Events feed

Title: Workers’ Rights in an Age of Algorithmic Management

Thu, 06 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0100

[2024/06/0617:00] Technology has revolutionised the world of work over the past 30 years. Now its radically changing the way that people are managed at work, from how they are hired and fired to how their work is allocated, monitored and evaluated.

Data protection and transnational institutional collaboration in the field of data protection in the post-Brexit era

Thu, 16 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

[2021/12/1617:00] In the political declaration about their future partnership, the EU and the UK agreed to make arrangements for appropriate cooperation between data protection regulators; yet, it is unclear if and how precisely this will materialise. Maintaining channels of inter-state cooperation contributes to regulatory alignment and the rapid and efficient response to common risks. Moreover, it encourages the exchange of best practices, and reduces the risk of conflicts. This workshop, co-organised by the Centre of European Law at King's College London, the University of Southampton and the UK-RoI Cross-Border Data Protection Network will explore legal and practical obstacles associated with maintaining a UK-EU cooperation at multiple levels of administrative and political hierarchy post-Brexit and identify ways to address them.

Studying Law in the UK

Fri, 19 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

[2021/02/1916:3017:30] Attend our Live webinar on Studying Law in the UK and get all the information you need about courses, applications, admissions, mode of study, scholarships and more.

Workshop: Equal Pay: 50 Years On

Fri, 18 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0100

[2020/09/1814:0017:15] Law event

CLASS, SEX AND THE LAW

Thu, 19 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

[2020/03/1918:30] SOUTHAMPTON LAW SCHOOL, STEFAN CROSS CENTRE FOR WOMEN, EQUALITY & LAW ANNUAL LECTURE BY KARON MONAGHAN QC

Anglo-Chinese Maritime Law & Practice in Transition IV

Thu, 06 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0100

[2019/06/0609:002019/06/0717:00] "Anglo-Chinese Maritime Law & Practice in Transition IV" follows the Law Reform Projects of UK Insurance Contract Law and the Draft Chinese Maritime Code, as well as significant developments in case law. This event will attempt to examine the current trends in maritime law and its implementation in China and the United Kingdom, and bridging the gap between Chinese Law and English Law. This will be achieved by generating cross-border and cross-system discussions on important issues of international maritime law, trade and practice, at a time of considerable legal change within two jurisdictions respectively. The conference is targeted at legal academics, policy makers in the field, specialist legal practitioners and law students.

iCLIC/ILAWS event - In Conversation with Bill Patry, Author of Patry on Copyright and Senior Copyright Counsel at Google

Mon, 25 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

[2019/03/2516:002019/03/2517:00] The son of an Irish mother and French Canadian father, Bill Patry grew up in Marin County, California. He works for Google, but from home, away from all the real decision making, but this allows him to ride his bike, when it is not raining or snowing. He has written a lot about copyright law, way too much in fact, and he is embarrassed by both of the trade books he wrote and wishes he had a droit de rétractation. The session, organized by Dr Eleonora Rosati (Associate Professor in Intellectual Property Law and iCLIC/ILAWS Director). If you would like to attend, but you are not an Intellectual Property student, please email e.rosati@soton.ac.uk

Southampton Law School's Annual Law Fair

Wed, 21 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

[2018/11/2118:0020:30] Law event

Inaugural Stefan Cross Lecture - Myths and Legends of Equal Pay

Thu, 15 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

[2018/11/1518:452018/11/1519:45] We are delighted to welcome Southampton Law School alumnus, Mr Stefan Cross QC for this distinguished lecture, organised by the School’s recently launched Stefan Cross Centre for Women, Equality & Law. Mr Stefan Cross QC will be addressing the following questions according to his own personal experiences: 50 Years after the legend of the Ford Dagenham strike, is it a myth that Dagenham women won equal pay for themselves and others, and who are the legendary figures in equal pay litigation since 1970? Is Carrie Gracie, who resigned from her post as China editor at the BBC in 2018 over pay discrimination claims, a legend? Was the Equal Pay Act legendary or not? Is the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Gender Pay Gap a myth? Is trade union support for equal pay a myth? Is Gender Pay Gap reporting a myth? Do we still need equal pay legislation?

The future of EU Data Protection Law: what about the ePrivacy Regulation?

