Public Lectures from the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge

By Faculty of Law, University of CambridgeNews Education Government

Public Lectures from the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge episodes

June 04, 2020 Webinar: 'Criminal Justice in a Pandemic: The Prisons'
In these two public webinars from the Faculty of Law at the University of Cambridge, the panels explore the enormous additional pressures that the pandemic has imposed on the criminal justice system.
In this second webinar we look at the current conditions in English prisons and explore why more has not been done for those in custody throughout the pandemic.
At the beginning of April, the government announced plans for the early release of up to 4,000 prisoners in England and Wales, to reduce prison overcrowding and to slow the rate of infection among prisoners and staff. The Prison Governors Association and Public Health England argued that releasing 10,000 - 15,000 prisoners was needed. By late April, though, a mere 33 prisoners had been released. What went wrong? What has happened throughout May? What have been the implications for the welfare/health/progression of both prisoners and staff? What are the lessons to be learnt now, and for the future - within the prison and probation systems?
Discussing the issues:
Chair: Nicky Padfield, Professor of Criminal and Penal Justice
Nicky is joined by a panel of experts:
- Andrea Albutt (President, Prison Governors Association);
- Richard Garside (Director, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies);
- Laura Janes (Legal Director, Howard League for Penal Reform);
- (Retired) Judge John Samuels QC (ex-Parole Board and President, Prisoners' Education Trust); and
- Jessie Smith (Cambridge PhD candidate in Law, solicitor, formerly specialising in national security).
1 hr 2 min
May 29, 2020 Conversation with Professor Rochell C Dreyfuss
Professor Rochell C Dreyfuss was the Arthur Goodhart Visiting Professor of Legal Science for the academic years 2019-20. She was interviewed by video from the Goodhart Lodge on 28th April 2020.
For more information, see the Squire website at http://www.squire.law.cam.ac.uk/eminent_scholars/
1 hr 43 min
May 28, 2020 Webinar: 'Criminal Justice in a Pandemic: The courts'
In these two public webinars from the Faculty of Law at the University of Cambridge, the panels explore the enormous additional pressures that the pandemic has imposed on the criminal justice system.
In the first event, our focus is the courts and we explore the reality of daily life in magistrates’ courts and in the Crown Court, from bail applications to sentencing. What has happened to the right to trial by jury? What will be the impact of the pandemic on the rights of defendants and victims, both in the short and the long term? What are the lessons to be learnt from video-justice? Could HMCTS and the judiciary have been better prepared?
Discussing the issues:
Chair: Nicky Padfield, Professor of Criminal and Penal Justice
Nicky is joined by a panel of experts:
- Amanda Pinto Q.C. (Chair of The Bar Council);
- Simon Davis (President of The Law Society);
- Ian Kelcey (Criminal Solicitor Advocate); and
- Abimbola Johnson (Criminal Barrister).
1 hr 1 min
May 28, 2020 Webinar: 'Criminal Justice in a Pandemic: The courts' (audio)
In these two public webinars from the Faculty of Law at the University of Cambridge, the panels explore the enormous additional pressures that the pandemic has imposed on the criminal justice system.
In the first event, our focus is the courts and we explore the reality of daily life in magistrates’ courts and in the Crown Court, from bail applications to sentencing. What has happened to the right to trial by jury? What will be the impact of the pandemic on the rights of defendants and victims, both in the short and the long term? What are the lessons to be learnt from video-justice? Could HMCTS and the judiciary have been better prepared?
Discussing the issues:
Chair: Nicky Padfield, Professor of Criminal and Penal Justice
Nicky is joined by a panel of experts:
- Amanda Pinto Q.C. (Chair of The Bar Council);
- Simon Davis (President of The Law Society);
- Ian Kelcey (Criminal Solicitor Advocate); and
- Abimbola Johnson (Criminal Barrister).
This item provides an audio source.
1 hr 2 min
May 20, 2020 The repatriation of offshore finance to onshore: transnational legal orders and the Cayman Islands experience
A webinar hosted by the Cambridge Socio-Legal Group.
May Hen-Smith is a PhD student in Sociology at Cambridge. She is a former tax collector from Canada Revenue Agency and studies offshore financial centres. She is also co-founder of the Cambridge Tax Discussion Group, a student-led discussion group which began in 2015 and continues to meet weekly during term to talk about all things tax. Their website is taxtaxtax.tax
