Streams and current topics

Legal aid and other free legal advice are essential for safeguarding and enforcing many (if not all) legal rights. Yet there have been significant real terms cuts to legal aid eligibility and funding in many jurisdictions and, at the same time, cuts to local authority funding for legal advice on many social welfare issues. Within England and Wales, there has been explicit marketisation of legal aid, while in Scotland it is treated as a public service and, in some other jurisdictions, it is largely a matter of charity, pro bono or cause lawyering.

This current topic aims to explore research and trends in legal aid and access to legal advice and to create a ‘home’ for researchers interested in these issues, which have tended to be spread across different streams within the SLSA conference.

Papers are welcome on any aspect of this theme, including comparative legal aid structures and regimes; access and obstacles to legal advice or legal aid, whether for individuals seeking advice or for legal advisors wishing to provide advice; difficulties within national or regional legal aid schemes; shortages of legal advice for specific legal issues or specific geographical regions and sub-regions; consequences of the shortage of access to legal advice; empirical and other research on ways of addressing the legal advice crisis.

Convenors

Jo Wilding (University of Sussex) j.m.h.wilding@sussex.ac.uk

Emma Cooke (University of Kent) e.s.cooke@kent.ac.uk

The Administrative Justice stream attracts a broad range of papers, employing different methods and theoretical approaches, and covering different institutions involved in the delivery and oversight of public services. The stream welcomes papers addressing any aspect of administrative justice, including:

• Courts, tribunals, ombudsmen, public inquiries
• Access to justice and administrative justice reform
• Internal redress processes within government
• Algorithms in public administration
• First instance decision making by public authorities

Papers addressing current controversies and/or critical issues in administrative justice are particularly welcome:

• Digitisation and administrative justice

Papers may cover administrative justice topics across any area of government activity including: social security, immigration, education, housing, health services, social care, etc. The stream welcomes empirical, theoretical, doctrinal, and comparative work. Papers adopting novel methodologies and interdisciplinary approaches are particularly encouraged. The stream receives papers from the international academic community, as well as PhD students.

Convenors

Chris Gill chris.gill@glasgow.ac.uk

Susannah Paul susannah.paul@uws.ac.uk

Despite 75 years since the Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter, the legal regulation of armed conflict remains intractable, as evidenced by the International Committee of the Red Cross's finding that in 2024 there are 120 ongoing conflicts around the world. The intersection of armed conflict and law is relevant not only to ongoing conflicts that dominate public debate, such as Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan, but also to those participants who are interested in the question of post-conflict justice, a question that has become increasingly important as countries such as Colombia move towards new approaches to dealing with the past. This stream aims to bring together those socio-legal scholars working at the intersection of international humanitarian law, human rights, international criminal law, transitional justice and war studies to reflect on contemporary conflict and the place of law and justice from a socio-legal perspective. 

Luke Moffett l.moffett@qub.ac.uk

Felix Eduardo Torres Penago f.torres@bham.ac.uk

This stream seeks to provide a forum for discussing the links between art, culture, heritage and the law. It is open to researchers in law as well as in other disciplines. A wide range of papers will be welcomed which can include the legal and ethical regulation of art, culture and heritage as well as practical issues and socio-legal implications.

Papers may include, but are not limited to:

• Cultural values.
• The intersections of national and international law as well as private and public laws in the protection of cultural objects.
• The relationship between property and culture.
• Repatriation of cultural objects.
• Cultural rights and human rights.
• Cultural institutions and the law.
• The de-accessioning or acquisition of objects from museums and other cultural institutions.
• Legal protection of artistic works, the built environment and objects of cultural importance.
• The licit and illicit circulation of works of art and cultural objects.
• Minority rights and interests relevant to culture and heritage.
• Art and aesthetics and their relationship to law.

There may be a link with other streams such as indigenous and minority rights and Challenging Ownership and, in this case, an attempt will be made to have a group session.

Convenors

Janet Ulph ju13@leicester.ac.ukJanet 

Sophie Vigneron s.vigneron@kent.ac.uk

Given the numerous spheres in which human/animal interactions take place, the discipline of ‘animal law’ has grown globally over the last 200 years. This stream provides a space for those with an interest in animal law and rights, whether it be practice based or a theoretical focus, and welcomes interdisciplinary papers. We provide a space for legal academics to come together to discuss:  

• Animal rights and political theories  
• Animal law as a public good and social justice  
• Animal law, science and technology   
• The legal recognition of animal sentience  

Specific topics may include, but are not limited to:  

• Links between animal and human violence, including domestic abuse  
• Companion animals and family law  
• Criminal/animal welfare laws and enforcement  
• Animals in the food system  
• Wild animals (land and sea) 
• Theories of rights and constitutional law  
• Animals in entertainment  
• Animals in scientific procedures  
• Animal workers and labour laws  

This stream is open to papers from academics (with a particular welcome to ECRs), practitioners, and scholars from other disciplines who focus on animal welfare and/or rights with a socio-legal perspective.

Convenors

Gary Potter (Lancaster Law School, Lancaster University) g.potter2@lancaster.ac.uk

Joshua Jowitt (Newcastle Law School, Newcastle University) Joshua.jowitt@newcastle.ac.uk

Rachel Dunn (Leeds Law School, Leeds Beckett University) r.a.dunn@leedsbeckett.ac.uk

Rachel Heah (Lancaster Law School, Lancaster University) r.heah@lancaster.ac.uk

Since 2007 regulation of financial markets has evolved. Financial regulation became very topical in response to the Global Financial Crisis (2007-2010), which has brought the issues of regulation, supervision and crisis management to the forefront of legal, economic and policy debate. Furthermore, an increasing corpus of international financial ‘soft law’ such as Basel capital rules has emerged. Today, the economic system is experiencing new challenges in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine such as high inflation, post-pandemic recovery, and sustainable investments.

However, the main focus of such efforts and initiatives at international level is still on financial stability. The concept of financial stability brings together micro-prudential supervision and macro-prudential supervision, and highlights again the importance of central banks. The focus of macro-prudential supervision is the safety of the financial and economic system as a whole, the prevention of systemic risk. Micro-prudential supervision is the day-to-day supervision of individual financial institutions. The arrangements in regard to the allocation of macro- and micro- prudential supervision vary across countries, but as the IMF has documented, micro and macro policy makers must cooperate to create a virtuous financial ecosystem that can achieve a higher degree of financial stability.