Fri, 25 May 2018 00:00:00 +0100

[2018/05/25] iLaws event

CJS and Death Penalty Casework Clinic Seminar: Capital Defence in the US

The Centre for Justice Studies and the SLS Death Penalty Casework Clinic would like to invite you to a seminar with guest speakers Christy Dickerson and Shayla J Galloway. The talk will be open to interested students from LAWS3089 Miscarriages of Justice and LAWS2024 Criminal Justice.

Shayla Galloway has been practising criminal law for 16 years, and is currently a Capital Trial Attorney at the Metro Capital Defender’s Office. Shayla has been involved in all aspects of capital plea negotiations, and has worked as an Adjunct Professor at Brown Mackie College.

Christy Dickerson has worked diligently for 15 years on behalf of clients facing the death penalty in Georgia, with multiple open cases currently pending trial. Christy has a degree in Criminal Justice, a Master’s degree in Psychology and has worked as a mitigation investigator.

Shayla and Christy will also be joined by the Director of Amicus, Margot Ravenscroft, alongside Amicus staff, Diana Rescaldani and Allan Harrod. The SLS Death Penalty Casework Clinic is affiliated with Amicus to fight for justice on death row.

Margot joined Amicus in 2007 after working for the Bar Pro Bono Unit. Previously she worked in California at the offices of Clarence & Dyer LLP on death penalty appeals alongside white collar crime matters. On returning to the UK she continued in the field working pro bono on Jamaican capital cases while working in re-insurance litigation at Barlow Lyde & Gilbert LLP. She also served on the National Pro Bono Committee and on the organising committee for the UK's first Pro Bono Conference.

The Rights of the Sovereign: Criminal Law as Public Law

Speaker: Professor Peter Ramsay (School of Law, LSE)

Abstract: In this paper I outline a concept of the criminal law as public law. I analyse the elements of Glanville Williams’s formal definition of criminal law to identify the generic content of the substantive criminal law. This analysis demonstrates that English criminal law is comprised of rights of sovereignty, rights on which the sovereign stakes the political authority of the state. I integrate this account of criminal law with Martin Loughlin’s ‘political jurisprudence’ of public law. I argue that this social-scientific concept provides a superior explanatory account of criminal law to that offered by moral philosophical theories; and that it reveals an immanent standard of normative critique arising from the law’s own essence, as opposed to one imposed by external moral or political theories.

The open access paper for the talk, Professor Peter Ramsay's Rights of the Sovereign: Criminal Law as Public Law, can be found online here.

Calibrating Women’s Equality: How Closely Should Courts Scrutinise Claims that Women’s Equality Should be Constitutionally Limited?

If the state argues it must impose income poverty on women to incentivize labour force participation, should the court accept this argument, or should it interrogate its veracity? Or if the state claims that excluding women from certain roles in the military is necessary to protect operational effectiveness should the court take this argument at face-value, or should it demand strongly persuasive evidence that this argument is true? Calibrating the intensity of the standard of review at the justification-stage dramatically shapes the outcome of women’s claims for equality. A light-touch standard of review correlates with courts permitting women’s equality rights to be justifiably limited whereas an intense standard tracks with courts refusing to limit women’s equality. Yet despite equality judgments that run hundreds of pages long, courts rarely openly engage with the degree of scrutiny to apply at the justification-stage. There is an extensive amount of theorising on the standard of review, most developed in context of human rights writ large, not within the specific context of women’s equality. This gap matters. Many of the doctrines that underpin the calibration exercise do not ring true for women’s constitutional right to equality and when these doctrines are used in practice, they are harnessed to ring-fence decisions to pursue policies that burden women’s equality from any degree of scrutiny. This presentation makes the case that the severity of women’s inequality in tandem with the fundamental importance of women’s legal right to equality requires courts to always undertake a searching of justification assessment when deciding whether breaches of women’s equality rights can be justified.

Speaker information

Meghan Campbell is a Reader in International Human Rights Law at the University of Birmingham specialising in women's equality rights particularly focusing on issues of poverty.

Deserted Wives and Economic Divorce in 19th-Century England and Wales

Based on her latest book, published by Hart Publishing in November, Deserted Wives and Economic Divorce in Nineteenth Century England and Wales: ‘For Wives Alone,’ Jennifer Aston will be talking about Section 21 of the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 and its significant impact on previously invisible married women in the 19th century.

