Seminar Archive

Sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament versus Sovereignty of the Scots People

This seminar was cancelled

The current political situation in Scotland is essentially a clash between two different types of sovereignty: the legal sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament versus the political sovereignty of the Scots People. This raises issues about which form or sovereignty will prevail which is arguably in turn a question of the...

The draft Data Governance Act and Digital Services Act: a digital constitution for Europe or just too much regulation?

The talk will present the two draft regulations (DGA and DSA) put on the table by the European Commission at the end of 2020. The first one deals with the framework for data sharing. It aims at facilitating the access to data, for example from government to businesses or through...

International Investment Law and Developing Nations: the case of African countries

There are discussions before the UNCITRAL and ICSID on reviews of various procedural aspects of international investments arbitration. These all feed into the ‘backlash’ against international arbitration generally but as it relates to the difficulties states have encountered with international investment agreements they have signed and arbitral awards made against...

Is Private International Law a Pill that Courts Just Cannot Swallow? The Case of Matrimonial Property in Israel

Private International Law (PIL), and choice of law within it in particular, are both a scientific subject-matter and a practical tool. It is beautifully complex and painstakingly accurate. But is it practical? Are its intricate rules actually used to achieve the most accurate of outcomes? Or do users of the...

Participation in policy making and the duty to consult

Statutory duties to consult have proliferated in recent years. They appear to hold out a promise that the procedural protections of judicial review should be available not just in relation to decisions affecting individuals personally but to support political participation in a much broader sense.  Has the statutory conferral of...

Creating a Multilateral Investment Court: why and how?

Since 2015 the European Union and its Member States have been working to create a permanent body to resolve investment disputes. Discussions have started on the reform of investor state dispute settlement more generally and to create a Multilateral Investment Court specifically in the context of the United Nations Commission...

International Health Law: An Emerging Branch of International Law

During this seminar with Dr Pedro Villarreal, we will explore the nature and scope of international health law.

Between Truth and Power: The Legal Constructions of Informational Capitalism

Our current legal system is to a great extent the product of an earlier period of social and economic transformation. From the late 19th century through the mid-20th century, the U.S. legal system underwent profound, tectonic shifts. Today, struggles over ownership of information-age resources and accountability for information-age harms are producing new systemic changes. In Between Truth and...

Comparative Law's Pyrrhic Victory?

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, comparatists were excited. World was changing in such a way that it looked like a restart for a discipline that had been lurking in the shadows of legal academia for most of the twentieth century. Finally, comparative law had a change to come...

AI, Ethics and Global Governance: Reigning in Technology or Ethics-Washing

AI ethics initiatives and statements are currently proliferating around the world, from both public agencies and private companies, and also via multistakeholder initiatives. This presentation gives an overview of how the 'big jurisdictions' and geopolitical actors, namely the EU, US, China and India, are or are not addressing this topic....