Public Lectures from the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge

Professor Kimberly D. Krawiec from the University of Virginia School of Law explores "repugnant transactions and taboo trades" — markets that are morally contested and sometimes even prohibited, such as sex work, commercial surrogacy, and the sale of organs, eggs, and sperm. She asks how we, as a society, decide what is up for sale and what is off-limits. The controversies here are not about the dangers of markets themselves, but rather the dangers of buying/selling certain goods or services. Advocates of market restrictions seek to define the ethical boundaries of the marketplace – to identify the specific goods and services that are inappropriate for market trading, and to explain why these restrictions should exist even for apparently willing buyers and sellers.Although all cultures have deemed some transactions too sacred for the marketplace, the targets of these restrictions have varied widely, even within a given time period. For example, prostitution is currently legal in much of the world but illegal in most of the United States. Meanwhile, commercial surrogacy and paid egg donation are legal in much of the United States but illegal in many other parts of the world.This talk delves into these and other restricted trades. It identifies how they are regulated by legal regimes as well as social norms, evaluates the consequences of different approaches, and explores potential paths forward.About the Speaker: Professor Kimberly D. Krawiec holds the Charles O. Gregory Professorship of Law at the University of Virginia. Her current research analyses “taboo trades” — exchanges that are contested by society and, in some cases, forbidden altogether. She has written on commercial surrogacy, egg and sperm markets, and sex work. At the moment, much of her work is on incentives for organ donation. Another area of her research centres on the regulation of financial markets and business organizations. Prof. Krawiec has extensively examined the administrative process surrounding the Volcker Rule, a complex and highly contested provision of the Dodd-Frank Act. She has also researched corporate boards of directors. Through an ethnographic method, this work analyses directors’ views on the workings of the corporate boardroom and board relations with management, with a special emphasis on directors’ views on race and gender diversity in the boardroom.With a wealth of experience in commodity and derivatives law, she has also been a commentator for the Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (CEELI) of the American Bar Association and has taught at top institutions including Duke, North Carolina, Harvard, and Northwestern, where she won the Robert Childres Award for Teaching Excellence.The lecture begins at 03:44Baron Cornelius Ver Heyden de Lancey (1889-1984) was a wealthy and public-spirited Dutchman who at different times in his life was a dentist, doctor, surgeon, barrister and art historian. In 1970 he created the De Lancey and De La Hanty Foundation, to promote studies in medico-legal topics. The Foundation generously gave Cambridge the Ver Heyden de Lancey Fund, which since 1996 has funded occasional public lectures on medico-legal issues of current interest.For more information about the Baron Ver Heyden de Lancey Lecture series, please see http://www.lml.law.cam.ac.uk/events/vhdl-events

Speaker: Professor Victor Kattan (University of Nottingham)Chair: Professor Antony Anghie (Goodhart Professor, National University of Singapore and the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law)Abstract: In this presentation I will provide an account of the statehood of Palestine. After outlining the basic principles relating to statehood in international law, I will argue that recognition plays an important role in such assessments. My talk will focus on four key moments extending from the time of the League of Nations to the United Nations period. In presenting this account, I will address my own experience as a legal adviser to the State of Palestine in the negotiations on the adoption of General Assembly Resolution 67/19 in 2012 when the State of Palestine was conferred observer state status at the UN.Biography: Victor Kattan is Assistant Professor of Public International Law at the School of Law at the University of Nottingham. His publications include The Palestine Question in International Law (British Institute of International and Comparative Law, 2008). From Coexistence to Conquest: International Law and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1891-1949 (Pluto Press, 2009). The Breakup of India and Palestine: The Causes and Legacies of Partition (Manchester University Press, 2023, with Amit Ranjan), and Making Endless War: The Vietnam and Arab-Israeli Conflicts in the History of International Law (Michigan University Press, 2023, with Brian Cuddy).Professor Anghie: 01:22Professor Kattan: 12:23For more information about CULWOB see: https://www.cambridgesu.co.uk/organisation/culwob/