Tens of thousands of women used this little-known section of the Act to apply for orders from local magistrates' courts to reclaim their rights of testation, inheritance, property ownership, and (dependent on local franchise qualifications) ability to vote. By examining the orders that were made and considering the women who applied for them, the book challenges the mistaken belief that Victorian England and Wales were nations of married, cohabiting couples.

The detailed statistical analysis and rich case studies examined provide a totally new perspective on the legal status and experiences of married women in England and Wales. Although many thousands of orders were granted between 1858 and 1900, their details remain unknown and unexamined, primarily because census records did not consistently record dissolved marriages and there is no central index of applications made.

Speaker information

Jennifer Aston is an Associate Professor in Law. She joined Northumbria University as a Lecturer in History in 2017, before moving to Northumbria Law School in 2024. She previously held the EHS Eileen Power Research Fellowship at the Institute of Historical Research and research positions at the universities of Oxford and Hull. She is also an Associate Member of the Centre for Workforce Futures at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.

Her research interests include gender and small business ownership, bankruptcy, and the law. Apart from the book that is the subject of her talk, she is the author of Female Entrepreneurship in Nineteenth-Century England: Engagement in the Urban Economy (Palgrave, 2016).

She has published widely on the interaction between gender and legal and financial institutions, including the edited collections Women and the Land 1500-1900 (Boydell, 2019) and Female Entrepreneurs in the Long Nineteenth Century: A Global Perspective (Palgrave, 2020), and articles in journals including Economic History Review, Business History and the Journal of Legal History. Her article, ‘Petitions to the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes: A New Methodological Approach to the History of Divorce, 1857–1923’ in the Journal of Legal History was Highly Commended by the judges of the British Records Association’s Harley Prize 2022.

Dr Megan Pearson Presents at MLR Reproductive Life in the Workplace Seminar

This seminar brought together legal professionals, academics, students, and trade unionists to explore the complex legal challenges at the intersection of justice, employment law rights, and living a reproductive life in the workplace. Dr Pearson’s paper was on 'Work/Life Balance Rights: Foregrounding Care in Work?' and considered the greater priority given to work/life balance rights in the Employment Rights Bill currently going through Parliament.

The full programme of speakers from the seminar can be viewed here: https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/about-us/news-events/events/2024/12/modern-law-review---seminar/

Dr S Chelvan Awarded Honorary Doctorate from the Open University

Dr Chelvan practices from 33 Bedford Row Chambers, where he joined as Head of Immigration and Public Law in November 2020.

The Open University award of an Honourary Doctorate is in recognition of Dr Chelvan's "services to the educationally underprivileged. ... [N]ominated for this award as a result of [his] exceptional efforts to improve the welfare of LGBTQ+ people seeking asylum in the UK and from [his] research into refugee law based on gender and sexual identity. [Dr Chelvan's] works sits well with the ethos of the Open University here in the UK, where we are known for our innovation, flexibility, accessibility and social justice mission."

Dr Chelvan is recognised by the legal profession as the pre-eminent legal expert on LGBT asylum law in the UK. Dr Chelvan’s work demonstrates his commitment to the rule of law and to promoting the rights and welfare of some of the most marginalised members of our society.

Chelvan's acceptance speech can be viewed here: https://t.co/3Q3yyWTi4x

Congratulations Chelvan!

Dr Andrea Maria Pelliconi Visits Sahrawi Refugee Camps for Legal Status of Western Sahara Research

The Congress, themed “The Legal Status of Western Sahara and the Issue of Natural Resources,” brought together diplomats, jurists, academics, and representatives from national and international organisations to discuss the legal and political dimensions of the Western Sahara conflict. During her stay, Pelliconi visited key institutions in the camps, including the Parliament, schools, the central hospital, the Ministry of Equality (where she met with Minister Ms Salamo Aleycom), the Anti-Mine Association, the Association of the Families of Sahrawi Prisoners and Disappeared (AFAPREDESA), and the Museum of Resistance, among others. At the Congress, she contributed to discussions on the right to self-determination and independence in the African human rights system, the recent decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the Front Polisario II case, and climate vulnerability amid forced displacement.

This activity offered critical insights into the lived realities of the Sahrawi community and facilitated the development of academic and professional networks. It also strengthened engagement with research communities focused on international human rights, self-determination, and resource exploitation in conflict zones, raising awareness of human rights violations in Western Sahara. Pelliconi's participation was sponsored by the British Academy-Leverhulme Small Grant scheme.

