Kent Law School research news updates

October/November/December 2021

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Congratulations to our staff…

Congratulations to our students…

  • Daniel Rozenberg was awarded his LLM by Research with his thesis “The Citizens’ Convention for Climate in France: An Introduction of Participatory Democracy into French Governance”. Daniel’s supervisors were Anneli Albi and Amanda Perry-Kessaris
  • Dominic De Saulles was awarded his MPhil with his thesis “Reforming Civil Procedure: The Hardest Path: cultural and historical institutional reasons for the differing outcomes of reform programmes in twentieth century Anglo-American civil procedure. Dominic’s supervisors were Rosemary Hunter and Ed Kirton-Darling
  • Dr Osama Khadadah was awarded his PhD with his thesis ‘Deprivation of Liberty at Pre-trial Stage: The Law and the Practice of Remand in Kuwait’. Osama’s supervisors were Dermot Walsh and Sinead Ring
  • Lara Tessaro who has received a small grant from the Theodor Kerzer QC Research Grants programme administered by the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History
  • Rachel Arkell who has co-authored ‘Beyond ‘the choice to drink’ in a UK guideline on FASD: the precautionary principle, pregnancy surveillance, and the managed woman’. It is published Open Access in Health, Risk and Society – read more

Recent publications

  • Arai-Takahashi, Yutaka (2021) ‘Arguable but Superfluous? -Judicial Policies of the European Court of Human Rights in Relation to the Right to an Effective Remedy Before a National Authority under Article 13 ECHR’. in: Israel Yearbook on Human Rights. Brill, pp. 83-133
  • Ashiagbor, Diamond (2021) ‘Race and Colonialism in the Construction of Labour Markets and Precarity’. Industrial Law Journal, pp. 1-26
  • Cloatre, Emilie, Urquiza-Haas, Nayeli, Ashworth, Michael (2021) ‘Legalities of Healing: Handling Alterities at the Edge of Medicine in France, 1980s to 2010s’. Osiris, 36
  • Glanert, Simone, Mercescu, Alexandra, Samuel, Geoffrey (2021) Rethinking Comparative Law. Edward Elgar
  • Hunter, Rosemary, Roach Anleu, Sharyn, Mack, Kathy (2021) ‘Feminist Judging in Lower Courts’. Journal of Law and Society, 48 (4)
  • Marneros, Christos (2021) ‘It Is a Nomos Very Different from the Law: on Anarchy and the Law’. Folia Iuridica, 96,125-139
  • Marneros, Christos (2021) ‘Μ.Γ.Δ.: The figure of the cop in the anarchic lyrics of Greek Punk’. in: Donaghey, Jim and Kaltefleiter, Caroline and Boisseau, Will, eds. Smash the System!: Punk Anarchism as a Culture of Resistance. Active Distribution
  • Niezna, Maayan and Agarwal Pankhuri (2021) ‘Self-education and collective learning: forming a critical ‘modern slavery’ study group’. Anti-Trafficking Review 17:133-139
  • Niezna, Maayan, Kurlander Yahel and Shamir Hila (2021) ‘Underlying Conditions: The Increased Vulnerability of Migrant Workers under COVID-19 in Israel’. Journal of Modern Slavery 6(2):133-158
  • Perry-Kessaris, Amanda (2021) ‘Could alternative econolegal futures be made more possible and probable through prefigurative design? Insights from and for Cyprus’. Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly
  • Renz, Flora and Cooper, Davina (2021) ‘Reimagining gender through equality law: What legal thoughtways do religion and disability offer?’ Feminist Legal Studies.

Quick reads and listens

Future Learn update

Sian Lewis-Antony has been working with Future Learn to develop two online courses on ‘Critical International Migration Law’ and ‘Critical International Human Rights Law’.

Critical International Migration Law went live in April 2021

It is designed for anyone who has an interest in understanding the how and whys of international migration, and the role law plays in creating/sustaining the so-called crises. The course is subdivided into three 4-week courses:

    • Law and the framing of migrants and migration
    • Freedom of movement, refugees, smugglers and traffickers
    • Law’s absence and law’s failings

Sian says: ‘As an international human rights lawyer, I approach the subject through the lens of a human rights practitioner. I am seeking, via this course, to raise more awareness of the plight of migrants and the ways in which they are (ill) treated by states. I hope that by demonstrating the role that law plays in the creation of many of the insuperable difficulties experienced by migrants fleeing dire circumstances that it will be possible to create a more informed polity. A more informed polity can, in turn, encourage the development of more humane policies and law. Ultimately what is needed are safe routes for migration for all those fleeing oppression, violence, grinding poverty, natural or manmade disasters and so on”.