Finally, the traditional functions of monetary sovereignty have been eroded by the fast progress of digitalisation. The evolution of payment systems is not risk-free, and it comes with the advent of a new tricotomy of virtual currencies: cryptocurrencies, stable coins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

In light of the importance of financial stability, abstracts are particularly welcome from papers focused on specific issues relating to sustainable investments, central banks’ sustainable mandates, Fintech banks, virtual currencies, and business conduct rules such as anti-money laundering rules. However, abstracts are also invited from any general areas of Financial Regulation, FinTech and Corporate Governance. We encourage scholars and practitioners around the world to submit abstracts.

Convenors

Alison Lui a.lui@ljmu.ac.uk

Priscilla Vitoh pav10@leicester.ac.uk

The Children’s Rights stream provides a platform for the dissemination and knowledge exchange of the latest children’s rights research. We welcome papers exploring children’s rights from all methodological, ethical, theoretical and normative perspectives at local, national, regional or international levels. We are particularly interested in contributions that study underexplored topics, and those that bring underrepresented methods and perspectives beyond the Western paradigm into children’s rights research.

We would also be interested in hosting panels that bring together diverse perspectives on a particular topic, new research projects, ideas, or to discuss groundbreaking research and new publications. If you are interested in sharing your research in a panel format, please email the convenors directly and we will provide you guidelines and expectations.

We welcome submissions from researchers at any stage of their postgraduate career and from any discipline as long as it engages directly with children’s rights.

Any questions, feel free to contact the convenors.

Convenors

Naomi Lott naomi.lott@ox.ac.uk 

Nicolas Brando n.brando@liverpool.ac.uk

Stable constitutionalism is generally regarded as one of the characteristics associated with advanced democracies. However, emerging research in comparative law and courts suggests that a significant degree of constitutionalism can exist without having an established democracy. Admittedly, many developing democracies have unstable constitutional histories, and the governments in these states are in a better position to control or manipulate constitutional courts that have no power of the purse or firearm. In recent decades, however, some real-world cases in developing democracies show that constitutional courts are increasingly successful in enforcing constitutions and making rulings against the interests of other governmental branches. How can we account for the presence of reasonably stable constitutionalism and independent courts in developing democracies? Which factors (or actors) promote or undermine the development of constitutionalism and judicial independence in developing democracies? This panel seeks to address the above questions and questions related thereto.

We call for papers that make new theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions to various aspect of constitutionalism in developing democracies. Specifically, we are interested in soliciting papers with the subjects including—but not limited to—judicialization of politics, politicisation of the judiciary, judicial independence, the rule of law, constitutional politics, comparative judicial politics, politics of human rights, the enforcement of socio-economic rights, and/or judicial decision-making. We also welcome papers on in-depth case studies for a single country or with a regional focus (such as Asia, Latin America, Africa, etc.).  Additionally, we encourage papers on legal theories developed in the context of developing democracies, comparative analysis of constitutionalism in established and developing democracies, and/or new empirical datasets on courts in developing democracies.

Convenor

Nauman Reayat nauman.reayat@leicester.ac.uk

This stream invites submissions on all areas of criminal law and criminal justice, whether national, comparative or international, and whether on theory, policy or practice. Substantive, methodological or theoretical approaches are welcomed, and papers on ‘work in progress’ will be considered provided the work is sufficiently developed. Both individual papers and panel submissions (of three related papers) may be submitted, and postgraduate students are also encouraged to submit abstracts.

Papers on sexual offences and offending can be submitted to this stream, but the author needs to carefully consider whether they could instead be submitted to Gender, Sexuality and Law or Sexual Offences and Offending.

Convenors

Demet Caltekin demet.a.caltekin@durham.ac.uk

Michelle Coleman m.a.coleman@swansea.ac.uk

Sean Columb sean.columb@liverpool.ac.uk

Susy Menis s.menis@bbk.ac.uk

Louise Taylor louise.taylor1@open.ac.uk

The Dance/Law stream seeks to generate new accounts of law and jurisprudence through the field of dance. It opens a space to consider how law is danced and choreographed in a range of different genres as a form and practice of jurisprudence. This mode of practice-led jurisprudence marks this topic as a new turn in socio-legal scholarship and charts new paths for future moves in research and practice on dance/law.

We invite you to consider what is meant by dance/law as jurisprudence; how it translates into creative practice-led methods of legal research and teaching; and how it plays out through digital forms.

Areas of engagement include, but are not limited to:

• Law as dance and dance as law
• Dance-based adaptations of law
• The dancing and moving body in law, and legal choreography
• The impacts of the digital and virtual on law’s movement and dance
• Dance-based legal research and dance as legal dispute resolution
• Dance and legal activism
• Dancing protest
• Dance and/as the staging of law as critique
• Queer studies and dance/law
• Dance in art and law
• Dance and sound
• Dance, law and the non-human
• Speculative movements in dance and law

We particularly welcome creative responses from scholars and practitioners, including but not limited to visual art, creative writing, film, sound, choreographic and musical scores, and reflective writing – as standalone pieces or embedded in a paper.

We look forward to legally dance with you...six, seven, eight everyone can dance!

Convenors

Maria Federica Moscati (University of Sussex) m.f.moscati@sussex.ac.uk

Sean Mulcahy (La Trobe University) s.mulcahy@latrobe.edu.au

Lucy Finchett-Maddock (Bangor University) l.finchett-maddock@bangor.ac.uk

Regardless of access to wealth or resources, everyone is going to die. The simple fact that our lives have an inescapable endpoint is a backdrop against which all our endeavours play out. How we define, rebel against, plan for, and (sometimes) wish for death are questions that scholars and legal practitioners have wrestled with for centuries. Alongside the emergence of astounding biomedical, political, and jurisprudential mechanisms for postponing, denying, and making our mortality more palatable come vastly complex questions about our relationship with the demise of ourselves and others.

This Current Topic brings together scholars and practitioners to consider the legal, social, political, and scientific developments pertaining to our perception of death and its meanings. It will provide a space to interrogate what death is precisely, why/if we should fear it, to what extent the law should be involved in the death of the individual, and to what extent technologies transform these challenges.