SLS Death Penalty Casework Clinic Wins Champions of Justice Award

Staff and students have worked tirelessly performing document review on multiple death penalty cases, providing pro bono assistance to legal teams in the southern United States resulting in some exceptional outcomes. The DPCC, alongside the Centre for Justice Studies, recently hosted one of these teams for a lecture explaining just how impactful the work of DPCC volunteers has been in their cases. Students are able to volunteer for the DPCC across all undergraduate year groups, but must undergo a rigorous application and interview process overseen by Clinic Co-Directors Dr Rose Tempowski (Senior Teaching Fellow, SLS) and Mark Telford (Principal Teaching Fellow, SLS). Currently, 20 students are volunteering their time on a weekly basis and the Law School, through the Prof. Andrew Rutherford Capital Defence Bursary, has sponsored two recent graduates to undertake placements with capital defence teams in the United States.

Bestowed by Amicus, the award winners were selected by an independent panel comprising Professor Robin Maher (George Washington University, former Director of the ABA Death Penalty Representation Project); Dr Tunde Okewale OBE (Doughty Street Chambers) and HHJ Sarah Whitehouse KC (Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey)). The event featured a link up to Ohio's death row, with Keith LaMar sharing spoken word poetry accompanied by pianist Albert Marquès and Grammy award-winning saxophonist Jean Toussaint.

Dr S Chelvan Awarded Honorary Doctorate from the Open University

Congratulations Chelvan!

Masterclass on Environment, Conflict, and Economic, Social, and Cultural (ESC) Rights with Pratik Purswani (Jindal University, Faculty of Law)

Environmental harm and climate change increasingly intersect with human rights, impacting both civil-political as well as economic, social, and cultural (ESC) rights. The Human Rights Council, since 2021, has recognised the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a human right, with the right to be free from adverse effects of climate change as a derivate right. While this inclusion has been welcomed, its applicability and enforceability remain particularly complicated in the context of armed conflicts. In such situations, environmental degradation is not just an ecological issue—it directly undermines ESC rights, such as the right to health, water, food, and an adequate standard of living, particularly for vulnerable populations.

Conventionally, during armed conflicts, while international humanitarian law (IHL) serves as the lex specialis, international human rights law (IHRL) and international environmental law (IEL) continue to apply, necessitating a harmonized approach to legal protections. This Masterclass will critically examine how ESC rights are affected by environmental harm in conflict situations. It will explore legal limitations and derogations under human rights treaties, the co-applicability of IHL and IHRL, and the evolving discourse on environmental protections within armed conflict. Through case studies—including historical examples like the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam and the burning of oil wells in Kuwait—the session will highlight the legal gaps, challenges of enforcement, and emerging frameworks for safeguarding environmental and human rights.

Please register your attendance here.

Speaker information

Pratik Purswani is an Assistant Professor at Jindal Global Law School, India. He teaches courses like Public International Law and Human Rights Law and Theory. Pratik completed his LL.B. from Symbiosis Law School, Pune, in 2019 and then read Public International Law during his LL.M. at Leiden University (2019-20). His research primarily focuses on international environmental law and climate change law, as well as their interface with human rights and humanitarian law.

Pratik is a current International Visiting Fellow at the Southampton Institute of Arts and Humanities. He is also an Assistant Editor at Jindal Global Law Review, and an Assistant Director at the Centre for Postgraduate Legal Studies (CPGLS). Pratik is also a qualified (non-practising) lawyer in India and is enrolled with the Bar Council of India.

Find out more about our School

Climate (Im)Mobility: Legal and Policy Pathways to Displacement and Entrapment in the Global Climate Emergency

We’ll have speakers from or based in Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Pacific. The programme can be found here: Workshop Program - Climate ImMobilities 09 June 20_v2.docx. The workshop is sponsored by the Social & Legal Studies journal and the Southampton Law School. It is convened in collaboration with Sara Arapiles (University of Lund, Sweden), and 2025 Visiting Fellow at Oxford's Refugee Studies Centre and Pratik Purswani (Jindal Global Law School, India), who is a 2025 International Visiting Fellow with the Southampton's Institute for Arts and Humanities (SIAH) who will be joining in person. This workshop builds on a previous seminar on Climate Change and Migration organised last year at the University of Nottingham, sponsored by the Socio-Legal Studies Association. The papers will be published in a Special Issue of the Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies.

