UCL Laws Events & CPD
The UCL Laws events programme reflects the diversity of teaching and research offered by the Faculty, with a regular selection of lively seminars, lectures, debates and conferences on a wide variety of engaging legal topics. Many of the events are accredited by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Bar Standards Board, and IP Reg for CPD credit. The majority of our events are free and open to everyone - unless otherwise stated.
May 2013
CANCELLED: ILA (British Branch) Lecture
Future prospects of universal jurisdiction, the denial of immunities of State officials, and the obligation to extradite or prosecute
Thursday 23 May 2013, 6 - 7.00pm
- Speakers: His Excellency Dr Ambassador Kriangsak Kittichaisaree (Member of the International Law Commission of the United Nations)
- Venue: UCL Faculty of Laws
- Admission: Free of charge and open to all
- Accreditation: 1 CPD hour (SRA and BSB (pending))
This event has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. We hope to have details on rescheduling the event shortly.
In these past few decades, there are high hopes that the end is nigh for impunity for the most serious crimes of international concern. However, this ‘trend’ against impunity has been challenged in domestic courts, the International Court of Justice as well as in the Sixth (Legal) Committee of the UN General Assembly. The International Law Commission (ILC) of the United Nations, whose mandate is codification and progressive development of international law, must find evidence of State practice to substantiate conclusions that there is no such impunity under international law. Kriangsak Kittichaisaree will speak of his experience in the Sixth Committee and in the ILC, and he will address the future prospects of universal jurisdiction, the denial of immunities of State officials, and the obligation to extradite or prosecute which jointly form an integrated mechanism to combat the impunity.
Claims for Damages in Competition Law and Intellectual Property Law: Legal Framework and Economic Principles for the Evaluation of Damages
Wednesday 15 & 22 May & Monday 3 & 10 June 2013 (4 x 2.5 hour lectures)
- Speakers: Vincent Smith (Sheppard and Smith) and Peter Davis (CompassLexecon)
- Venue: UCL Faculty of Laws
The course will examine the legal framework for claims for damages in EU and UK competition law as well as in intellectual property law and the economic principles for the evaluation of damages in these contexts. The topic is of particular importance in view of the increasing numbers of competition law claims for damages in the UK, the harmonization initiatives at the EU level, the recent reforms envisaged in UK competition law promoting private enforcement and the importance of damages claims for infringement of IP rights, in view of the issues raised by other forms of protection of IP rights, such as injunctions.
View more details and register
June 2013
UCL Institute for Human Rights
The New Commonwealth Model of Constitutionaliam: Theory and Practice
Tuesday 4 June 2013, 6 - 7.30pm
- Speakers: Professor Stephen Gardbaum (MacArthur Foundation Professor of International Justice and Human Rights, UCLA)
- Venue: UCL Faculty of Laws
- Admission: Free of charge and open to all
- Accreditation: This event is not accredited for CPD
This lecture, based on the book of the same title, argues that recent bills of rights in Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Australia are an experiment in a new third way of organizing basic institutional arrangements in a democracy. This ‘new Commonwealth model of constitutionalism’ promises both an alternative to the conventional dichotomy of legislative versus judicial supremacy and innovative techniques for protecting rights.
UCL Centre for Law, Economics and Society Conference
Evidence in Competition Law Proceedings: A Comparative Perspective
Wednesday 5 June 2013, 6pm
- Speakers include: Kai-Uwe Kuhn (European Commission), Howard Shelanski (US Federal Trade Commission), Christian Ewald (Bundeskartellamt), Judge Douglas Ginsburg (DC Circuit, Court of Appeals), Judge Frederic Jenny (OECD, OFT, ESSEC, UCL), Mr Justice Roth (Competition Appeal Tribunal) and many others.
- Venue: UCL Faculty of Laws
- Admission: £120 standard fee, £80 public sector / government, £20 students (full-time)
- Accreditation: 6.5 CPD hour (SRA and BSB)
This conference will examine the topic of Competition Law Evidence, including the way competition law evidence is collected and assessed by competition authorities in Europe and in the US and the increasing role of the judiciar. It will discuss practical issues relating to the standard of proof, the differences between adversarial and inquisitorial processes, the limits to evidence gathering set by the Legal Professional Privilege, the Privilege Against Self-Incrimination and rights of defense in general. The conference will also shed light on an unexplored but fascinating area of law enforcement. The speakers, global leaders in this field of law, come from the judiciary, competition authorities, academia and practice.
