Quarterly Research Highlights

This page provides a spotlight on some of the most recent activity in the School of Law, with news about publications, speaking engagements and funded research over the last few months.

Publications

Paul Todd (Commercial and Maritime Law) has had his book, Principles of the Carriage of Goods by Sea published by Routledge in November (2016 copyright date).

Eleonora Rosati (Intellectual Property Law) has had an article ‘International Jurisdiction in Online EU Trade Mark Infringement Cases: Where is the Place of Infringement Located?’ accepted by the European Intellectual Property Review. Eleonora has also had a number of case commentaries published.

Natasha Hammond-Browning (Healthcare Law and Ethics) has published in Bionews on the 16th November a piece on 'Womb Transplants - Is Surrogacy Safer?', which can be read here.

Sara Benedi Laherta (Employment Law) has had a case note on the CJEU Case 83/14 CHEZ Razpredelenie Bulgaria AD v Komisia za zashtita ot diskriminatsia accepted for publication in the Common Market Law Review.

David Gurnham (Criminal Law)’s article ‘Debating Rape: to whom does the uncanny “myth” metaphor belong?’ and his solo-edited special issue of the Journal of Law and Society (Vol. 43(1) – Law’s Metaphors: Interrogating Language of Law, Justice and Legitimacy) are now published, and available also as a book (Wiley-Blackwell).

Speaking engagements

Natasha Hammond-Browning has been invited to speak at a symposium in Lancaster in September 2016 on ‘The Ethics of Uterus Transplantation.’ The symposium is part of an ongoing programme of research at King’s College London and Lancaster University entitled ‘The Donation and Transfer of Human Reproductive Materials’, funded by a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award in Ethics and Society, held jointly by Rosamund Scott and Stephen Wilkinson.

Sara Benedi Lahuerta gave a paper in a conference in Cagliari (Italy) on the 17th -18th December 2015 in the framework of the project 'Shaping Future Directions in EU Labour Law' (funded by the British Academy and coordinated by Prof. Jeremias Prassl, Oxford University). The title of the paper presented is 'Taking EU equality law to the next level: in search of consistency and better enforcement' and it will be published in a special edition of the European Labour Law Journal this summer. More information on the project here.‬‬‬‬

Eleonora Rosati has recently presented a number of research papers: ‘The Digital Single Market Strategy: Just a Dream?, Modernising Copyright in the EU Digital Single Market’, Trinity College, Dublin (Ireland,12/2/2016); CJEU Copyright Jurisprudence: Beyond Mere Interpretation?,Praxis des Immaterialgüterrechts in der Europäischen Union, Sorell Hotel Zürichberg, Zürich (Switzerland, 25/1/2016); Recente Giurisprudenza della Corte di Giustizia in Aree di Interesse per gli Autori, Stati Generali dell’Autore – 4a Edizione, Rome (Italy, 18/12/2015); ‘How to deal with IP … in an IP Blog, Rettigheter og Eierskap i Sosiale Medier, Patentsyret’, Oslo (Norway, 9/12/2015). In April, Eleonora will be one of the two keynote speakers at the 10th IGLRC - http://www.iglrc.com/programme/

Harry Annison (Criminal Justice and Criminology) gave a paper titled ‘Towards Reflexivity in Penal Policymaking?’ in December 2015, as part of the Institute of Criminal Justice Research seminar series. The revised paper will be published in the forthcoming edited collection Reflexivity and Criminal Justice (Palgrave).

Matthew Nicholson (Public International Law), Claire Lougarre (Human Rights) and David Gurnham have each been invited to present research papers at the Law and Society Association in New Orleans in June. Matthew will be presenting on international environmental law and theories of nature; Claire presents on the right to health; David’s paper will report on preliminary findings and analysis of focus groups currently underway as part of the project on young peoples’ perceptions and understanding of sexual scripts, coercion and gender (in collaboration with Harry Annison and Mark Telford).

Engagement in policy, consultation and reform

Sophie Stalla-Bourdillon (Information Technology/Intellectual Property Law) has been invited to join the the Committee of Experts on Internet intermediaries (MSI-NET) formed by the Council of Europe, whose main tasks will be to draft recommendation by the Committee of Ministers to member States on the roles and responsibilities of Internet intermediaries and a report on human rights implications of algorithms.

Emma Laurie (Housing Law) has made a written submission to the Work and Pensions Commons Select Committee on their Intergenerational Fairness Inquiry.

James Davey (Insurance Law) was a member of the transition panel advising on the first 5 year plan for Flood Re in December and January. This is a private reinsurer with statutory duties to maintain affordable residential flood insurance. I was the only academic lawyer invited to participate and made strong arguments in favour of protecting the less affluent. James also made recommendations to the government's Insurance Fraud Taskforce report (published in January), on shaping the claims process to nudge towards honesty.

Funding and grant income successes

Sophie Stalla-Bourdillon won a Horizon 2020 grant (398,591.25 out of 6,338,948.89 euros as part of the FutureTrust consortium) to conduct research on the practical implementation of the eIDAS regulation in Europe and beyond. As Principal Investigator, she won with Steffen Staab (ECS) a pump-priming project "Observing and Recommending from a Social Web with Biases" which started on 26 January. As Co-Investigator, she won with Kieron O'Hara (ECS) another pump-priming project on anonymisation practices. The project team will run two workshops, in March 2015 and July 2016 bringing together lawyers and technologists to focus on legal definitions of personal data, and the effects of openness on anonymised data. These will enable a preliminary enumeration of key issues, and identification of further stakeholders.

Sarah Nield (Property Law), Sue Bright (Oxford), Sarah Blandy (Sheffield) have been awarded funding for an MLR Seminar on the Dynamics of Enduring Property Relationships. Its due to be held in Oxford in May 2016.

Harry Annison has successfully obtained, in collaboration with Southampton colleagues Mark Telford and John Boswell, ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) funding in support of his ongoing research of UK penal policymaking. Harry will discuss recent research findings on penal policymaking at the international conference ‘Justice and Penal Reform’ at Oxford University in March 2016.

Academic service and leadership

Eleonora Rosati, has been Editor of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (OUP) since December 2015.