More information can be found at:
https://research.sociology.cam.ac.uk/profile/may-hen-smith
This presentation will discuss my PhD work which takes an ethnographic approach to the study of Cayman Islands professionals to understand how an offshore financial centre operates from the perspective of the professionals who live and work in them. It offers a close-examination of a single jurisdiction, one that is heavily referred to by critics of offshore, and brings new empirical data based on 13-months of fieldwork from a jurisdiction heavily used by some of the largest financial transactions in the world.
Supported by the Centre for Tax Law.
1 hr 9 min
May 20, 2020 The repatriation of offshore finance to onshore: transnational legal orders and the Cayman Islands experience (audio)
A webinar hosted by the Cambridge Socio-Legal Group.
May Hen-Smith is a PhD student in Sociology at Cambridge. She is a former tax collector from Canada Revenue Agency and studies offshore financial centres. She is also co-founder of the Cambridge Tax Discussion Group, a student-led discussion group which began in 2015 and continues to meet weekly during term to talk about all things tax. Their website is taxtaxtax.tax
More information can be found at:
https://research.sociology.cam.ac.uk/profile/may-hen-smith
This presentation will discuss my PhD work which takes an ethnographic approach to the study of Cayman Islands professionals to understand how an offshore financial centre operates from the perspective of the professionals who live and work in them. It offers a close-examination of a single jurisdiction, one that is heavily referred to by critics of offshore, and brings new empirical data based on 13-months of fieldwork from a jurisdiction heavily used by some of the largest financial transactions in the world.
Supported by the Centre for Tax Law.
This entry provides an audio source.
1 hr 9 min
May 20, 2020 The repatriation of offshore finance to onshore: transnational legal orders and the Cayman Islands experience: May Hen-Smith
A webinar hosted by the Cambridge Socio-Legal Group.
May Hen-Smith is a PhD student in Sociology at Cambridge. She is a former tax collector from Canada Revenue Agency and studies offshore financial centres. She is also co-founder of the Cambridge Tax Discussion Group, a student-led discussion group which began in 2015 and continues to meet weekly during term to talk about all things tax. Their website is taxtaxtax.tax
More information can be found at:
https://research.sociology.cam.ac.uk/profile/may-hen-smith
This presentation will discuss my PhD work which takes an ethnographic approach to the study of Cayman Islands professionals to understand how an offshore financial centre operates from the perspective of the professionals who live and work in them. It offers a close-examination of a single jurisdiction, one that is heavily referred to by critics of offshore, and brings new empirical data based on 13-months of fieldwork from a jurisdiction heavily used by some of the largest financial transactions in the world.
Supported by the Centre for Tax Law.
1 hr 10 min
May 14, 2020 Joint seminar: 'The 'Chimera' of Parenthood'
Speaker: Dr Brian Sloan, College Lecturer & Fellow in Law, Robinson College, Cambridge
A joint seminar between Cambridge Reproduction and the Cambridge Socio-Legal Group.
In 2015, The Independent newspaper reported the case of a man who had ‘failed’ a paternity test in the United States because the genetic material in his saliva was different from that in his sperm. This was apparently the first reported instance of a paternity test being ‘fooled’ by a ‘human chimera’. Such a chimera has extra genes, in this instance absorbed from a twin lost in early pregnancy. The result was that the true genetic father of the man’s son was the man’s deceased twin, who had never been born. Cases of chimeras potentially present a challenge to legal systems, given their frequent emphasis on genetics in determining parenthood. This seminar will explore the likely practical response of English Law to the situation of a potential chimera, with reference inter alia to the human rights of all family members involved. The seminar will then consider what the phenomenon of the chimera might tell us about our understanding of parenthood and the differences between biological motherhood and fatherhood respectively. It will advocate the recognition of the chimeric person as the ‘true’ legal father but point out that this may require fatherhood to be understood as more of a ‘process’ than is often realised.