UCL & Baker & McKenzie Third Annual Lecture on International Law and Litigation:
Investment Treaty Arbitration: An International Lawyer's Perspective
Thursday 6 June 2013, 6pm
- Speakers: Prof. Brigitte Stern (University of Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne)
- Venue: Middle Temple Hall
- Admission: Free of charge and open to all
- Accreditation: 1 CPD hour (SRA and BSB)
This lecture assesses investment treaty arbitration through the eyes of a public international lawyer, and the lens of public international law. Contrary to a purely “commercial” approach to the resolution of disputes between foreign investors and States – which tend to proceed on the basis that both actors are to be treated as similar economic entities acting in the same playing field – this perspective offers the necessary and invaluable contribution of public international law. Such law takes into account the public nature of these disputes, and the specificities and functions of sovereign States, on questions such as interpretation, attribution and the consequences of the application of general principles of international law..
UCL Institute for Human Rights with the Equal Rights Trust
Poverty and Rights: Can and Should the Law Promote Socio-Economic Equality?
Thursday 6 June 2013
- Speakers: Judge Claire L’Heureux-Dubé (Judge of the Supreme Court of Canada 1987-2002); Judge Kate O’Regan (Judge of the South African Constitutional Court 1994 – 2009); Dr Octavio Ferraz (Associate Professor of Law at the University of Warwick); and Dr Virginia Mantouvalou (Co-Director of the UCL Institute for Human Rights and Lecturer in Law)
- Chair:Professor Sir Bob Hepple QC, Chair of the Equal Rights Trust
- Venue: UCL Faculty of Laws
- Admission: Free of charge and open to all
- Accreditation: This event is not accredited for CPD
In these times of austerity, the impact of public spending cuts on the most disadvantaged is in the spotlight. With research suggesting that the poor are disproportionately negatively impacted by spending cuts, the question of whether the law should step in on their behalf to challenge public spending decisions is at the fore. The longstanding divide between those who think that it is not the place of the law to redistribute resources and those who think socio-economic rights cannot be fully realised without such redistribution, is reignited. Can equality law be used to transform human rights? Should the law lift people out of poverty? What is the appropriate role of the law in advancing the equal enjoyment of social rights such as the rights to health and education? Can the courts promote socio-economic equality without usurping the role of the state in determining resource allocation? Does it matter?
UCL Centre for Law, Economics and Society Conference
Theory and Practice of Regulatory Impact Assessments in Europe:
A Comparative and Interdisciplinary Perspective
Monday 10 June 2013, 6pm
- Topics covered include: One tool, many uses ? : Regulatory impact assessment, public policy and institutions; The contribution of the regulatory impact assessment tool in reframing "public policy" analysis; Regulatory impact assessments and their actors; and Regulatory impact assessments as political arguments.
- Venue: Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA), Paris
- Admission: fees apply
- Accreditation: This event is not accredited for CPD
The conference aims to examine in a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective the implementation of impact assessment in the European Union (EU) and Member States of the EU.
UCL Institute of Brand and Innovation Law (IBIL)
with Taylor Wessing LLP
The role of experts and scientific advisors in patent litigation around the European Union
Tuesday 11 June 2013
- Speakers: Prof. Sir Robin Jacob (IBIL); Judge Sharon Prost (Federal Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit); Judge Edger F. Brinkman (Senior Judge, District Court of The Hague, The Netherlands); Judge Mine Reimnitz (Landgericht, Dusseldorf) Nigel Stoate (Taylor Wessing); Professor Michael Yudkin (University of Oxford; Scientific Advisor to the House of Lords in Kirin-Amgen); Dr Roger S. Newton (Former Director of the Chemical Research Division of Glaxo Group Research Limited, expert witness in several trials before the UK Patents Court); Professor David Limebeer (Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford; Expert witness in several cases and scientific advisor to the Court of Appeal in one); Christoph de Coster (Taylor Wessing, Germany); Pedro Merino Baylos (Baylos Abogados, Spain); Ruprecht Hermans (Brinkof Advocaten, Netherlands); Thomas Bouvet (Veron & Associes, France); Jonas Westerberg (Lindahl Advokatfirman, Sweden); Klaus Ewald Madsen (Bech Bruun, Denmark); Andrea Mondini (Schellenberg Wittmer, Switzerland); Fabrizio Jacobacci (Jacobacci, Italy);
- Venue: UCL Faculty of Laws
- Admission: Fees apply
- Accreditation: 6 CPD hour per day (SRA and BSB (pending))
This day conference focuses on the role of experts and scientific advisors in patent litigation around the EU. It has speakers from the USA, The Netherlands, Germany, UK, Spain, France, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and Italy. It also includes judicial input from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit of the USA, UK, Germany and Holland. For the first time ever, some experts who have given evidence in patent actions and scientific advisors to the court have been gathered together to give their views on the subject.
