In 1981 she resigned from the Labour Party to form the SDP, along with Roy Jenkins, David Owen and Bill Rodgers. Later that year she won the by-election for Crosby in Merseyside to become the first elected SDP MP. After losing her seat in 1983 she became a familiar face as a broadcaster on In conversation with Shirley Williams and has appeared on the BBC's Question Time more than any other panellist.

n 1988, Williams moved to the USA as Professor of Elective Politics at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government until 2001. She helped draft constitutions in Russia, Ukraine and South Africa, served as a UN Special Representative to the former Yugoslavia, and has been President of Chatham House, the Royal Institute for International Affairs. With Amartya Sen, she is a director of the US-based Nuclear Threat Initiative, which seeks to reduce the risk of use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons; and in 2007 was appointed by the Prime Minister as an independent advisor on nuclear proliferation.

The Alcuin lectures are named after the 8th century scholar Alcuin of York, who was a key advisor to the Emperor Charlemagne and a central figure in the Carolingian Renaissance. The lectures were established in 1999 with a benefaction from Lord Brittan, himself a former European Commissioner. The theme for the lecture must be some aspect of the relationship between Britain and the European Institutions. Previous speakers have included Lord Patten, Lord Hannay and Dr Carl Bildt.

This book examines the challenges for press freedom in the nascent digital news ecosystem. Drawing upon decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union, as well as from German, UK and US case law, this comparative work explores the regulation of the press in the digital era and the impact of the proliferating media laws, policies, and jurisprudence on press freedom.

Professor Jacob Rowbottom (University of Oxford) chaired the discussion between Dr Irini Katsirea (University of Sheffield), Dr Peter Coe, (University of Birmingham), Emeritus Professor Thomas Gibbons (University of Manchester), and Emeritus Professor Bernd Holznagel (University of Münster).

Chair: Professor Antony Anghie (Goodhart Professor, National University of Singapore and the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law)

Abstract: In this presentation I will provide an account of the statehood of Palestine. After outlining the basic principles relating to statehood in international law, I will argue that recognition plays an important role in such assessments. My talk will focus on four key moments extending from the time of the League of Nations to the United Nations period. In presenting this account, I will address my own experience as a legal adviser to the State of Palestine in the negotiations on the adoption of General Assembly Resolution 67/19 in 2012 when the State of Palestine was conferred observer state status at the UN.

Biography: Victor Kattan is Assistant Professor of Public International Law at the School of Law at the University of Nottingham. His publications include The Palestine Question in International Law (British Institute of International and Comparative Law, 2008). From Coexistence to Conquest: International Law and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1891-1949 (Pluto Press, 2009). The Breakup of India and Palestine: The Causes and Legacies of Partition (Manchester University Press, 2023, with Amit Ranjan), and Making Endless War: The Vietnam and Arab-Israeli Conflicts in the History of International Law (Michigan University Press, 2023, with Brian Cuddy).

• Professor Anghie: 01:22
• Professor Kattan: 12:23

For more information about CULWOB see:

https://www.cambridgesu.co.uk/organisation/culwob/

The lecture begins at 05:18

Abstract: Our understanding of the operation of law beyond the nation State has been deeply shaped by two great disciplines: public and private international law. Yet surprisingly little systematic attention has been devoted to the relationship between the two. In his inaugural lecture as Professor of International Dispute Resolution in the University of Cambridge, McLachlan argues that the neglect of this interface is highly consequential for our understanding of law’s capacity to control the State and the corporation, which are, respectively, the principal holders of public/political and private/economic power in the world.

Campbell McLachlan is elected as Professor of Law (1973) in the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity Hall. He took up his chair in July 2024, specialising in International Dispute Resolution. A New Zealander, his career has spanned scholarship and practice in private and public international law. His principal works include: Foreign Relations Law (CUP 2014), International Investment Arbitration: Substantive Principles (2nd ed, OUP 2017) and The Principle of Systemic Integration in International Law (2024). He is a Specialist Editor of Dicey, Morris & Collins on the Conflict of Laws. He gave the General Course at The Hague Academy of International Law in January 2024. He is a member of the Institut de Droit International and of the Permanent Court of Arbitration.

Photographs of the event are available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cambridgelawfaculty/albums/72177720323668326

While politicians in Westminster were arguing about the merits of Theresa May, the Prime Minister’s draft Withdrawal Agreement simultaneously delegates to the conference gave their verdict on it. They had actually read the 585 pages of what has been termed the “divorce” bill and the accompanying shorter seven page political agreement which paves the way for our future trade deals. Meanwhile some politicians were admittedly having difficulty getting to grips with it.

