Public Lectures from the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge

On the 23rd November the UK Supreme court decided that the Scottish Parliament did not have the power to enact legislation to hold a second independence referendum in Scotland. In this short video Professor Alison Young explains the backdrop to the case, sets out how the Supreme court decided the case, and explores possible future paths to Scottish independence.Alison Young is the Sir David Williams Professor of Public Law at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Robinson College. She teaches constitutional law on undergraduate and postgraduate courses at the University of Cambridge and is the author of Turpin and Tomkins’ British Government and the Constitution (8th Edition).For more information about Professor Young, please refer to her profile at https://www.law.cam.ac.uk/people/academic/al-young/77940Law in Focus is a collection of short videos featuring academics from the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law, addressing legal issues in current affairs and the news. These issues are examples of the many which challenge researchers and students studying undergraduate and postgraduate law at the Faculty.This entry provides an audio source for iTunes.

The inaugural Darwin College Erasmus Seminar took place on Wednesday 23 November at 6pm in Darwin College. Professor Catherine Barnard gave her talk on : 'What happens when enforcement doesn’t happen: Brexit, free movement and … Great Yarmouth'. Professor Barnard is Professor of EU Law and Employment Law in the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Trinity College. Professor Barnard looks at the experiences of EU migrant workers in Great Yarmouth, a declining seaside resort with the fifth highest leave vote in the UK. Her research has looked at the experiences of those living and working in Great Yarmouth. It tells the story of significant under-enforcement of employment rights in a legal aid desert. The question then is what do the workers do to get help, is it effective and are there lessons for labour enforcement more generally? For more information see: https://www.darwin.cam.ac.uk/news/professor-catherine-barnard-gives-first-darwin-erasmus-seminar This entry provides an audio source for iTunes.

The Centre for English Legal History was delighted to host a valedictory lecture by David Ibbetson FBA, Regius Professor of Civil Law on 25th November 2022.The lecture was chaired by Dr Jonathan Morgan, and Professor Ibbetson was introduced by Mr Justice Foxton.While it will come as no surprise to learn that David will continue his research for years to come, this lecture marks his retirement from the Regius Professorship of Civil Law.

The Faculty of Law is organising in the 2022-23 academic years three seminars on key public law cases, given by three Yorke Distinguished Visiting Fellows – Lord Carnwath, Lady Hale, and Lord Lloyd-Jones.The first of these seminars took place on Wednesday 16 November and was given by Lord Carnwath, looking at the Privacy International case. Lord Carnwath gave the leading judgment of the majority in the case. Lord Carnwath and Professor Alison Young talked about the impact of the new ouster clause found in section 2 of the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022. Lord Carnwath talked about his judgment in this case and the new legislation, with a brief response from Alison Young.The talk was sponsored by the Centre for Public Law.

Speaker: Professor Simon Witney (Travers Smith, LSE) The EU and, more recently, the UK have introduced very significant new sustainable finance regulation in recent years, most notably the SFDR (Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation), the Green Taxonomy and mandatory TCFD (Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures) reporting. Simon will explain what these regulations are seeking to achieve, how they apply in private markets and assess whether they are achieving their objectives. Biography: Dr Simon Witney, Visiting Professor in Practice at LSE Law, is a practising lawyer who also teaches on the LLM programme at LSE Law. His doctoral thesis, completed at LSE in 2017, was on corporate governance in private equity-backed companies. Simon continues to research and write on corporate governance, company law and related topics. Simon is a Senior Consultant at London-based law firm, Travers Smith. 3CL runs the 3CL Travers Smith Lunchtime Seminar Series, featuring leading academics from the Faculty, and high-profile practitioners. This entry provides an audio source for iTunes.

Professor Leslie Thomas KC is a human rights and civil liberties barrister. He has appeared in many high-profile cases representing the families of the deceased (Birmingham Pub Bombing Inquests, Grenfell Inquiry, Azelle Rodney, Mark Duggan, Christopher Alder and Sean Rigg). In 2012 he was awarded Legal Aid Barrister of the Year (LALY) and again in 2016 for his work on the Hillsborough disaster. In 2020 he received the award for Outstanding Contribution to D&I in the UK Chambers Bar Awards. He is also former Joint Head of Garden Court Chambers. In 2020 he became the first Black Professor of Law at Gresham College and is a visiting Professor of Law at Goldsmiths. He sits on the Equality Diversity and Inclusion sub-committee for the Inner Temple and the Bar Standards Board Race Equality Task Force. He is also the author of 'Do Right and Fear No One', his autobiography published in 2022.This lecture was delivered at the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, on 13 October 2022 as part of the series of Law and Race talks.Supported by the Centre for Public Law: https://www.cpl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Speaker: Professor Mehrdad Payandeh, Member, Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Professor of International Law, European Law, and Public Law at Bucerius Law SchoolProfessor Mehrdad Payandeh is Professor of International Law, European Law, and Public Law at Bucerius Law School in Hamburg, Germany. His research is focused on international human rights law, anti-discrimination law as well as general international law and constitutional law and theory. Since 2020, he is also a member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.Law and Race talks organised by Kirsty Hughes and Vandita Khanna at the Faculty of Law on 2 November 2022.Supported by the Centre for Public Law: https://www.cpl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Speaker: Professor Luca Enriques (University of Oxford) Biography: Luca Enriques is the Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Oxford Faculty of Law, a Research Fellow at the European Corporate Governance Institute (where he also chairs the Research Committee and is a member of the board) and a Fellow Academic Member of the European Banking Institute (where he also co-chairs the Fintech Working Group). He has published widely in the fields of comparative corporate law, securities regulation and banking law. He has held visiting positions, among others, at Harvard Law School (as Nomura Professor of International Financial Systems in 2012-13), IDC Herzliya, the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law and Sydney Law School. Between 2007 and 2012 he was a commissioner at Consob, the Italian securities market authority. Before joining the Oxford Faculty of Law, he was Professor of Law at the University of Bologna (2002-07) and at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome (2013-14), and a consultant to Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton (2003-07). He has also advised the Italian Ministry of the Economy and Finance on corporate and financial markets policy issues throughout the years. He holds a Degree in law at the University of Bologna, an LLM at Harvard Law School and a Doctorate in Business Law at Bocconi University in Milan. 3CL runs the 3CL Travers Smith Lunchtime Seminar Series, featuring leading academics from the Faculty, and high-profile practitioners. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/ This entry provides an audio source for iTunes.

Between April and June 2022 Professor Forsyth was interviewed four times. The interviewer is Lesley Dingle.The interviews were recorded, and the audio version is available on this website with transcripts of those recordings:- First Interview (28 April 2022): Early Life and Career- Second Interview (11 May 2022): Career Part 1- Third Interview (17 May 2022): Career Part 2- Fourth Interview (7 June 2022): Scholarly WorksFor more information, see the Squire website at https://www.squire.law.cam.ac.uk/cambridge-law-eminent-scholars-archive

Between April and June 2022 Professor Forsyth was interviewed four times. The interviewer is Lesley Dingle.The interviews were recorded, and the audio version is available on this website with transcripts of those recordings:- First Interview (28 April 2022): Early Life and Career- Second Interview (11 May 2022): Career Part 1- Third Interview (17 May 2022): Career Part 2- Fourth Interview (7 June 2022): Scholarly WorksFor more information, see the Squire website at https://www.squire.law.cam.ac.uk/cambridge-law-eminent-scholars-archive