Research Workshop on AI, Equality and the Law

Call for Abstracts:

Themes and questions

We welcome submissions that engage with the broad theme of AI, Equality and the Law. Papers may address, but need not be limited to, the following themes and questions:

Women, Equality and AI:

feminist perspectives on AI ethics and governance; gendered impacts of AI in the context of reproductive health, domestic work, or caregiving.

Labour market inequality and AI:

the distributive impacts of workplace AI; the regulation of platform work and algorithmic management; algorithms and the right to equal pay for equal work.

AI as a solution to inequality:

applying AI to achieve equality through accountability, transparency, and explainability in AI systems.

AI and discrimination:

AI and its relationship to any form of discrimination; intersectionality and AI; de-colonial approaches to AI governance and accountability; racialised impacts and uses of AI; challenges and opportunities of AI for securing disability justice.

Submission Guidelines

The organising committee invites abstract submissions (max 500 words) to scclaw@soton.ac.uk
The deadline for submission is 5th Jan 2026.
Acceptance decisions will be communicated by the end of January.

Further information

There is no fee for attending the workshop. Limited travel and accommodation expenses may be available for participants who lack access to institutional funds.

For any queries, please contact the Conference Organizing Committee at scclaw@soton.ac.uk

New Technology, AI and Gender Equality: Problems and Solutions

Call for Abstracts:

Themes and questions

We welcome submissions that engage with the broad theme of AI, Equality and the Law. Papers may address, but need not be limited to, the following themes and questions:

Women, Equality and AI:

- feminist perspectives on AI ethics and governance; gendered impacts of AI in the context of reproductive health, domestic work, or caregiving.

Labour market inequality and AI:

- the distributive impacts of workplace AI; the regulation of platform work and algorithmic management; algorithms and the right to equal pay for equal work.

AI as a solution to inequality:

- applying AI to achieve equality through accountability, transparency, and explainability in AI systems.

AI and discrimination:

- AI and its relationship to any form of discrimination.

- intersectionality and AI.

- de-colonial approaches to AI governance and accountability.

- racialised impacts and uses of AI.

- challenges and opportunities of AI for securing disability justice.

Submission Guidelines

- The organising committee invites abstract submissions (max 500 words) to scclaw@soton.ac.uk

- The deadline for submission is 5th Jan 2026.

- Acceptance decisions will be communicated by the end of January.

Further information

- There is no fee for attending the workshop. Limited travel and accommodation expenses may be available for participants who lack access to institutional funds.

- For any queries, please contact the Conference Organizing Committee at scclaw@soton.ac.uk

Prosecuting Extremism: why choices of criminal law, war, or terrorism matter

Title: ‘Prosecuting Extremism: why choices of criminal law, war, or terrorism matter’

Abstract: When and why do states define and prosecute harmful conduct as criminal, and when as war or terror? What political and instrumental considerations inform these choices? And how and why do they change over time, and with what outcomes? The pressure to avert future atrocities not only informs preventive laws and measures but increasingly impels states to identify and tackle extremist ideologies ‘further up the field’. There is no internationally agreed legal definition of extremism and whereas most countries target ‘violent extremism’, violence is notably absent from the UK definition. Eluding law, extremism is prosecuted in the UK not through courts or military tribunals but on our streets, in our communities, and online. Exploring the UK’s struggle to define and tackle the growing threat posed by extremism, reveals difficult challenges for democracy, rights and the rule of law.
Professor Lucia Zedner is author or co-editor of 11 books including Privatising Border Control (2022), Changing Contours of Criminal Justice (2016), Preventive Justice (2014), Security (2009) and Criminal Justice (2004). She is currently a Commissioner on a UK Independent Commission on UK Counter-Terrorism.