In this special 57 minute audio podcast three of the Conference guest speakers give their views on the Withdrawal Agreement.

All three took issue with the views expressed in the mainstream media that the Agreement was a dogs’ breakfast. They argue that it is a very well-crafted and thought through legal document and that the EU and UK negotiating teams’ have shown considerable skill in drafting it.

Simon Deakin, Director of the Centre for Business Research and Professor of Law at the University of Cambridge said that both the EU and UK negotiators need to be congratulated on it. But he expressed concerns about Citizens rights.

Deakin key quote: “It is a very soft form of Brexit in which we continue to abide by many standards in terms of labour law and the environment and many people like that. But people who supported Brexit wanted to use it as an opportunity to deregulate these standards, they would be unhappy. People who are concerned about citizens’ rights will also be unhappy, because it has some protections for EU citizens here and those UK citizens living in mainland Europe, but it doesn’t go far enough in many respects, it doesn’t give UK citizens living in mainland Europe the right to live and work outside the EU host state they have been living within. We’re under protecting EU Citizens abroad.”

Deakin gives a powerful summary of how he thinks the Agreement will play out for the UK in the longer term in terms of the devolved assemblies, and its economic impact.

“Brexit here as elsewhere puts enormous pressure on our existing constitutional arrangements and begins to call into question the legitimacy of the way in which Brexit has been conducted because significant voices such as the devolved administrations would argue they have been left out.

“It is legally impressive to have produced a text of this nature so quickly. People drafting it on both the EU and British side deserve to be congratulated. We do need law to play a role here. Without the enormous effort to put into legal terms this big political shift we would be facing a much more chaotic and difficult situation. The deal that has been offered by the EU is infinitely preferable to no-deal; no-deal will not just put at risk our economy but many aspects of social provision including things as basic as the free circulation of medicines and the free circulation of some goods and no-deal could easily lead to food shortages and the mothballing of other aspects of our industrial capacity.

“But on the down side it doesn’t sufficiently protect the rights of UK citizens living on the mainland and our environmental and labour rights because the non-regression clause only applies up to the end of the transition period. It could have provided for a more dynamic forward looking alignment of UK law with those standards. The customs territory has been designed as a function of the need to avoid a hard border in NI and this is understandable but it underplays the degree to which we need a customs union within the EU.”

He went on to say that the Agreement was a compromise: “It’s the compromise and that was unavoidable with Brexit. Both sides have compromised I think. It is infinitely better than no-deal.”

Catherine Barnard, Professor of EU Law at the University of Cambridge and a Senior Fellow of UK in a Changing Europe says it is a “huge and impressive” piece of government legislation. She then goes on to list her top five countdown of the key points within it: The provisions on direct effect and supremacy; Citizens rights; the transition; the role of the court of justice; the institutional provisions.

Barnard key quote: “Anyone who tells you they have got their heads round it already is just making it up. This is a huge piece of work and actually a very impressive piece of work. From a legal perspective you look at this text and you think Wow, some really impressive minds have been applied to this. It is quite difficult to read because there are lots of cross references to provisions in the main body of the text to the annex to the protocols, which means there are things in there that we haven’t spotted yet. Some very good people have been working on it. ”

Alison Young, the Sir David Williams Professor of Public Law at University of Cambridge looks at the constitutional implications of the deal.

Alison key quote: “It’s right to say we don’t have a unified constitution so you couldn’t find it in a law library. What we have instead is a combination of legal rules and political practices, conventions and case law and all of those work together to tell us what the UK constitution says in certain areas.”

She explained that the devolved administrations have not been happy with the Brexit negotiations: “In terms of Brexit because our membership with the EU is a reserved matter, it belongs to the UK, it has meant Westminster has been the main body to carry out the negotiations. There have been meetings with the devolved bodies, of Scotland, Wales and NI. There have been debates in the devolved administrations on Brexit and documents published but it is fair to say these have not always been fully taken on board in Westminster.”

So called Henry VIII powers which allow ministers to change existing legislation without putting it to full parliament scrutiny via secondary legislation are also giving rise to concerns she said: “I understand the concerns about the Henry III clauses. It can be very hard to delineate between a tiny technical change that you think is constitutionally OK for the UK executive to make for example taking away the word “commission” and replacing it with the word “minister”. Most of those measures are taken by negative resolutions and they go through unless someone says no thank you and they are then voted in. It is estimated there are 1,000 or so measures that have to come through quite quickly and there is concern about whether or not there is sufficient democratic scrutiny over these policy choices that will have wide ramifications going forward. Even with a committee there to try and rescue these some may fall through the gaps. There may not be enough time to scrutinise these and as a constitutional lawyer this is very concerning. “

Young said written constitutions came about after a specific constitutional moment such as regime change and chaotic moments in a countries political history such as the break-up of the former Soviet Union.

