Public Lectures from the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge

Moderator: Stephen Fietta KC, Founder, Fietta LLP. 1. Dr Jolyon Ford SFHEA, Professor, Australian National University; and Dr Imogen Saunders, Associate Professor, Australian National University: International Law as Geology: Crawford's core/periphery metaphor and challenges to the contemporary international legal order. (02:18) 2. Ms Jessie Phyffer, LLD Candidate, University of Pretoria; Research...

Keynote address 4 – Ambassador Rena Lee: 'The Institutionalisation of International Law in a Multipolar World' Introduction (00:00) Keynote 4 (01:18) This is a recording from the events of the 14th Annual Cambridge International Law Conference This is a collection of recordings from the events of the 14th Annual Cambridge International Law Conference, held under the title 'Navigating a Multipolar...

Keynote address 2 – Judge Tomas Heidar, President, International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea: 'Bringing Climate Change into the Realm of the Law of the Sea Convention: The ITLOS Advisory Opinion' Introduction (00:00) Keynote 2 (02:49) This is a recording from the events of the 14th Annual Cambridge International Law Conference This is a collection of recordings from the events of the 14th Annu...

Welcoming address by the Editors-in-Chief (Marno Swart and Renatus Otto Franz Derler) (00:00) Welcoming address by the Honorary Editor-in-Chief (Dr Rumiana Yotova, Assistant Professor in International Law) (04:49) Introduction (08:10) Keynote address 1 – Judge Bogdan Aurescu, International Court of Justice: 'Lessons Learned: the Recent Activity of the International Court of Justice; the Work of th...

The British Association of Comparative Law (BACL) held a discussion of Dr Irini Katsirea’s book, 'Press Freedom and Regulation in a Digital Era: A Comparative Study' (2024) on 29th April 2025. 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...

Welcome to CULSCAST 🎙️, the new Podcast from the Cambridge University Law Society, one of the world’s oldest and largest student-run societies, founded in 1901. This is Episode 3 of our ‘CULSCAST Conversations’ series, which aims to bring the Cambridge law community closer together through conversation. This episode covers studying, revision, and exam tips from top-performing Cambridge law student...

Speaker: Professor Niva Elkin Koren (Tel Aviv University) Session 4: Concluding Thoughts – AI Transforming IP On Saturday 29th March 2025, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Is AI Transforming IP?' For the last few years, lots of attention has been paid to AI and IP. The Supreme Court has already considered whether AI c...

Speaker: Mr Dennis Collopy (University of Hertfordshire) Session 3: AI Transforming the Scope of Protection and Enforcement On Saturday 29th March 2025, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Is AI Transforming IP?' For the last few years, lots of attention has been paid to AI and IP. The Supreme Court has already considered whe...

Speaker: Professor Tanya Aplin (King’s College London) Session 3: AI Transforming the Scope of Protection and Enforcement On Saturday 29th March 2025, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Is AI Transforming IP?' For the last few years, lots of attention has been paid to AI and IP. The Supreme Court has already considered wheth...

Speaker: Professor Sean Flynn (Washington College of Law) Session 3: AI Transforming the Scope of Protection and Enforcement On Saturday 29th March 2025, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Is AI Transforming IP?' For the last few years, lots of attention has been paid to AI and IP. The Supreme Court has already considered wh...

Speaker: Professor Mireille van Eechoud (University of Amsterdam) Session 3: AI Transforming the Scope of Protection and Enforcement On Saturday 29th March 2025, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) held its Annual Spring Conference entitled 'Is AI Transforming IP?' For the last few years, lots of attention has been paid to AI and IP. The Supreme Court has already...

Professor Alison Young (Robinson College, Cambridge) tells us about a day in her life as newly appointed Law Commissioner and what the Law Commission does.

Professor Kimberly D. Krawiec from the University of Virginia School of Law explores "repugnant transactions and taboo trades" — markets that are morally contested and sometimes even prohibited, such as sex work, commercial surrogacy, and the sale of organs, eggs, and sperm. She asks how we, as a society, decide what is up for sale and what is off-limits. The controversies here are not about the d...

Speaker: Professor Victor Kattan (University of Nottingham) 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...

Lecture summary: This lecture will explore the parameters of State immunity at the international level and as reflected in different national legal systems (including England & Wales, the United States and others). It will include an overview of foundational and more recent jurisprudence in international and domestic courts, and will give particular focus to select aspects of State immunity in...

The Centre for European Legal Studies (CELS) hosts an annual public lecture in honour of Lord Mackenzie-Stuart, the first British Judge to be President of the Court of Justice. Among the eminent scholars of European legal studies invited to give the lecture are Professor Joseph Weiler, former Judge David Edwards of the European Court of Justice, and Advocate-General Francis Jacobs of the European...

Speaker: Dr Bernadette Zelger, University of Innsbruck Abstract: The debate about the future of the European Union has long left academic circles, arrived in the midst of society and been awarded political attention. Meanwhile, there has been an increase of Euroscepticism accompanied by more nationalist political developments echoed in the swings to the right all across the EU. These developments...

Speakers:  Professor Vanessa Munro (University of Warwick) and Professor Miranda Horvath (University of Suffolk) Professors Munro and Horvath both actively contributed to Operation Soteria, the joint project between the police and CPS to rethink how allegations of sexual violence should be investigated and prosecuted. In this public lecture they will reflect together on the data they collecte...

On 28 February 2025 The Rt. Hon. Lord Briggs of Westbourne delivered the 2025 XXIV Old Buildings Lecture entitled "Equitable Ownership". Michael Townley Featherstone Briggs, Lord Briggs of Westbourne became a Justice of the Supreme Court in October 2017. Lord Briggs grew up around Portsmouth and Plymouth, following his naval officer father between ships, before spending his later childhood in West...

Summary: This talk explains Sudan’s descent into a horrific war that is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The war has displaced over 11 million people, involved the targeting of civilians, including especially women, in mass violence, and precipitated a hunger crisis affecting over 24 million people, with over 630,000 currently facing famine. How, after a momentous civilian uprising in 2018-1...

Lecture summary: Property is a fundamental legal institution governing the use of things: who may own what, how and why. Given that such questions extend to a wide range of natural resources essential to human well-being, such as food, water and shelter, then it is reasonable to assume that human rights should play an important role in shaping property rights discourse and practice. And yet this a...

Dr Peter Candy (St Catharine's College, Cambridge) tells us about his love story with Roman Law - going from a Literature & History undergraduate degree to a PhD in Roman Law. He shares about his research on Roman Maritime Law, how that compares with modern maritime law, about Roman slavery and society before and after the rise of Christianity. He also shares why he would not recommend swimmin...

Panel: '(Non-)Defining 'Gender' in the Crimes Against Humanity Draft: Possibilities, Alliances, and Strategies' Feminist activists, country representatives, and other civil society actors have debated how to define “gender” in international criminal law (ICL) for at least three decades. In the Rome Conference that established the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its Statute in 1998, defining...

Sovereign debt crises have surged since the end of the Bretton Woods system and currently threaten a lost decade for many countries across the world. Indermit Gill, in the World Bank Group’s 2024 International Debt Report, describes the situation in many of the poorest countries as a ‘metastasising solvency crisis that continues to be misdiagnosed as a liquidity problem’. Despite their severe soci...

Oh Thursday 6th February 2025 Professor Campbell McLachlan KC delivered his 1973 Professor Inaugural Lecture: 'On the Interface between Public and Private International Law'. 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 sys...