Prosecuting Extremism: why choices of criminal law, war, or terrorism matter

Title: ‘Prosecuting Extremism: why choices of criminal law, war, or terrorism matter’

The direct application of customary international law as a basis to prosecute core international crimes: Recent developments in, and lessons from South Africa

Apartheid, the system of racial domination and oppression that was practised in South Africa until 1994, is a wrong under international treaty law (notably, the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the 1973 Apartheid Convention) and most commentators agree that it is also a wrong under customary international law. The Apartheid Convention, which is a hybrid human rights-penal treaty, also criminalises apartheid under international law. Apartheid is furthermore listed as a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The question of whether the wrong of apartheid’s customary status, rather than written law via criminal statute, can serve as the basis for a prosecution in a domestic criminal court has recently been addressed in South Africa. The 14 April 2025 ruling by the high court in Johannesburg, in the historic first prosecution of two individuals for the crime of apartheid under customary international law, concerns various important issues, two of which are of relevance for the direct application of international criminal law in domestic courts. First, the question of whether apartheid has crystalised as a crime under customary international law at the time of alleged commission of the underlying criminal acts alleged in the indictment, namely February 1982. Second, whether the long delay in the prosecution of the alleged crimes constitutes a barrier to prosecution under the applicable statute of limitation. The first issue is of particular importance for the development of state practice on customary international criminal law pertaining to the crime against humanity of apartheid.

This presentation puts the doctrinal and procedural issues in a broader context – the debate on how to deal with colonial and historical atrocities. The direct application of customary international (criminal) law is contentious even though it is viewed as a tool to fight impunity; to ‘pierce the colonial veil’. This raises doctrinal and normative questions, not least of all the principle of legality – nullum crimen sine lege – which is a foundational principle in criminal law and protected under domestic and international human rights law.

_______________

Gerhard Kemp is professor of criminal law at UWE Bristol, UK, and extraordinary professor of public law at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. He has published widely on international and comparative criminal law and serves on the board of editors of The Journal of International Criminal Justice (OUP). Recent publications on the topic at hand include:

G Kemp & W Nortje, “Prosecuting the crime against humanity of apartheid. The historic first indictment in South Africa and the application of customary international law” 21 (2023) Journal of International Criminal Justice, 405-430
G Kemp & V Kattan, “The significance of South Africa’s accession to the 1973 Apartheid Convention and suggestions for improving the treaty text”, 31 May 2024, Opinio Juris
G Kemp, “Criminal court in South Africa confirms charges in historic first prosecution of the crime against humanity of apartheid”, 29 April 2025, Opinio Juris

Evidence-based sentencing: lessons from New Zealand case law

Professor Kris Gledhill (Auckland University of Technology Law School)

This talk would explore recent New Zealand jurisprudence on the use of social science evidence in sentencing decisions. Drawing on cases interpreting the Sentencing Act 2002—a statute structurally similar to England and Wales' Sentencing Act 2020—the presentation might examine how courts have engaged with evidence regarding deterrence, the explanatory power of systemic deprivation, and neuroscience research on cognitive development in young adults and those with learning differences.

The discussion could consider how these evidential developments challenge judges to produce sentences that rely less on jurisprudential assumptions underlying traditional justifications for punishment, and more on empirical evidence about human behaviour and decision-making. Given the statutory parallels between New Zealand and England and Wales, the talk would offer a comparative perspective on integrating social science into sentencing practice.

Prof Gledhill's broader research project seeks to compile social science evidence relevant to the purposes, principles, and aggravating and mitigating factors set out in sentencing legislation, alongside original research into deterrence theory as it applies to those subject to criminal justice processes.

Annual Lecture 2026

Colm is Professor of Constitutional and Human Rights Law at University College London (UCL) and Vice-Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Laws. A graduate of University College Cork and King's Inns, he has published extensively in the fields of comparative constitutional, human rights and anti-discrimination law.

He has also acted as specialist legal adviser to the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Women & Equalities Committee of the UK Parliament, as well as a range of national and international organisations including the ILO and the European Commission. From 2006 – 2016 he was a member of the European Committee on Social Rights of the Council of Europe (serving as Vice-President of the Committee from 2010 – 2014). Since 2008 Colm has been a member of the academic advisory board of Blackstone Chambers in London.

In 2024, he was nominated by the Government of Ireland as a candidate for the European Court of Human Rights, and his work has been cited by the Court of Justice of the EU and the Irish Supreme Court.

Modern Studies in Property Law 2026

Please be advised: Agenda, timings and keynote speaker to be announced soon.

We are looking forward seeing you!