Some of the themes and questions that the papers might want to explore include:

• When does death occur, and according to what criteria is it identified (total brain, higher brain, info-theoretical, cardiopulmonary, etc.)?
• Responses to the Nuffield Council on Bioethics’ Citizens’ Jury on assisted dying. Should assisted dying remain prohibited, or should it be permitted within part or all of the UK? 
• What is a good death, and is it a matter of Law to promote or protect such states of dying?
• Is the legal interpretation of life and death being binary still fit for purpose, or does a more nuanced understanding need to be developed?
• How do technological advancements (cryopreservation, BrainEx, AI, etc.) challenge the contemporary understanding and definition of death and the postmortem?
• How do/should we regulate technologies designed to alleviate grief and/or replace the deceased’s persona? Is this a concern of law, policy and regulation?

Convenors

Richard B. Gibson (Aston Law School) r.gibson2@aston.ac.uk

Edina Harbinja (Aston Law School) e.harbinja@aston.ac.uk

Disability Law and Legal Studies is a subject that is rapidly increasing in importance. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) has generated new legal initiatives around the globe and energised relevant socio-legal critique. In addition, national and international crises are having a particular impact on disabled people and are generating socio-legal and comparative scholarship.

These include the Covid-19 pandemic, the surge in the cost of living occurring in many nations, national and international conflict and climate change. These matters raise important questions for research, academic activism and policy change within and beyond the UK. In addition, exacerbated by austerity and political upheaval, we are witnessing acute strain on the health system in the UK, as well as the effective collapse of long neglected and fragile ‘social care’ structures, with devastating implications for the lives of disabled people and their families.

Initiatives of the devolved nations (such as the possible incorporation of the CRPD in Wales) and the fall-out of Brexit also have potential, though largely unexplored, implications for disabled people. Given this conjunction of international and national developments, there is an urgent need for robust socio-legal interrogation of questions concerning disability, law, and social justice.

The convenors invite empirical and conceptual/theoretical papers that explore questions concerning disability, law, and social justice in the light of the challenges and/or opportunities presented by current developments at international, national, and/or local levels. We welcome papers from a broad range of disciplines and geographical locations and encourage contributions from newcomers to disability socio-legal studies as well as more established scholars. Examples of issues papers might address include:

• Disability politics, identities and models of disability.
• Continuity and change in disability law and social justice at a time of uncertainty.
• The domestication and impact of the CRPD, particularly in an era in which human rights are under political threat.
• Tensions between ideas and applications of ‘vulnerability’ and equality.
• The impact of current national and international events, including Covid-19, Brexit, national or international conflict, climate change and the cost-of-living crisis on disability law and/or social justice, particularly for disabled people;
• Re-imaginings of social care and independent living theory and practice.

Convenors

Emily Kakoullis kakoullise@cardiff.ac.uk

Alison Tarrant tarrantae2@cardiff.ac.uk

Clare Williams c.williams-678@kent.ac.uk

Danielle Watson danielle.watson@leicester.ac.uk

With socio-economic inequalities heightened and highlighted during the pandemic, the struggles for racial justice gaining prominence around the world and facing backlash, and the constant trade-offs between economic value and the value of some human lives, show that the continued interrogation of law and its interplay with colonialism and empire remains more relevant than ever.

The ‘Empire, Colonialism and Law’ theme addresses the relationship between law and socio-economic, political and cultural empire(s), with due emphasis on colonial and post-colonial structures. It aims to discuss how the instrumentality of law acts within these totalities to initiate and strengthen the dominant regimes and, significantly, generates a totalising tendency within law itself.

To illustrate, the violent and totalising control by colonial regimes dramatically altered the nature of law and justice (and the state) in the colonies. The particular logics in relation to law and the state so initiated did not end with the ‘decolonisation’ moment; rather, they have continued in the ‘age of Empire’ as well.

The continuation of these logics, that feed into and thrive on inequalities and epistemic differentiations, is not only made apparent during crises such as the current one, but is a perpetual crisis for the marginalised populations. This suggests that while colonialism and empire are taken as specific, disparate historical events, they also represent conceptual categories that are interwoven in history and interconnected at a foundational level.

In this backdrop, this theme approaches the categories of Law, Empire and Colonialism from a variety of different angles: law within empire and empire within law; law within colonialism and colonialism within law; as well as the multiple theoretical and historical links between these categories. Possible areas of discussion could include:

• Pandemics, lockdowns and their differential impact on marginalised groups
• Transplantation of law and justice from Metropole to the colony
• Coloniality and its relation to crises
• The struggle for racial justice
• The notion of ‘value’ within colonial logics
• The nature of sovereignty within colonialism and Empire
• The legal experiments in (Empire’s) colonies
• Bordering within colonialism and Empire
• The encounters between local and hegemonic legal and normative orders
• Legal histories from the standpoint of the excluded
• Gender as a terrain for colonial contestation
• Nature of the state in (pre/post) colonial environment
• The creation and governance of the colonial/Empire’s subject

Convenors

Raza Saeed raza.saeed@warwick.ac.uk

Priyasha Saksena p.saksena@leeds.ac.uk 

Maximilien Zahnd maximilien.zahnd@warwick.ac.uk

Dania Thomas dania.thomas@glasgow.ac.uk

The focus of the last few decades has been ever-increasing globalisation and global cooperation. In the environmental law context, this can be seen within global efforts to combat climate change; conserve wildlife; and protect our common resources, as well as efforts to understand the relationship between environmental law and other disciplines, especially human rights law. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a renewed sense of urgency in creating and implementing international and national laws and rules that bring together public health measures, biodiversity protections and environmental law. The final negotiations for the High Seas Treaty have recently been concluded and there are currently efforts for several new international environmental law treaties, namely, to address plastic pollution and to create a Science-Policy Panel for Chemicals and Wastes, suggesting that environmental law is advancing across different levels. At the same time, a series of global conflicts has and continues to cause short-term and long-term threats to the environment in contested regions as well as to the human rights and humanitarian law protections of those impacted.

This stream would therefore particularly welcome papers on environmental law and governance that respond to and/or challenge this theme. This would include papers with either a national or international environmental law focus and would include papers considering specific environmental regimes, or those that consider broader concepts of environmental governance.