Brian Sloan is College Lecturer & Fellow in Law, Robinson College, Cambridge and a member of the Cambridge Family Law Centre. His research focuses on issues including care of both adults and children. He is the author/editor of several books, most recently Spaces of Care (Hart, 2020, edited with Loraine Gelsthorpe and Perveez Mody). Several of his many articles concern the law of adoption and parenthood.
45 min
May 14, 2020 Joint seminar: 'The 'Chimera' of Parenthood' (audio)
Speaker: Dr Brian Sloan, College Lecturer & Fellow in Law, Robinson College, Cambridge
A joint seminar between Cambridge Reproduction and the Cambridge Socio-Legal Group.
In 2015, The Independent newspaper reported the case of a man who had ‘failed’ a paternity test in the United States because the genetic material in his saliva was different from that in his sperm. This was apparently the first reported instance of a paternity test being ‘fooled’ by a ‘human chimera’. Such a chimera has extra genes, in this instance absorbed from a twin lost in early pregnancy. The result was that the true genetic father of the man’s son was the man’s deceased twin, who had never been born. Cases of chimeras potentially present a challenge to legal systems, given their frequent emphasis on genetics in determining parenthood. This seminar will explore the likely practical response of English Law to the situation of a potential chimera, with reference inter alia to the human rights of all family members involved. The seminar will then consider what the phenomenon of the chimera might tell us about our understanding of parenthood and the differences between biological motherhood and fatherhood respectively. It will advocate the recognition of the chimeric person as the ‘true’ legal father but point out that this may require fatherhood to be understood as more of a ‘process’ than is often realised.
Brian Sloan is College Lecturer & Fellow in Law, Robinson College, Cambridge and a member of the Cambridge Family Law Centre. His research focuses on issues including care of both adults and children. He is the author/editor of several books, most recently Spaces of Care (Hart, 2020, edited with Loraine Gelsthorpe and Perveez Mody). Several of his many articles concern the law of adoption and parenthood.
This entry provides an audio source.
45 min
May 14, 2020 The 'Chimera' of Parenthood: Brian Sloan
Speaker: Dr Brian Sloan, College Lecturer & Fellow in Law, Robinson College, Cambridge
A joint seminar between Cambridge Reproduction and the Cambridge Socio-Legal Group.
In 2015, The Independent newspaper reported the case of a man who had ‘failed’ a paternity test in the United States because the genetic material in his saliva was different from that in his sperm. This was apparently the first reported instance of a paternity test being ‘fooled’ by a ‘human chimera’. Such a chimera has extra genes, in this instance absorbed from a twin lost in early pregnancy. The result was that the true genetic father of the man’s son was the man’s deceased twin, who had never been born. Cases of chimeras potentially present a challenge to legal systems, given their frequent emphasis on genetics in determining parenthood. This seminar will explore the likely practical response of English Law to the situation of a potential chimera, with reference inter alia to the human rights of all family members involved. The seminar will then consider what the phenomenon of the chimera might tell us about our understanding of parenthood and the differences between biological motherhood and fatherhood respectively. It will advocate the recognition of the chimeric person as the ‘true’ legal father but point out that this may require fatherhood to be understood as more of a ‘process’ than is often realised.
Brian Sloan is College Lecturer & Fellow in Law, Robinson College, Cambridge and a member of the Cambridge Family Law Centre. His research focuses on issues including care of both adults and children. He is the author/editor of several books, most recently Spaces of Care (Hart, 2020, edited with Loraine Gelsthorpe and Perveez Mody). Several of his many articles concern the law of adoption and parenthood.
45 min

About Public Lectures from the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge

From the publisher's feed

The Faculty of Law has a thriving calendar of lectures and seminars spanning the entire gamut of legal, political and philosophical topics. Regular programmes are run by many of the Faculty's Research Centres, and a number of high-profile speakers who are leaders in their fields often speak at the Faculty on other occasions as well.