Lecture summary: This lecture will explore the parameters of State immunity at the international level and as reflected in different national legal systems (including England & Wales, the United States and others). It will include an overview of foundational and more recent jurisprudence in international and domestic courts, and will give particular focus to select aspects of State immunity in the context of enforcement against State assets.Hussein Haeri KC is a Partner at Withers in London and Head of the firm's Public International Law Group. He is a King's Counsel and was the only Solicitor Advocate to take Silk in 2024. Hussein has extensive experience as counsel and advocate on international dispute resolution matters for almost 20 years in London, Paris and New York, including before the ICJ, ITLOS, under ICSID and UNCITRAL arbitration rules and in national courts. He has been recognised for many years by the major legal directories including Chambers & Partners, which refers to him as an "outstanding lawyer", and Legal 500 which states that "he combines huge intellectual powers with great client handling".He is a Partner Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, a Senior Fellow at SOAS in London and has lectured at various other universities including the University of Oxford, Sciences Po in Paris and Roma Tre University in Rome.

The eighteenth Annual International Intellectual Property Lecture was delivered by Robert P. Merges, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati Professor of Law and Technology at UC Berkeley School of Law, on 18 March 2025.The lecture entitled 'Cousins, Not Twins: Patent Claim Scope vs. The Breadth of Patent Enforcement' took place at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.For more information see:https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/

The Centre for European Legal Studies (CELS) hosts an annual public lecture in honour of Lord Mackenzie-Stuart, the first British Judge to be President of the Court of Justice. Among the eminent scholars of European legal studies invited to give the lecture are Professor Joseph Weiler, former Judge David Edwards of the European Court of Justice, and Advocate-General Francis Jacobs of the European Court of Justice. The texts of the Mackenzie-Stuart Lectures are published in the Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies.The 2025 Mackenzie-Stuart Lecture was delivered by The Rt. Hon. Nick Thomas–Symonds MP, Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Minister for the Constitution and European Union Relations) under the title 'The UK's Relationship with the European Union' on 13 March 2025.Nick Thomas–Symonds was elected as the MP for Torfaen in May 2015, and was appointed Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Minister for the Constitution and European Union Relations) at the Cabinet Office on 8 July 2024.Lecture begins at 02:58More information about this lecture, including photographs from the event, is available from the Centre for European Legal Studies website at:https://www.cels.law.cam.ac.uk/mackenzie-stuart-lectures

Speaker: Dr Bernadette Zelger, University of InnsbruckAbstract: The debate about the future of the European Union has long left academic circles, arrived in the midst of society and been awarded political attention. Meanwhile, there has been an increase of Euroscepticism accompanied by more nationalist political developments echoed in the swings to the right all across the EU. These developments may, arguably at least in parts, be explained by social resentments of the peoples of Europe. While acknowledging that law constructs and contributes to a social reality of its own it is thus, arguably also about the lack of a genuine socio-economic equilibrium within the law and political system of the EU. This imbalance is not only found within the EU legal constitutional framework, but also within the case-law of the European Court of Justice. However, possible solutions to solve this socio-economic imbalance are limited: It is either (i) Treaty reform or, alternatively, (ii) a change in the approach of the Court in its jurisprudence. While these alternatives are both valid and, to some extent, mutually exclusive, they unveil and epitomise different visions as regards the future of the European Union. However, while acknowledging the differences in the approach, they are arguably different means to serve the very same end: Warrant the European Union’s future success. For more information see:https://www.cels.law.cam.ac.uk/weekly-seminar-series

Speaker: Professor Madhavi Sunder, Georgetown University Law SchoolAbstract: Innovation thrives on borrowing from creators, past and far-flung. When does cultural exchange cross the line into cultural misappropriation or theft decried as “cultural appropriation”? Notably, today’s culture wars increasingly turn on intellectual property claims, with calls for attending to the legal and ethical implications of dominant cultural creators taking and profiting from the innovations of disadvantaged and minority creators. Black creators embark on a #TikTokStrike to protest white influencers siphoning credit and revenues from black creatives. The Mexican Culture Minister calls out high end fashion labels for stealing local designs. Black dancers sue blockbuster video game Fortnite for copying dance moves without credit or royalties. Native activists challenge racist trademarks. The implication is clear: intellectual property has a cultural appropriation problem. Is intellectual property an appropriate legal tool for addressing cultural appropriation? This Lecture builds on growing scholarship studying dispossession and racial capitalism to consider intellectual property’s role in promoting or stifling recognition and redistribution for diverse creators.Biography: Madhavi Sunder is the Frank Sherry Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the Georgetown University Law Center. She is a widely published and influential scholar of intellectual property law, law and technology, women’s human rights, and international development. In 2024-2025, she is the Co-director of the Center for Transnational Legal Studies in London.For more information see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Speakers: Professor Vanessa Munro (University of Warwick) and Professor Miranda Horvath (University of Suffolk)Professors Munro and Horvath both actively contributed to Operation Soteria, the joint project between the police and CPS to rethink how allegations of sexual violence should be investigated and prosecuted. In this public lecture they will reflect together on the data they collected and the findings concerning reasons for underperformance, myths and stereotypes affecting charging decisions and the treatment of complainants. They will conclude by reflecting on the prospects for sustainable improvement post-Soteria. There will be opportunities for the audience to ask questions at the end.For more information see: https://www.cccj.law.cam.ac.uk/past-events-0