More specifically, some of the themes and questions that the papers might want to explore include:

• How does the recognition of the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment by the UN General Assembly impact environmental law and regulatory systems?
• The role of multi-national corporations and market mechanisms in environmental law.
• The recognition of the triple planetary crisis (climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution) as a means to expand environmental law beyond climate change and carbon emissions.
• The role/ influence of politics and policy in environmental protection and in the generation of new environmental rules at the national and international levels.
• Historical perspectives on environmental law, including those that are forward looking.
• The role of military conflict in environmental protection and law enforcement.
• Emerging themes and trends in environmental law, regulation and governance.
• Submissions on topics relating to environmental education and engagement with non-academic bodies are also welcome.

Convenors

Alexandra Harrington a.harrington1@lancaster.ac.uk

Ben Mayfield b.mayfield@lancaster.ac.uk

This session invites contributions from different jurisdictions which explore issues within the fields of law, equality, human rights and/or discrimination (all broadly defined). Equality and human rights laws are increasingly important, both domestically, regionally and internationally, with such laws frequently forming a backdrop to twenty-first century phenomena such as socio-economic inequality, radicalisation and terrorism, the refugee crisis, marriage inequality, hate crime and gender inequality.  Equality and human rights are also under threat with uncertainty surrounding the future of equality and human rights law following the UK leaving the European Union and moves towards a UK Bill of Rights.

This session aims to explore questions about the role of equality and human rights law, both now and in the future, as a tool to address wide-ranging and persistent forms of inequality and human rights abuses.  Papers could cover a wide variety of topics including (but not limited to) drafting, interpretation or enforcement, of equality and human rights laws, as well as individuals’ or groups’ experiences of inequality and human rights abuses.  The stream welcomes papers utilising a variety of approaches and perspectives including theoretical, interdisciplinary, empirical, comparative, and socio-legal contributions.  Papers from researchers at any stage of their career are welcome.

Convenors

Noel McGuirk n.mcguirk@lancaster.ac.uk

Kathryn McNeilly k.mcneilly@qub.ac.uk

Severyna Magill severyna.magill@stmarys.ac.uk

Shahab Saqib shahabsaqib445@gmail.com

This panel invites papers that explore the uncertainties and interactivity of legal borderlands. Legal borderlands are defined as including, but not limited to: the division between the formal and informal, law and non-law, and jurisdictional boundaries. Recognising that legal borders are often not clearly defined or static, we invite papers that examine social practices falling within grey areas, as well as papers that trace the development of norms and concepts within or across legal borderlands, or which trace the movement of the borders themselves through social agency. In this panel we wish to showcase empirical and interdisciplinary methods of socio-legal research.

We welcome applications from scholars at all stages of their academic careers – including graduate students – and from diverse backgrounds – including scholars whose research focuses on foreign socio-legal issues.

Convenors

Pedro Fortes pfortes@alumni.stanford.edu

Andra Le Roux-Kemp alerouxkemp@lincoln.ac.uk

Given the continuing changes being experienced in the world of family law and policy in the UK and internationally, this stream welcomes papers which take a socio-legal approach to any issues within this field. Possible themes of interest include (but are not limited to): Family Courts and Covid-19; Service Users Experiences of Family Courts; Family Law’s Future; Access to Family Justice; Dispute Resolution; Online family law and justice; Modernising marriage and civil partnership law; Money, property and relationships; Domestic abuse and coercive control; Regulating non-traditional families and relationships; Parenthood, Motherhood/Fatherhood, Mothering/Fathering after Separation/Divorce and/or in Diverse Family Forms; Public Child Law; Autonomy, equality, vulnerability and gender in family law regulation; International and comparative perspectives on Family Law.

Abstracts may only be submitted when the call opens, and this will be via Oxford Abstracts. They must be no longer than 250 words and should include your title, name and institutional affiliation and your email address for correspondence.

Convenors

Charlotte Bendall c.l.bendall@bham.ac.uk

Philip Bremner philip.2.bremner@kcl.ac.uk

This stream seeks to draw together socio-legal scholarship from across the globe and features scholars carrying out work relating to the broad theme of gender, sexuality and law. Past papers have considered same-sex marriage and citizenship, gender identity, queer theory, gender and legal history, gender/sexuality and parenthood, homophobic and transphobic hate crime, sex education, sexual violence, sexuality and the media, religion and sexuality, comparative perspectives, obscenity law, and abortion. Papers relating to any area of gender, sexuality and law will be considered. We particularly welcome papers considering feminisms and queer studies; contemporary debates in gender, sexuality and law; papers that promote decolonial approaches to gender, sexuality and the law; and that deploy non-Western approaches/perspectives to feminist legal scholarship.

As well as interdisciplinary work related to the stream’s topics, the stream also welcomes creative presentation of research and has in the past included poetry, film, performance and exhibitions.

Convenors

Mireia Garces de Marcilla  M.Garces-De-Marcilla-Muste@exeter.ac.uk

Harriet Samuels h.samuels@westminster.ac.uk

Mini Saxena ms194@soas.ac.uk

This stream invites submissions exploring the intersections of law and justice with comics, graphic fiction, and related visual media.

Critical interest in the comics medium is an emerging area of scholarship. Comics and graphic fiction—and their related visual emanations, including film, video games, and wider ‘geek culture’—are of huge and on-going significance to law, justice, and legal studies.

On a socio-cultural level, comics are historically embroiled in debates on free speech whilst today they inspire countless pop culture adaptations—from television to cinema to video games, and performance activities such as cosplay. Comics can reflect and shape popular visions of justice, morality, politics, and law.

Graphical fiction content from mainstream superhero narratives tackling overt issues of justice, governance and authority, to countless themes related to morality, justice, and humanity in stories within and far beyond the mainstream, are rich with legal material.

The comics medium’s unique and restless blending of different media and types of representation (text, image, visuality, aesthetics, inter alia) radically expands discourse beyond the confines of the word, enabling greater critical engagement amidst our increasingly visual age. Comics are a complex art-form, with multiple creators working in individual, group, commercial, and industrial contexts, raising questions of ownership and exploitation—issues exacerbated by comics’ transmedia proliferation.

