Latest news from Faculty of Law

The Faculty is delighted that Dr Andrew Sanger has been awarded a University of Cambridge Pilkington Prize for Excellence in Teaching . Dr Sanger is Associate Professor of International Law at the Faculty of Law where he teaches and supervises international law and global governance, including human rights, political economy, technology and the law, and corporate responsibility. He also served as Academic Secretary to the Faculty for 2020-2022. Dr Sanger’s contribution was recognised in the Cambridge Students Union Student-Led Teaching Awards in 2022, where he was the winner of the 'Small-Group Teaching (Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences)' award. He was a finalist for the Oxford University Press Law Teacher of the Year Award in 2023. Dr Sanger’s citation for the Pilkington Prize captures the range and quality of his contributions to education in the Faculty of Law: "This nomination focuses on three aspects of his approach that underpin his position as a truly outstanding teacher: (i) the way in which he combines world-class, research-led teaching with a remarkable level of care for his students and attentiveness to their individual needs and circumstances; (ii) his exceptional contributions to inclusivity and curriculum diversification; and (iii) the exemplary level and quality of his institutional engagements, which have contributed invaluably to the quality of teaching in the Faculty of Law and to an inclusive College environment that is supportive of Law students." Responding to his award, Andrew said: "I am delighted and enormously grateful, not least because I know that there are so many brilliant colleagues who are more deserving of recognition. Teaching is a great pleasure and privilege, and I am so very fortunate to work with such incredibly kind, talented, and committed students and colleagues. Thank you so very much to everyone."

The Council of Europe’s Steering Committee for Human Rights in the fields of Biomedicine and Health (CDBIO) issued a report on Human Rights Based Approaches in Healthcare, prepared by Dr Rumiana Yotova , Assistant Professor in International Law and Fellow in Law at Gonville & Caius College. The report provides an overview of the international human rights standards applicable to health care. The focus of this report is on the relevance of human rights for health care and on how international human rights standards can inform domestic patients’ rights. The report was prepared on the basis of the replies to the questionnaire on patients’ rights legislation .

The Faculty has distributed Volume 15 Number 1 of the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law Legal Studies Research Paper Series on SSRN . This issue includes the following articles: Mark Elliott & Nicholas Kilford: Nothing To See Here? Allister in the Supreme Court ( 20/2023 ) Ahmed Izzidien: Using the Interest Theory of Rights and Hohfeldian Taxonomy to Address a Gap in Machine Learning Methods for Legal Document Analysis ( 21/2023 ) Henning Grosse Ruse-Khan: Does IP improve the world? Technology and its impact on our planet ( 22/2023 ) Rumiana Yotova: Article 27 of the VCLT: Internal law and observance of treaties ( 27/2023 ) Eyal Benvenisti: How the Power of the Idea Disempowered the Law: Understanding the Resilience of the Law of International Organisations ( 29/2023 ) David Erdos: Data Protection Reform via the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Repeal) Act and the Data Protection (Fundamental Rights and Freedoms) (Amendment) Regulations 2023/1417: Arguably Partially Unlawful and Liable to Undercut the UK’s Council of Europe Commitments ( 3/2024 ) Interested readers can browse the Working Paper Series at SSRN , or sign up to subscribe to distributions of the the e-journal.

On 23 February Professor Lusina Ho (University of Hong Kong) delivered the 2024 Cambridge Freshfields Lecture entitled 'Re-imagining the Express Trust'. In recent years, there has been growing concern about the use of express trusts to perpetuate wealth inequality and the need to transform trust law to accommodate ESG. To address these challenges, this lecture presents a theory of express trusts that articulates their distinct ability to protect the stewardship of assets for long-term goals while shielding those goals from erosion by settlors, managers, and beneficiaries. In particular, the lecture challenges the notion that only beneficiaries with the right to hold trustees accountable for benefits due to them can enforce the trust. This theory can help to define the legitimate limits of express trusts, including ‘massively discretionary trusts’, and to devise innovative trust structures that surpass the corporate form in organising businesses for impact investing. Lusina Ho is Harold Hsiao-Wo Lee Professor in Trust and Equity at the Faculty of Law, the University of Hong Kong. While pursuing her teaching and research in Trust, Restitution, and Comparative Trust Law (in particular Chinese Trust Law), she has been consulted by the Government of the People’s Republic of China on the enactment of the Chinese Trust Law and the Government of the Hong Kong SAR on the reform of the Trustee Ordinance. In 2019, she has successfully convinced the Hong Kong SAR Government to launch a trust service for special needs individuals in the territory. The Cambridge Freshfields Lecture is an annual address delivered by a guest of the Cambridge Private Law Centre , and the event is sponsored by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer . More information about this lecture, including other recorded formats, the slides, and photographs from the event, is available from the Private Law Centre website .

On 21 February 2024, the award-winning online Customary IHL Database of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was updated with practice from Brazil up to the end of 2012, as well as the Philippines up to the end of 2011. This recently added practice is marked in green throughout the database. A team of...

The Faculty warmly welcomes the appointment of a large number of Cambridge graduates as King's Counsel last month. The Lord Chancellor will preside over the appointment ceremony, where the rank will formally be bestowed upon successful applicants, at Westminster Hall in March 2024. Further details are available from the...

Last week saw a superb achievement for the Cambridge student team, who were winners of the European round of the University of Oxford’s Price Media Law Moot Competition , which was held at the University of Paris from 31 January to 2 February. Run by the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights , the Price Media Law Moot Court Programme aims to foster and cultivate interest in freedom of expression issues and the role of the media and information technologies in societies around the world. It was established by the Programme in Comparative Media Law & Policy at the University of Oxford in 2008. The team consists of Ivan So (Hughes Hall), Phoebe Lee (Trinity Hall), Jill Lam (Girton) and Chak Kei Lau (Wolfson). Individual awards for Best Oralist and Runner up Oralist were awarded respectively to Jill Lam and Chak Kei Lau. The team were coached by Professor David Erdos and kindly supported by the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL). The team will now progress to the international finals in April.

Hart Publishing, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, has published Autonomy, Care and Family Law by Anna Heenan . There is a tension at the heart of family law and policy between the increasing influence of individual autonomy and the demands of caring for children. Individual autonomy envisages decisions made in one's own best interests, whereas decisions around care are often made for the good of the family, and may conflict with the caregiver's individual interests. Whereas individual autonomy valorises economic self-sufficiency, caregiving responsibilities constrain choice and conflict with paid work. This book explores this tension to consider how, given changing social trends, family law and policy should take account of caregiving responsibilities on parental separation. Crucially, it suggests that we need to rethink family law by placing care at its centre. For more information about this book, please refer to the Bloomsbury website . Current University of Cambridge staff and student members can access the ebook via Bloomsbury Collections . For information about other publications by Dr Heenan please refer to her Faculty profile .

On Friday 26 January Professor Jonathan Morgan delivered his inaugural lecture as Professor of English Law, at the Faculty. The title of the lecture was 'Judges, Jurists and Style' , being delivered to an audience of law students, legal academics, and judges. The lecture considered the differences between academic and...