On 28 February 2025 The Rt. Hon. Lord Briggs of Westbourne delivered the 2025 XXIV Old Buildings Lecture entitled "Equitable Ownership".Michael Townley Featherstone Briggs, Lord Briggs of Westbourne became a Justice of the Supreme Court in October 2017.Lord Briggs grew up around Portsmouth and Plymouth, following his naval officer father between ships, before spending his later childhood in West Sussex. He attended Charterhouse and Magdalen College, Oxford. A keen sailor and the first lawyer in his family, he practised in commercial and chancery work before being appointed to the High Court in 2006. He was the judge in charge of the extensive Lehman insolvency litigation from 2009 to 2013.Lord Briggs was appointed as a Lord Justice of Appeal in 2013. He was the judge in charge of the Chancery Modernisation Review in 2013, and led the Civil Courts Structure Review in 2015 to 2016. In January 2016 he was appointed Deputy Head of Civil Justice.Timings:Professor Graham Virgo - Introduction: 00:00The Rt. Hon. Lord Briggs of Westbourne: 02:07The XXIV Old Buildings Lecture is an annual address delivered by a guest of the Cambridge Private Law Centre, and the event is sponsored by XXIV Old Buildings.More information about this lecture is available from the Private Law Centre website:https://www.privatelaw.law.cam.ac.uk/events

Summary: This talk explains Sudan’s descent into a horrific war that is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The war has displaced over 11 million people, involved the targeting of civilians, including especially women, in mass violence, and precipitated a hunger crisis affecting over 24 million people, with over 630,000 currently facing famine. How, after a momentous civilian uprising in 2018-19 that toppled the dictator Omer el-Bashir after 30 years of authoritarian rule, did Sudan come to this? Unravelling the causes and events that led to tragedy begins with how counter-revolutionary actors within the State benefitted from the priorities of external peacemakers seeking to achieve a democratic transition in order to displace revolutionary forces, before carrying out a coup against that very transition. The war erupted when the counter-revolution itself unravelled, and its two primary bedfellows, the Sudan Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces fell-out violently with each other in a struggle for power. With complex regional geopolitical entanglements and drawing in other armed groups in Sudan, their war to the bitter end has mixed cruel indifference and intentional harm towards civilians in devastating ways. Remarkably, the revolutionary spirit of the Sudanese has not been vanquished, and has found expression in how neighbourhood resistance committees have transformed into ‘emergency response rooms’ to deliver life-saving support. Sudan’s plight and prospects lie precariously within these intersecting trajectories.Sharath Srinivasan is David and Elaine Potter Professor of International Politics at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. He is also Founding Director, and currently Co-Director, of the University of Cambridge's Centre of Governance and Human Rights (CGHR). Professor Srinivasan is a Fellow and Trustee of the Rift Valley Institute and a Trustee and Vice-President of the British Institute in Eastern Africa.Professor Srinivasan’s work focuses on contentious politics in Africa in global perspective, from explaining failed peace interventions in civil wars to rethinking democratic politics in a digital age. He is the author of When Peace Kills Politics: International Intervention and Unending Wars in the Sudans (Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2021) and co-editor of Making and Breaking Peace in Sudan and South Sudan: The Comprehensive Peace Agreement and Beyond (British Academy/Oxford University Press, 2020).Chair: Dr Juliana Santos de Carvalho, Centre Fellow