Programme information and registration details
Centre for Law, Economics and Society
CPD course on Innovation, Competition Law and IP Rights
12 & 13 June, 18 & 19 June, from 2 - 6.30pm
- Speaker: Professor Herbert Hovenkamp, University of Iowa School of Law and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Venue: UCL Faculty of Laws
- Admission: Fees apply
- Accreditation: 16 CPD hour (SRA and BSB)
In the modern knowledge economy companies are striving to achieve competitive advantage by expanding their IP rights portfolio. For this companies are employing IP as a way to harm their competitors or as a monetary exchange in IP related transactions. However as recent litigation in the pharmaceutical sector demonstrates competition law and IP law disputes are interconnected. This course will analyse the value of competition law in addressing a variety of practices used in innovation-intensive markets. These include the interconnection of networks, ‘duties to deal’, the licensing and distribution of IP rights (standard setting organisations and patent pools) and reverse settlements as adopted by firms active in the manufacturing and delivery of services or non-practising entities, drawing from examples in both EU and US law. The course will also consider the uses and limitations of competition law and policy as a vehicle for promoting innovation. It will also examine realistic reforms that can be undertaken in IP law and competition law across various sectors of the economy as well as the practical implications of that interaction for a number of commercial practices.
UCL Institute of Brand and Innovation Law (IBIL)
supported by Taylor Wessing LLP
Community Trade Marks - Are they a Swiss Cheese? Do Community Trade Marks still have unitary effect in the EU?
Wednesay 12 June 2013
- Speaker: Prof. Dr. Joachmin Bornkamm (German Supreme Court)
- Chair: Prof. Sir Robin Jacob (IBIL)
- Venue: UCL Central Campus
- Admission: Free of charge and open to all
- Accreditation: 1 CPD hour (SRA and BSB (pending))
This annual lecture honours the memory of Professor Sir Hugh Laddie, former UCL Professor of Intellectual Property Law and Court of Appeal Judge.
July 2013
Curent Legal Issues Colloquium
Law and Michael Freeman
Monday 1 & Tuesay 2 July 2013
- About the event: The UCL Faculty of Laws is celebrating Professor Michael Freeman's extraordinary contribution to legal scholarship over the course of his distinguished career in the 2013 Current Legal Issues Colloquium.
- Venue: UCL Faculty of Laws
- Admission: Fees apply
- Accreditation: 6.5 CPD hour per day (SRA and BSB (pending))
The themes of the Colloquium will encompass children's rights, corporal punishment of children, family and child law generally, medical ethics and the law, jurisprudence, Jewish law and legal systems/legal pluralism, all areas of research to which Michael has made significant contributions. Leading international scholars and practitioners from each of these areas will be presenting their current work and some are reflecting specifically upon Michael's contributions to the field. Michael freeman will also give the keynote lecture on the evening of the first day of the colloquium, on 'Rethinking Children's Rights', chaired by Baroness Hale of Richmond
Programme information and registration details
Public Lecture in the
Law and Michael Freeman Colloquium
Rethinking Children's Rights
Monday 1 July 2013 at 6pm
- Speaker: Professor Michael Freeman (UCL Laws)
- Chair: The Rt Hon Baroness Hale of Richmond DBE (UK Supreme Court)
- Venue: UCL Faculty of Laws
- Admission: Fees apply
- Accreditation: 1 CPD hour per day (SRA and BSB (pending))
The UNCRC is nearly a quarter of a century old. Have we invested too much hope in it? An audit would show that children's lives have not got noticeably better. Professor Freeman will ask Is it because the Convention is not good enough?; Is it because the rights approach is the wrong way to tackle the ills of childhood?; Or is it because the UNCRC is another strategy to control and regulate children? Professor Freeman will suggest that all three answers are both right and wrong./p>