Three engaging workshops were recently held as part of an ongoing research project, Death and Law: Interdisciplinary Explorations.
The ‘Death and Law: Interdisciplinary Explorations’ project originated from the University of Aberdeen’s Death Studies interdisciplinary group, and it seeks to explore issues at the intersection of death studies and law. This academic hub is led by Dr Alisdair MacPherson and Dr Patricia Živković, working alongside Dr Jonathan Ainslie, Dr Nevena Jevremović, and Dr Euan West. The project aims to foster cross-disciplinary dialogue and will culminate in the publication of an edited volume with interdisciplinary chapters co-authored by colleagues from various relevant disciplines.
In August and September 2024, the leadership team convened three interdisciplinary workshops on personality, property, and harm and their intersections with death.
The overall focus on death allowed for exploring the boundaries of legal concepts that are otherwise seemingly straightforward. Although established law (primarily Scots law) was the starting point of the discussions, the workshops sought to push the boundaries of doctrinal law and incorporate diverse perspectives such as those from philosophy, medicine, communications and media, history, and anthropology. The specific themes included the extent to which legal personality persists after death, the “personality” of digital versions of the dead, the rights of nature, the treatment of property and human remains after death, and issues of harm and humanitarian law relating to dead persons.
Two of the workshops were held in August 2024. The first of these took place on 22 August 2024, and focused on Personality of the Dead, with the themes of:
- Personality Rights of the Dead, presented by Dr Jonathan Ainslie;
- Post-Mortem Digital Avatars/Versioning, presented by Dr Patricia Živković;
- Remembering the Dead: Critical Perspectives in Death and Law, presented by Dr Nevena Jevremović.
The second workshop, Death and Property, was held on 29 August 2024, with discussions on:
- Property and the Dead, presented by Dr Alisdair MacPherson;
- Property – Critical Perspectives in Death and Law, presented by Dr Nevena Jevremović;
- Post-Mortem Data as Property, presented by Dr Patricia Živković.
The third workshop explored Death and Harm, on 11 September 2024. This workshop examined issues arising from the following presentations:
- Remedies and the Dead, presented by Dr Jonathan Ainslie;
- Issues of Harm in Relation to Death, presented by Dr Euan West;
- Humanitarian Law and the Dead, presented by Professor Zeray Yihdego.
This series of workshops is part of a broader effort to deepen understanding of the legal dimensions of death from various perspectives. The insights gained from these sessions are an important milestone for further interdisciplinary analyses of key legal issues relating to death.