Discrimination Against Older Women in the Workplace

The presentation seeks to uncover the role of the law in tackling the numerous intersectional inequalities facing older women and the normative obstacles to achieving equality. These include the exceptionalism often associated with age-based discrimination and the lack of recognition and protection against forms of multiple and intersectional discrimination. Through the lens of the Uncertain Futures Project, it highlights the impact of these normative gaps in perpetuating intergenerational stagnation of inequality and argues for the importance of a robust right-based approach to equality to achieving a more certain and secure future for older persons.

Elaine holds a first class honours BCL degree (2004) and a PhD (2009) from University College Cork, Ireland. Her PhD was funded by the E.J. Phelan Fellowship in International Law. She conducted her postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, Munich (2012).

The main focus of her research is employment law. She is currently conducting projects on age discrimination in employment, employment rights and their extension to irregular immigrants, the disconnect between employment law and immigration law, and the impact of this disconnect on the rights of immigrants to equality.

Dr Megan Pearson Presents at MLR Reproductive Life in the Workplace Seminar

The full programme of speakers from the seminar can be viewed here: https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/about-us/news-events/events/2024/12/modern-law-review---seminar/

Events feed

Title: Workers’ Rights in an Age of Algorithmic Management

Data protection and transnational institutional collaboration in the field of data protection in the post-Brexit era

Studying Law in the UK

Workshop: Equal Pay: 50 Years On

CLASS, SEX AND THE LAW

Anglo-Chinese Maritime Law & Practice in Transition IV

iCLIC/ILAWS event - In Conversation with Bill Patry, Author of Patry on Copyright and Senior Copyright Counsel at Google

Southampton Law School's Annual Law Fair

Inaugural Stefan Cross Lecture - Myths and Legends of Equal Pay

The future of EU Data Protection Law: what about the ePrivacy Regulation?

CJS and Death Penalty Casework Clinic Seminar: Capital Defence in the US

The Rights of the Sovereign: Criminal Law as Public Law

Calibrating Women’s Equality: How Closely Should Courts Scrutinise Claims that Women’s Equality Should be Constitutionally Limited?

Speaker information

Deserted Wives and Economic Divorce in 19th-Century England and Wales

Speaker information

Dr Megan Pearson Presents at MLR Reproductive Life in the Workplace Seminar

Dr S Chelvan Awarded Honorary Doctorate from the Open University

Dr Andrea Maria Pelliconi Visits Sahrawi Refugee Camps for Legal Status of Western Sahara Research

SLS Death Penalty Casework Clinic Wins Champions of Justice Award

Dr S Chelvan Awarded Honorary Doctorate from the Open University

Masterclass on Environment&comma; Conflict&comma; and Economic&comma; Social&comma; and Cultural (ESC) Rights with Pratik Purswani (Jindal University&comma; Faculty of Law)

Speaker information

Suggested Readings

Find out more about our School

Climate (Im)Mobility: Legal and Policy Pathways to Displacement and Entrapment in the Global Climate Emergency

Research Workshop on AI&comma; Equality and the Law

Call for Abstracts:

Themes and questions

Women, Equality and AI:

Labour market inequality and AI:

AI as a solution to inequality:

AI and discrimination:

Submission Guidelines

Further information

New Technology&comma; AI and Gender Equality: Problems and Solutions

Call for Abstracts:

Themes and questions

Women, Equality and AI:

Labour market inequality and AI:

AI as a solution to inequality:

AI and discrimination:

Submission Guidelines

Further information

Prosecuting Extremism: why choices of criminal law&comma; war&comma; or terrorism matter

Prosecuting Extremism: why choices of criminal law&comma; war&comma; or terrorism matter

The direct application of customary international law as a basis to prosecute core international crimes: Recent developments in&comma; and lessons from South Africa

Evidence-based sentencing: lessons from New Zealand case law

Annual Lecture 2026

Modern Studies in Property Law 2026

Discrimination Against Older Women in the Workplace

Dr Megan Pearson Presents at MLR Reproductive Life in the Workplace Seminar

Masterclass on Environment, Conflict, and Economic, Social, and Cultural (ESC) Rights with Pratik Purswani (Jindal University, Faculty of Law)

Research Workshop on AI, Equality and the Law

New Technology, AI and Gender Equality: Problems and Solutions

Prosecuting Extremism: why choices of criminal law, war, or terrorism matter

Prosecuting Extremism: why choices of criminal law, war, or terrorism matter

The direct application of customary international law as a basis to prosecute core international crimes: Recent developments in, and lessons from South Africa