We welcome submissions that explore:

• The relationships between comics and related visual media, and law—culturally, socially, formally, theoretically, jurisprudentially.
• Studies of individual comics, series and genres.
• The use of comics and related visual media in law—in practice, education, theory, research.

Analysis of comics as objects of legal regulation in their own right—raising issues of definition, ownership, consumption, value.

The examples above are merely indicative; the graphic justice stream welcomes paper submissions that traverse any potential intersection between law and comics or related visual media—all broadly defined.

Convenors

Angus Nurse angus.nurse@ntu.ac.uk

Ian Mahoney ian.mahoney@ntu.ac.uk

Liam Sunner l.sunner@qub.ac.uk

The Health Law and Bioethics stream invites papers from both academics and professionals with expertise in law and/or other relevant disciplines on any aspect of healthcare that raises legal and ethical issues.

With the emergence of new and developing technologies, the importance of these fields of research are growing, and have an increasingly important role in the lives of individuals both nationally and internationally.

Papers are welcome relating to all aspects of healthcare (broadly defined) which impact upon individuals throughout all stages of their lives and wherever they may be situated.

Convenors

Chloe Romanis elizabeth.c.romanis@durham.ac.uk

Ed Horowicz e.horowicz@liverpool.ac.uk

Indigenous rights continue to be an area which sees both continued improvement in achieving real and meaningful changes and also as an area in need of critical improvement. The violation of indigenous rights can have devastating effects on the lives of individuals, families and communities. This stream welcome papers that address any aspect of indigenous rights, whether at an international, regional or national level. Papers that address gaps in the rights framework, and those that suggest new directions for realising indigenous rights are of particular interest, as are papers addressing issues of sustainability and sustainable development

Convenors

Aliza Organick organick@law.unm.edu

Sarah Sargent sarah.sargent@buckingham.ac.uk

The Intellectual Property stream welcomes papers covering any aspect of, intellectual property rights, and the interaction between intellectual property law and society.

Contemporary intellectual property law and policy continues to face a number of unforeseen challenges and contestations pertaining to the understanding, application, regulation, enforcement, and legitimacy, of intellectual property rights. The impact of Intellectual property rights on various aspects of modern life, as well recent technological developments such as Artificial Intelligence systems, exacerbate many of these challenges and underlying tensions.

This stream is open to papers from scholarly, professional, as well as postgraduate researchers looking to critically explore issues related to intellectual property law in a multi-disciplinary forum. The stream invites scholars from across the globe and welcomes papers that address any aspect of intellectual property rights and utilising any socio-legal approach, theory, and method./p>

Papers addressing challenges within contemporary intellectual property law and policy could relate to, but are not limited to, any of the following themes:

• The legal framework for Intellectual Property rights, whether international, regional, or domestic, including Trade Marks, Patents, Copyright, Designs, Trade secrets, and Geographical indications.
• Intellectual Property theory, Intellectual Property justifications, Intellectual Property history, and Intellectual Property in society.
• The interface between Intellectual property and new technologies, including Intellectual Property and the Internet, Intellectual Property and Artificial Intelligence, Intellectual Property and Innovation.
• The interface between Intellectual Property and Creativity, Intellectual Property and Culture, Intellectual Property and Traditional knowledge, and Intellectual Property and Traditional cultural expressions.
• The interface between Intellectual Property and Competition Law, Intellectual Property and Human Rights, Intellectual Property and Contract Law, and Intellectual Property and International Law.

If you have any questions about the scope of the stream, or would like to discuss a possible contribution, then please contact the stream convenors.

Convenors

Smita Kheria smita.kheria@ed.ac.uk 

Jasem Tarawneh j.tarawneh@qmul.ac.uk

We live in an ever-globalising world. It is vital therefore for the international trading system to provide a platform that sufficiently supports the ability of all players to benefit from globalisation.   This platform is referred to as the multilateral trading system (MTS) which, through the World Trade Organisation (WTO) provides a series of agreements that regulate international trading activity. The current agreements were negotiated over a period spanning more than a decade, and therefore has to be appreciated within the context of which compromise and agreement were arrived upon. This is especially true as the previous platform, the GATT 1947 became obsolete, failing to respond to the developments within the international trading system.

Recent times have seen the emergence of challenges that were not fully appreciated previously. Environmental, human rights and public health challenges have begun to concern many nations. The lack of regulatory response has been criticised as putting the pursuit of trade liberalisation and profit over the social challenges at the WTO. Without sufficient regulatory response from the WTO, some WTO members apply measures seeking to address these new challenges whilst at times offending and spirit and letter of the WTO regulatory framework. This raises concerns ranging from suspicion that these measures are a disguise for protectionism as well as causing uncertainty within the regulatory framework.

The conveners of this theme welcome proposals addressing the need for greater or lesser concern of social issues to be taken on board by the WTO when considering international trade regulation and policy.

We hope to stimulate discussion and further collaboration on these and other questions among participants of the theme.

Convenors

Mervyn Martin m.martin@tees.ac.uk

Maryam Shadman Pajouh m.shadmanpajouh@tees.ac.uk

This stream provides a space for those who wish to critique, interrogate, reform, derogate, or defend, the corporate form. Since corporations possess distinct personalities within the legal order, we welcome papers that address specific regulatory issues concerning such personality, or wider corporate activity. We also welcome contributions focussing on the presence and effect of corporations on a wide range of critical socio-legal issues. This includes the effects of the corporation on environmental, social, and employment issues and the relationship between corporations and human rights among others. Innovative papers interrogating the fundamental shape, existence, purpose, and/or societal role of the corporation from myriad visions of law and society (as well as the more ‘traditional’ law and economics one) will be particularly welcome. We would especially like to ensure that all perspectives are included and are keen to hear from PG, early career, and BIPOC researchers.

Convenors

Johanna Hoekstra johanna.hoekstra@ed.ac.uk

Colin R Moore c.r.moore@essex.ac.uk

Renginee Pillay r.pillay@greenwich.ac.uk

In 2024 we wish to continue and extend the discussions and debates we have commenced in previous years that have engaged from a variety of perspectives with the legal regulation of cyberspace and new information technologies. We continue to live in an age of challenge and disruption in the interface of law and information technology which has only been enhanced by the Covid-19 pandemic and what now may come to be the post-pandemic world. Climate change, economic uncertainty and military conflict also highlight the role of information technology in these domains.