She continued: “In some senses Brexit has shown up the strength of the UK constitution because it has allowed us to think through flexibly without pushing to a complete crisis. But on the other hand it has pointed to a huge weakness. That there is an uncertainty and that it is decided purely by power rather than also by the interaction of constitutional principles. There is this huge lack of clarity and things need to be done very quickly. There are dangers in this. Maybe now we should say is this our constitutional moment and after Brexit we should sit down and think with some clarity of how to go forward. We could have a constitution convention process involving the people. “

On 16 November 2018 the SRI and the CBR, the Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge, are holding a conference in Cambridge on Brexit with the aim of encouraging interdisciplinary discussion amongst academics and further research on the implications of the UK leaving the EU for public policy.

This is the third of a series of podcasts which the Public Policy SRI has commissioned with key speakers involved in the Cambridge event.

In this audio podcast Professor Deakin explains that Britain’s low-wage, low productivity economy is the result of forty years of neoliberal economic policies. While some on the Left think that Brexit will allow a reset of British economic policy, Deakin explains why this view is implausible. Even a benign or ‘soft’ Brexit will cause a shock to Britain’s trading relations that will have long-lasting consequences. If there is a hard, no-deal Brexit, the effect will be akin to ‘shock therapy’ of the kind inflicted by neoliberal policy makers on the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s.

1. Moderator: Ania Farren / Partner Berwin Leighton Paisner

2. Role of the Counsel: Timothy Foden / Of Counsel Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan

3. Discovery & Document Productions: Saadia Bhatty / Associate Clyde & Co

4. Differences in Advocacy & Pleading: Alexis Martinez / Partner Squire Patton Boggs

5. The Inter-relationship Between the Courts and Arbitration: Ruth Byrne / Partner King & Spalding

The SRI and the CBR, the Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge, are holding a conference in November on Brexit with the aim of encouraging interdisciplinary discussion amongst academics and further research on the implications of the UK leaving the EU for public policy.

This is the first of a series of podcasts the SRI Public Policy has commissioned with key speakers involved in the Cambridge event.

For further information, contact Holly Ashcroft (ha365@cam.ac.uk).

In the keynote address, UK Advocate General Eleanor Sharpston spoke on the topic "More important than Brexit? The EU and the Refugee Crisis."

For more information see: https://www.britishlawcentre.co.uk/blc-25th-anniversary-conference/

Chair: Nora Ni Loideain (University of Cambridge)

David Vincent (Open University): "Privacy and the crisis of the liberal State"

Karlin Lillington (Irish Times): "Privacy & page one; the challenge of engaging readers ... and editors"

Simon Rice (Information Commissioner's Office)

Chair: John Naughton (University of Cambridge)

Keynote speaker: Christena Nippert-Eng (Indiana University)

The criminal justice process has often been compared to a ‘game’: the ‘games’ lawyers play, for example, or the various ‘games’ played by prisoners or prison psychologists. It is always other people who are playing games…. This lecture will explore current trial processes and sentencing processes in England and Wales by comparing them to traditional games: in what sense is a trial like a game of ‘blind man’s buff’? why does progressing through the prison system feel to many prisoners like a game of ‘snakes and ladders’? Of course, none of these processes really feel like a game to the principal players. But the analogies can throw fresh light on how we should evaluate the effectiveness of our criminal justice system.

Biography: Nicola Padfield is Master of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, and a Reader in Criminal and Penal Justice at the Law Faculty, University of Cambridge, where she has worked for more than 20 years. She has a broad research lens, engaged in both ‘hard’ law and in socio-legal-criminological research. She is a leading European expert on sentencing law, including the law and practice of release from (and recall to) prison. A barrister by training, she has published widely on many aspects of criminal law, sentencing and criminal justice. She sat as a Recorder (part-time judge) in the Crown Court 2002-2014 and is a Bencher of the Middle Temple.

In a landmark judgment on October 7 the European Court of Justice has ruled that the Safe Harbour framework governing the transfer of EU citizens’ personal data to the US does not comply with the requirements of EU Data Protection law in light of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and is therefore invalid under EU law.

The Safe Harbour framework stemmed from a decision of the European Commission in 2000 (2000/520/EC) that the US afforded an adequate level of protection of personal data transferred to the US from the EU. This decision was made long before the EU Charter became part of EU law and more than a decade prior to the Edward Snowden revelations.

The ECJ’s judgment thus invalidates arrangements that for 15 years have allowed Internet companies to transfer the personal data of European users to server farms in the US and elsewhere. It has very wide-ranging implications — not just for data-protection law, but also for the economics of Internet companies and for international relations. This workshop will discuss some of those implications.