Critical International Human Rights Law was launched in October 2021

It is designed for anyone with an interest in human rights. I take a critical approach, examining some of its strengths while exposing the many weaknesses in international human rights law. The objective is to encourage learners to think of ways to improve the means by which human rights protection can be improved.

The course is divided into three four-week courses as follows:

    • What is international human rights law?
    • How well does international human rights law serve marginalised people?
    • Human rights, ways of life, and the future

Sian says: ‘Again, I approach the course from the viewpoint of a human rights practitioner, seeking to focus attention on the promise of human rights, and asking what can be done to ensure this body of law more fully protects all human beings.’

Both courses are designed to be accessible to anyone with an interest in either topic. There are no prerequisites and learners who complete the course can get a certificate of completion. Both courses can be accessed for free for one week, after which prospective students are asked to pay £36 per month for 3 months for each of them.

Research updates

  • ‘Life/Gender/Work: Invisibility and Social Reproduction in Tumaco’ is the second initiative from the team behind Ruptures21: Towards New Economies, Societies and Legalities. Ruptures21 is led by Luis Eslava, with Donatella Alessandrini, a member of the project’s Academic and Research Committee. Read more
  • Hyo Yoon Kang presented at the WTO Public Forum in panel on the ‘The Future of the TRIPS Agreement Post Covid-19′ organised by the intergovernmental organisation, South Centre where her intervention stressed the need for technology transfer as part of TRIPS’ promise and on a panel organised by the South African civil society organisation, Health Justice Initiative, and hosted by the Mandela Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, on ‘The Way Forward on and Beyond the TRIPS Waiver Proposal’. Her talk focused on the role and responsibility of IP scholarship in this pandemic
  • In October we hosted our third event in the successful ‘Dare to Ask’ series: a topical panel discussion series to spark critical thinking and debate. During ‘Dare to Ask: International Justice’ the panel addressed the question – Is International Law failing to achieve social justice? Chaired by Elizabeth Howe, the panel included Diamond Ashiagbor, Nick Grief, Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, and Josipa Saric. Watch again
  • Luis Eslava participated in a webinar on «Protesta social, crisis y orden económico» organised by the University of Columbia
  • Lara Tessaro presented at the CLSA/ACDS Early Scholars Showcase and Social. The title of her presentation was “Constitutionally cosmetic: composing a legal form for material substance in mid20th century Canada”
  • Nick Grief was invited to participate in a meeting of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights concerning the fight against impunity in Belarus
  • Jose Bellido presented at a Patents as Scientific Information (PASSIM) conference asking “How did microfilms historically shape patent work? What did they translate and how did they change search rooms and international connections?”
  • Flora Renz spoke at the UCU conference: LGBT+ Liberation: LGBT+ lives and issues in the context of normativities
  • Sheona York spoke at workshop on ‘Brexit and Immigration’ for the UCL Junior Lawyers Against Poverty and at the Refugee Law Initiative workshop ‘Moving the goalposts (yet again): access to justice in the UK asylum system’”
  • Emilie Cloatre presented on “Regulating the boundaries of medicine: traditional healing and the law in contemporary Senegal” at the Centre for Health, Law and Emerging Technologies, Oxford
  • Three years in the making, 16 authors, nine outstanding articles on the miseries of security policies across Latin America, from Chile to the Latino world in the US, a special edition of Latin American Law Review, edited by Luis Eslava, has been published
  • Mohammed Nayyeri testified at the Aban Tribunal on Iran’s freedom of expression and assembly laws in theory and practice
  • Flora Renz presented on a panel ‘Categories of Recognition’ as part of the ‘Conversations in Gender Studies: Categories’ panels held online hosted and supported by the Faculty of Arts Gender Studies Program and the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne
  • Kirsty Horsey’s research was cited in a Times newspaper article: ‘Call for legal reform after surrogacies fall’, 16 November 2021
  • Erika Rackley’s co-authored research was cited by Maria Miller MP in the House of Commons in a debate on Digital Image Abuse.

Coming up…

  • 21 December 2021: Launch of THE TIME a mobile visual experience that captures the tempo of our recent life. Created by Varjack-Lowry with young people from South East London, THE TIME responds to the ‘A Day at a Time’ research of Emily Grabham, Rebecca Coleman and Dawn Lyon. More info