While the privacy of our data and the most intimate aspects of our lives captured by information technology presents the law with ongoing challenges, the post-Covid future may embed new forms of state and corporate surveillance, which pose for law various challenges in areas such as privacy, accountability and proportionality. The use of social media to send chilling messages of hate, harassment and offense continues to conflict with its role as a place for uncensored public debate, while we also live in a time when ‘fake news’ peddled online creates added tensions for the law. Robots now intervene in more and more tasks previously undertaken by humans, such as driving, policing and infection control, but at what cost to human interaction? How should the law respond to such technological change?

This stream welcomes papers that seek to critically unwrap these issues and which address how the law has been co-opted into the information and technology age along with the new forms of social and legal space that it has created. Presenters will be invited to submit their finished papers for inclusion in a potential special issue of the journal Information and Communications Technology Law, to be edited by the stream convenors following the conference.

Convenors

Mark O’Brien mark.obrien@brookes.ac.uk

Brian H Simpson brian.h.simpson@gmail.com

The stream conveners invite submissions relating to labour law, the employment relationship, and the future of work, broadly conceived. We envision this to be an interdisciplinary and multijurisdictional stream embracing a variety of socio-legal methodologies and approaches. We welcome submissions concerning different aspects of labour law, including collective bargaining and new forms and strategies of collective action, discrimination and (in)equality in the workplace, and the impact of digitalisation, the gig economy, and late-stage capitalism on employment practices and people.  

We particularly encourage submissions on topics that can be neglected in mainstream labour law research, including the legal framework impacting marginalised workers in the labour market, labour migration, agency work, precarious employment, and the role of grassroots movements in advocating for workers' rights. Papers reflecting the intersection between labour law and other areas of law and legal theory, such as criminal law, administrative law, migration law, social welfare policy, and theories of distributive justice are very welcome. 

Convenors

Maayan Niezna maayan.nienza@liverpool.ac.uk

Inga Thiemann inga.thiemann@leicester.ac.uk

Arwen Joyce arwen.joyce@leicester.ac.uk

Law and emotion scholarship is an exciting international, interdisciplinary field of legal research.  It is based on the premise that emotion is highly relevant to law and can and should be studied in the legal context.  A common approach is to take a legal question and bringing to it a perspective grounded in the study or theory of emotion.  This presents a significant challenge to the conventional legal view of law as the embodiment of reason and rationality, with emotion being perceived as, at best, irrelevant and, at worst, dangerous.

Proposals based on any topics relating to law and emotion are welcomed.  As are suggestions for whole panels, interactive workshops and other innovative methods of delivery.  Relevant topics could include:

• The involvement and impact of emotion in civil law and criminal law.
• Theoretical approaches to, and practical applications of, the use of emotion, for example, using emotional intelligence or therapeutic jurisprudence.
• The role of emotion in legal education and training and the legal profession.
• The role of emotion in relation to legal actors, including issues of wellbeing.

It is hoped that this stream will provide a valuable opportunity for collaboration and networking for researchers in the field of law and emotion, as part of the development of a wider UK-based Law and Emotion Network.  It will also provide an important opportunity to develop links with, and present insights to, the wider legal academy and others interested in this important and developing field.

If you wish to discuss your ideas further and/or would like to join the developing Law and Emotion Network, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Convenors

Emma Jones emma.j.jones@sheffield.ac.uk

John Stannard j.stannard@qub.ac.uk

Raxona Khanum raxona.khanum@bcu.ac.uk

The recent ‘Law & Political Economy’ (LPE) movement, which has emerged in the US and Europe, has reinvigorated debate in legal academia about the role of law and legal structures in ordering our political economy. These debates reflect longstanding areas of concern in legal and social science scholarship in the UK. Several developments, including the rise in inequality, accelerating climate change, reconfiguration of global governance, and the profusion of social movements contesting current arrangements, form the basis for the recent surge in interest in these topics. The LPE stream provides a forum for UK and international socio-legal scholars to explore and challenge the role of law in (re)producing these concurrent crises. Contributions will ask critical questions about the ways that legal structures empower or constrain different social groups and determine the distribution of power and resources in society. We recognise theoretical and methodological pluralism and encourage applications from scholars working in range of subfields. Papers may focus on specific legal fields- including but not limited to environmental, criminal, immigration, property, and labour law and their relation to social and economic (in)justice -or engage in broader theoretical and conceptual debates on the relationships between law, capitalism, and society.

Convenors

Jack Meakin j.meakin@leeds.ac.uk

Manoj Dias-Abey manoj.dias-abey@bristol.ac.uk

Law, Literature and the Humanities invites original interdisciplinary presentations that engage with legal topics through or alongside literature or some other aspect of humanities and the arts (e.g. legal history, film and drama, music, and legal linguistics). There is no specific legal topic that the stream organisers expect papers to focus on, but papers are particularly welcome that are concerned with the performance or representation of law and legal themes in textual, visual, oral, or some other form.  The panel provides a forum for insights about law which may not be empirically quantifiable or scientifically predictable, but which tell us something about law’s imagination, its drives and anxieties, or its metaphors, narratives, plots or characters. 

Convenors

Rosie Fox r.fox@leeds.ac.uk

James Greenwood-Reeves j.r.h.greenwood-reeves@leeds.ac.uk

Rebecca Shaw r.a.shaw@leeds.ac.uk

This stream is concerned to understand the work of lawyers and the role of professions historically, presently and in the future.

The global legal professions continue to undergo radical changes although there are contradictory trends. Many countries in the world aspire to embrace the rule of law and seek to establish independent legal professions as a step in that process. In the meantime, in many Western jurisdictions’ legislation, technology and competition are driving change in the role, structure, organisation and culture of lawyers and legal professions. As professions change, so, arguably, does the nature and connotations of professionalism.

We invite papers on any aspect of the legal profession: law firms, lawyers’ work, organization, professionalism, practice, ethics of practice, training, globalization and more. We encourage work reflecting philosophical, theoretical, and empirical perspectives on these themes.

Convenors

Chalen Westaby c.westaby@shu.ac.uk

Alex Batesmith a.batesmith@leeds.ac.uk

The Legal Education stream welcomes papers on all aspects of legal education including both academic and professional legal education.  Papers on policy matters, pedagogical issues, matters pertaining to staff or students and anything else relating to legal education will be accepted.  The stream is not restricted to work on legal education in the United Kingdom.  Papers on comparative work in legal education or that concentrate specifically on legal education outside the United Kingdom will be accepted.