Panel: David Runciman (chair), John Naughton, Ross Anderson, Nora Ni Loideain

The study of the humanities can provide context, meaning and narrative to many of the cultural considerations that frame policy making. How can research in these disciplines deliver the greatest benefit to all citizens?

He discussed the history of Pitcairn, the various attempts to give it a legal system over the years since the mutiny on the Bounty, and gave an account of the lead-up to the arrest and trials of 6 men on Pitcairn for historic charges of sexual abuse of girls and young women, the trials on Pitcairn and in New Zealand, and the various challenges to the Courts' jurisdiction.

If you wish to research the issues considered in the lecture further, you can review the various judicial decisions:

- Reasons for report of the Lords of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council Upon a Petition for Special Leave to Appeal, 11 October 2004 (http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/uk/cases/UKPC/2004/52.html);

- Directions of the Lords of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council Upon a Petition for Leave to Intervene and Directions hearing, 9 November 2005 (http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/uk/cases/UKPC/2005/42.html);

- Judgement of the Privy Council 30 October 2006 (http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/uk/cases/UKPC/2006/47.html);

For more information about Pitcairn, you may also review the Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcairn_Islands).

The main theme of the Conference was 'Law in Politics, Politics in Law' and the second Plenary held on the afternoon of Tuesday 6 September was entitled 'The Roles of Lawyers in Government'. The session was introduced by Professor David Ibbetson, the Chair of the Faculty of Law at Cambridge, and the panel included Sir Stephen Laws KCB, QC, First Parliamentary Counsel, David Seymour, Legal Adviser to the Home Office, and Sir Michael Wood, formerly Legal Adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The criminal law traditionally punishes those who knowingly and intentionally misbehave. In recent years, however, the reach of the criminal law has been steadily expanded; it is widely said that over 3,000 new criminal offences have been created since the general election of 1997. Many of these new offences create criminal liability for negligence, rather than for deliberate fault. Medical professionals are among those who are increasingly caught in this ever-widening net. In his lecture Professor Spencer will examine the present criminal liability of medical professionals, and give his own views as to whether the current law is satisfactory.

"The European Communities (and their successor the European Union) are the best available evidence that humankind is capable of collective self-improvement. Europe has been transformed from the cockpit of the world to a haven of peace, liberal values and economic prosperity. The paradoxical structure of the EU, as a federation of sovereign States, is well-adapted to the historical and cultural reality of Europe but there are internal contradictions in the system that place it under permanent stress.

I expect the EU to survive and even to flourish but it will always be a messy and complicated enterprise."

"Identity and the Law"

by Lionel Bentley

Although English law protected visual manifestation of trader’s identity (such as names, logos, marks and trade dress) as property from the late nineteenth century, it has been slower to provide protection to individuals against other people’s use of their name, appearance or voice, and has offered very little protection against unauthorised use of cultural symbols. In this paper, Lionel Bently will explain why the concepts of English law have proved so difficult to extend in these directions, and how matters are changing. Whereas Queen Victoria’s physician Sir James Clark, 1940s radio broadcaster `Uncle Mac’, 1950’s actor Alastair Sim and even 1990s pop group, the Spice Girls, failed in their efforts to control uses of their names, images and voices, English law has recently witnessed the protection of racing driver Eddie Irvine and Disc jockey `Diddy’ Dearlove against others wishing to use their names and images (while in the United States, substantial damages were awarded to singer Tom Waits when his gravely voice was imitated on a Frito-Lay advert.) The paper will examine the extent to which these changes amount to legal recognition of a person’s interest in their own identity (and its manifestations), and what kind of understanding of identity is being employed. The paper will also explore the extent to which such protection may have important implications for `identity’ more generally, and the prospects for further protection of manifestation of collective identity.

Professor Curran, co-author of "Power Without Responsibility", one of the main texts for journalism students in the UK, will say that the Internet could bring about greater democracy, but not in the near future. "The Internet offers a wonderful democratic tool," he says. "But a business model has not yet developed to sustain independent net-based journalism as an adequate corrective to media concentration and weakened editorial standards."

Other speakers taking part are:

- Agnes Callamard, executive director of press freedom lobby organisation Article 19, who will outline what she sees to be the major challenges for press freedom in the world today

- Gerry Gable, former editor of Searchlight magazine, who will talk about hate speech in the UK today

- Rhidian Wynn-Davies, consulting editor of The Telegraph, who will talk about the impact of the Internet on press freedom.

The debate will be chaired by John Naughton, Director of the Wolfson College, Cambridge Press Fellowship Programme.

www.gatesscholar.org