Convenors

Tony Bradney a.bradney@keele.ac.uk

Fiona Cownie f.cownie@keele.ac.uk

Migration has been a defining feature of humanity since time immemorial, and long may it so endure. But perhaps never before has migration been so hotly contested and divisive. Against a background of rising populist sentiment and global financial recession, people who move frequently find themselves unfairly burdened with the blame for any and all of societies’ ills. Effective and fair systems and processes that support and protect those on the move are thus vital. Yet, migration in all its forms is becoming increasingly characterised by uncertainty, precarity and suspicion. Moreover, it is clear that national, regional and global systems of migration governance are under immense strain. Never before have so many people been forcibly displaced, whether internally due to conflict and violence, human rights abuses and/or natural and human-made disasters; or across borders in search of sanctuary and refuge. Labour migration and rights to travel freely within Europe are under threat, with the impacts of Brexit likely to reverberate across the continent for years to come. Plus, COVID-19 has vividly shown us all how global pandemics threaten our innate need or want to move, whether in search of safety, study, work or leisure.

The Managing and Protecting People on the Move stream provides a central meeting point for the socio-legal scholarly community to discuss and debate the innumerable legal, political and sociological challenges associated with migration. We invite papers from those versed in migration law, migration studies, refugee and forced migration studies, international and regional law, domestic law, and comparative legal scholarship, who approach the subject area from a socio-legal, doctrinal, comparative, theoretical or empirical angle. We welcome contributions from early career researchers and doctoral students, as well as established scholars and practitioners.

Convenors

Ben Hudson b.hudson2@exeter.ac.uk

Kat Langley kat.langley@sunderland.ac.uk

Mental health law and mental capacity law, issues of global concern, are once again at the forefront of legislative discussions in the UK. As the world grapples with escalating mental health crises and an ageing population, these laws are gaining significance not just locally but also on the international stage. The growing influence of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) sees other jurisdictions working towards addressing their human rights obligations. International bodies, like the World Health Organisation, have also called for a review of mental health laws in light of human rights development to promote meaningful, individualised and consensual treatment. It is becoming clear that national laws lag behind human rights developments.

In light of this background, papers from all areas of the law relating to mental health, mental capacity and mental disability are welcome, including but not limited to:

• Civil, criminal or informal mechanisms of control, in hospital or in the community
• Supported decision-making and supported accommodation
• The law relating to disability and welfare benefits, and issues relating to care and programmes in the community;
• Issues relating to discrimination on the basis of mental disability (be it mental health issues, neurodiversity, psychosocial disabilities, or learning disabilities)
• International law relating to people with mental disabilities, including (but not limited to) issues surrounding the CRPD;  
• The role of administration or care-givers in the provision of services;
• The role or experience of service users in mental health care, and research into mental health care.
• Fusion law proposals
• Papers relating to reforms of mental capacity and mental health laws
• The role, if any, played by guardians in mental health law and mental capacity law.

There is no restriction on methodology:  papers may be empirical, policy-centred, historical, analytic, traditional legal, or theoretical, in approach. 

Papers are welcome from any academic background, and from people at any stage of their career. Proposals from people with lived experience of mental distress are welcome.

The stream co-ordinators are happy to consider joint sessions with other streams in the conference where appropriate.

Convenors

Daniel Bianchi Daniel.bianchi@um.edu.mt

Martha Scanlon ms12028@bristol.ac.uk

Magda Furgalska magdalena.furgalska@york.ac.uk

The Property, People, Power and Place stream welcomes papers on all aspects of law relating to land and the built environment. The stream acknowledges that definitions of property and property rights are often contested and that concepts of property are shaped by relationships and communities. Papers which explore the concepts of space, place and inclusivity are also welcome. It is anticipated that papers may focus on the following, as examples:

• The emergence of new forms of land ownership, regulation, or planning systems
• Potential tensions between different stakeholder groups in property discourses
• The boundaries between public and private property relationships
• Technology, design and/or environmental changes and the impact on space/place regulation
• The relationship of property to individual or collective identity

Contributions that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries are particularly welcome

Convenors

Emily Carroll e.j.carroll@bham.ac.uk

Emily Walsh emily.walsh@port.ac.uk 

Juliet Brook juliet.brook@port.ac.uk

Jess Smith jesssmith@lincoln.ac.uk 

The challenges posed by sexual offences and offending are inherently complex. This stream examines legal, social and policy responses to victim-survivors and offenders in the context of a wide range of sexual offences, behaviours and exploitation.  This stream welcomes contributions which consider any aspect of sexual offences or offending, including:

Child sexual offences; trafficking for sexual purposes; grooming; social media and sexual offending; sex workers and the law; police, court, prosecutorial and jury responses to sexual offences; the idea of ‘justice’ in the context of sexual offences; law reform; extreme sexual imagery; education and prevention; social attitudes to sexual offences and offending; policy issues; restorative justice approaches; comparative analysis, offender treatment; the legal and criminal justice response to indecent images of children; defining sexual offences.

Convenors

Eithne Dowds e.dowds@qub.ac.uk

Siobhan Weare s.weare@lancaster.ac.uk

Susan Leahy susan.leahy@ul.ie

Change in welfare states internationally continues to bring about upheaval in the social rights of citizenship and to fuel debate on the nature and enforcement of social rights in international law. Ongoing reforms to social security programmes in the name of “fairness” or “fiscal consolidation”, complications associated with a welfare state subject to devolution and localism, or debates on what it is to be a “citizen” eligible for support, all deal with these intersecting issues.

This stream seeks to explore all these issues and more , bringing papers together which address these problems from different perspectives. Submissions to the stream may approach aspects of Social Rights, Citizenship and the Welfare State from a range of standpoints, including (but not limited to):

• Substantive legal problems in the judicial recognition of social rights and arguments about the role of the courts to determine and uphold them.
• Current challenges and future directions for welfare states amidst the ongoing fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic and a cost of living crisis.
• Associated theoretical issues on the uncertain status of social rights and social welfare, including material on the welfare state, conditionality, social justice, or the impact and meaning of ‘austerity’.
• Comparative or supranational focused papers on social citizenship, welfare state typologies, or the effects of devolution and localism.
• Ideologies of welfare and perceptions of adequacy.

The stream convenors would particularly welcome submissions from practitioners or those engaged in the issues above (such as those working in welfare rights advice). If you have any questions about the scope of the stream or would like to discuss a possible contribution, please contact the stream convenors

Convenors

Jen Sigafoos sigafoos@liverpool.ac.uk

James Organ organ@liverpool.ac.uk

Luke Graham luke.graham@manchester.ac.uk

This stream provides a forum for those with an interest in socio-legal theory to engage in a critical and lively conversation with a view to continuing the development of theoretical discourse in socio-legal studies.  We are particularly interested in papers which consider the place of theory in socio-legal studies, the role it can play in developing our understanding of socio-legal issues, and the relationship between the jurisprudential and empirical aspects of the socio-legal community.  Papers from those interested in any of the variety of theoretical approaches to socio-legal studies are welcomed, including, but not limited to post-structuralist, feminist, post-colonial, systems and actor-network theory. Proposals from both legal and non-legal scholars speaking in favour of, or against, the utility of given theoretical approaches to socio-legal studies are encouraged. Similarly, papers introducing novel combinations of theoretical perspectives and those wanting to discuss their application of theory to their empirical research are also welcomed. Panel proposals may be submitted.  individual papers will be grouped, as much as possible, according to topic and discipline.

Convenors

Adrienne Barnett adrienne.barnett@brunel.ac.uk

Lisa Mardikian lisa.mardikian@brunel.ac.uk

The Future of Human Reproduction, Parenthood, and Families – Emerging Technologies and The Law  

Emerging reproductive technologies, such as stem cell-based embryo models (SCBEMs), in vitro gametogenesis (IVG), genome editing, and ex-utero gestation/ectogenesis, may transform established social practices regarding human reproduction and parenting, as well as concepts of relatedness, kinship and the family, and even human life itself. 

The development of SCBEMs, for example, forces us to revisit how an ‘embryo’ should be defined and also the basis on which embryos are afforded ‘respect’ in law. Similarly, in potentially superseding existing methods of creating human beings, bringing about the ‘obsolescence of sex’ for reproductive purposes, and replacing sexual reproduction with biotechnological routes to parenthood, IVG, ex-utero gestation and genome editing pose further legal, ethical and social challenges. Existing notions of ‘family’ and ‘parent’ may be changed, displaced or rendered redundant, and social norms governing personal and sexual relationships may be altered by the decentring of the biological reproductive family. 

This panel brings together papers exploring the socio-legal, regulatory and ethical questions raised by emerging technologies in the field of reproduction. Given the recent interest by the UK’s fertility regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, in modernising the laws regulating fertility treatment and embryo research, this panel provides a timely forum for encouraging discussion of the cultural, ethical, socio-legal and policy issues that these technologies raise for regulation, family identities, and society more broadly. 

Papers from all areas of the law relating to reproduction, pregnancy, and family are welcome, including those that might address: 

• National/international regulation of emerging reproductive technologies (including definitional challenges)  
• Regulating research on embryos, ‘embryo models’ (SCBEMs), and gametes (including definitional challenges)  
• Parenthood and family in the context of emerging reproductive technologies  
• Ethical, legal and policy questions raised by emerging reproductive technologies  
• Public engagement regarding and societal responses to the development of emerging reproductive technologies  
• Use of novel and/or interdisciplinary methods to address emerging reproductive technologies  
• Emerging reproductive technologies and cross-border reproduction  
• Ongoing policy work surrounding reproduction, parenthood and the family (e.g. current work undertaken by the HFEA and Nuffield Council on Bioethics etc.)   

Papers are welcome from any academic background, and from people at any stage of their career.  

Convenors

Dr Laura O’Donovan (Sheffield) l.odonovan@sheffield.ac.uk

Prof Sara Fovargue (Sheffield) s.j.fovargue@sheffield.ac.uk

Prof Stephen Wilkinson (Lancaster) s.wilkinson2@lancaster.ac.uk

Dr Nicola Jane Williams (Lancaster) n.williams2@lancaster.ac.uk

When contemplating the future of law, can socio-legal scholars ever move beyond the institutional and regulatory forms that dominate the present? Can we coherently imagine ‘The Law(s) of the Future’ or are we doomed merely to project into tomorrow the legal orders that we observe today?

Sitting across several connected themes within socio-legal studies – both empirical and theoretical – this topic will enrich current debates with interdisciplinary material drawn from diverse fields such as analytical and critical theory, law and technology, legal geography, and law and popular culture. Its uniting aims will be: first, to explore how socio-legal studies might address the potentialities of laws that have yet to be promulgated; and second, to critique our ability to imagine and understand such potentialities, bound as our thought often is by the epistemic and structural constraints of the present.

Law is necessarily future-oriented. Discrete legal standards are promulgated with anticipated compliance in mind. Treaty regimes are adopted with prospective cooperation in view. Constitutional frameworks are constructed so that the polities they shape can pursue their collective tomorrows. Nonetheless, there is also a sense in which, for law as such and in general, the future is always just out of reach. Contemporary Western legal orders in particular characteristically struggle to accommodate and comprehend regulatory or institutional futures that do not reflect their own hegemonic presents. This deeper question of law’s limited ‘vision’ or ‘imaginary’ is the subject of this Current Topic.

Papers are invited that consider law’s (in)ability to engage with its own future. Interdisciplinary approaches, both empirical and theoretical, are particularly encouraged, as are papers drawing upon Indigenous, queer, and other traditionally marginalised perspectives. A non-exhaustive list of potential topics may include:

• Dystopia or utopia within or concerning law and the global climate crisis.
• Dystopia or utopia and constitutional design.
• Law, science fiction, and the popular imaginary.
• Afrofuturism and the law of tomorrow.
• Post-patriarchal or post-capitalist society and the imaginative limitations of legal form.
• Alternative histories and the possibility of divergent legal presents.
• Legal narratives of progress or regression.

Convenors

Dr Alex Green (University of York) alex.green@york.ac.uk

Dr Mitchell Travis (University of Leeds) m.travis@leeds.ac.uk