September 2020: Kent Law School research news round-up

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All the latest updates on socio-legal research at Kent Law School plus expert, critical analysis of current events - including socio-legal insights in the time of COVID-19

August & September 2020

Socio-legal insights in the time of COVID-19:

  • Ruptures21: Ruptures21 is an initiative of The IEL Collective which comprises a team of academics that includes Dr Luis Eslava and Professor Donatella Alessandrini. They are working with colleagues from the School of Law at the University of Warwick as well as multi-disciplinary teams from Rosario University in Colombia. The initiative responds to the challenges posed by old and current economic, social and legal dynamics and their impact on the human and non-human world. Through international interdisciplinary and institutional collaborations, it advances novel ways to understand and address global issues. The team’s first project is ‘Informal Work and Public Health in Colombia: Targeted Regulation during the COVID-19 Global Emergency (Informality in COVID-19 Times)’ which will explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on informal workers in Colombia.
  • Can online justice ever work? In the wake of COVID-19, Kent Law Clinic Solicitor Vivien Gambling reveals the challenges faced in tackling appeals for clients via telephone hearings & reflects on her concerns
  • Behind Closed Doors: Domestic Violence And Abuse During Covid-19: an article for Forbes by PhD scholar Ewelina Ochab
  • Consumer Law and Policy Relating to Change of Circumstances Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Open Access article for the Journal of Consumer Policy authored by the COVID-19- Consumer Law Research Group comprising Professor Iain Ramsay along with Richard Alderman, Alberto De Franceschi, Mark Giancaspro, Geraint Howells, Chen Lei, Javier Lete, Hans-W Micklitz, Emilia Miscenic, Tjakie Naude, Pascal Pichonnaz, Elise Poillot, Evelyne Terryn, Christian Twigg-Flesner & Thomas Wilhelmsson
  • COVID-19 and Irish court proceedings: The Civil Law and Criminal Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2020 has been enacted in Ireland to allow for greater use of video link and online hearings in a wide range of court proceedings. Enacted with unnecessary haste, supposedly in response to the challenges posed by COVID-19, the measures clearly have a more permanent and far-reaching agenda. Expert analysis from Professor Dermot Walsh on the Criminal Justice Notes blog

KLS research updates, publications and analysis:

  • Property’s competing values: the public house re-cycled as “community asset”: an article by Anne Bottomley for the Journal of Property, Planning and Environmental Law: Volume 12 Issue 3. Abstract: This paper aims to investigate the potential of the “image-idea” of a “circular economy” for re-thinking property in law: In particular, to develop a strategy for making visible “alternative property practices” of community ownership across the subject areas of business and property law, to enhance the visibility of models of community ownership and interrogate their potential.
  • Between Islands: Colonial Legacies and Cultural Imaginaries: a paper by Anne Bottomley, published in Pólemos (Volume 14, Issue 2). The paper came out of a conference on the theme of Islands held in Italy last Autumn. The same theme forms the frame and backbone of Anne’s forthcoming book, which will focus on law as much as culture.
  • Universal Credit isn’t working: Expert testimony provided by Dr Ruth Cain has contributed to a report by the Economic Affairs Committee proposing major reforms to Universal Credit
  • Fix My Block: Professor Helen Carr and Dr Ed Kirton-Darling contributed expert knowledge to a unique new website, launched on 25 August, that helps tower block tenants in England and Wales take action on housing problems. FixMyBlock.org is is the first self-help service to provide information purely for tower block residents. It gives straightforward advice on how to get common problems fixed, from disrepair to fire safety issues. It’s also designed to help residents understand their legal rights, in clear and simple language.
  • Ending Homelessness in Kent and Medway: Professor Helen Carr and Nick Piska were among the experts contributing to a free webinar on housing & homelessness in Kent for the Canterbury Housing Advice Centre (CHAC) on 16 September. Watch again on YouTube.
  • Understanding the (re)regulation of private renting in England: Karl Polanyi, the rogue landlord, the responsible tenant and the decent home. A book chapter co-authored by Professor Helen Carr and Rowan Alcock for Contract Law and the Legislature: Autonomy, Expectations, and the Making of Legal Doctrine edited by Professor TT Arvind (York) and Professor Jenny Steele (York). The chapter takes a historically and theoretically informed look at the recent regulatory interventions into the private rented sector.
  • Healthcare, Well-being, and the Regulation of Diversity in Healing: a chapter authored by Professor Emilie Cloatre and Dr Nayeli Urquiza-Haas for a new edited collection entitled A Jurisprudence of the Body (edited by Chris Dietz, Mitchell Travis, Mitchell and Michael Thomson). Book abstract: This book brings together a range of theoretical perspectives to consider fundamental questions of health law and the place of the body within it. Health, and more recently health law, has long been animated by discussions of particular bodies – whether they are disordered, diseased, or disabled – but each of these classificatory regimes claim some knowledge about the body. This edited collection aims to uncover and challenge the fundamental assumptions that underpin medico-legal knowledge claims about such bodies. This exploration is achieved through a mix of perspectives, but many contributors look towards embodiment as a perspective that understands bodies to be shaped by their institutional contexts. Much of this work alerts us to the idea that medical practitioners not only respond to healthcare issues, but also create them through their own understandings of ‘normality’ and ‘fixing’. Bodies, as a result, cannot be understood outside of, or as separate to, their medical and legal contexts. This compelling book pushes the possibility of new directions in health care and health justice.
  • Istanbul Vignettes: Observing the Everyday Operation of International Law: Dr Luis Eslava delivered a lecture on 7 August for the Istanbul Centre of International Law as part of their Formation-2 lecture programme
  • ‘The Teaching of (Another) International Law’: an article by Dr Luis Eslava, published in Volume 54, Issue 3 of The Law Teacher (the international journal of legal education)
  • The long road to success: Kent Law Clinic Solicitor Vivien Gambling details a successful but stressful PIP appeal she undertook for her disabled client Mr G. This fascinating, compassionate account lays bare the human cost of the process on Mr G…
  • WW3 warning: ‘Major threat’ of nuclear war 75 years on from Hiroshima: In an article for Express.co.uk, marking the anniversary of the dropping of a uranium bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 August and 9 August 1945, Professor Nick Grief said an all-out nuclear war cannot be ruled out due to the reluctance of world powers to scale back armaments. He told the Express that “a significant step which leaders should take towards making the world a safe place is to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which Ireland did this week.” He also called for Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent to be removed immediately as part of a multilateral approach to disarmament: “I don’t think we need a nuclear deterrent nowadays in any event. When the Government says we would only ever use it in an extreme situation in self-defence or to defend our NATO allies, my answer to that is the international court didn’t actually say that it’s lawful to use it in those extreme circumstances so that concerns me as well.”
  • Tweet referencing ‘activist lawyers’: Professor Nick Grief, Sian Lewis-Anthony and Dr Thanos Zartaloudis called for an apology from the Home Office after a tweet (on 27 August), blamed ‘activist lawyers’ for delays and disruption in returning migrants.
  • Whose redemption? The slave trade, abolition & British interventions on the high seas: Dr Emily Haslam addresses British public memory of slave trade abolition and offers a timely reminder of Britain’s brutal involvement in the trafficking of 2.6m Africans. Dr Haslam is the author of ‘The Slave Trade, Abolition and the Long History of International Criminal Law : The Recaptive and the Victim’ (Routledge, 2019)
  • Care Worker Survey: The Social Care Regulation at Work project team (Professor Lydia Hayes, Dr Alison Tarrant, and Dr Hannah Walters) launched an online survey for care workers in England, Scotland & Wales this month, to find out more about their conditions of employment.
  • Care is a gendered issue: Professor Lydia Hayes joined a panel discussing gender imbalance in the workforce & the road to equality as part of Professional Care Worker’s Week. The event was organised by the The Care Worker Charity.
  • Indian Feminist Judgments Initiative: Professor Rosemary Hunter is a member of the Advisory Board supporting a new Indian Feminists Judgments Initiative that launched at the end of August. Professor Hunter is also Co-Convenor of the Feminist Judgment Projects in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.
  • Towards Anti-racist Legal Pedagogy: This new resource – freely available to download – was launched on Thursday 3 September by Dr Suhraiya Jivraj during a panel on legal education at the 2020 Annual Conference of the Society of Legal Scholars. The resource, supported by Socio-Legal Studies Association funding, is designed to help teachers develop anti-racist pedagogy in their teaching in five of the six foundation subjects currently required for a qualifying law degree (QLD). Underpinned by a theoretical framework of critical race theory, the resource explores experiences of racism in Higher Education and provides practical solutions for overcoming barriers to inclusion.
  • ‘Patents as Assets: Intellectual Property Rights as Market Subjects and Objects‘: a chapter by Dr Hyo Yoon Kang published in the edited collection, Asseitization: Turning Things into Assets in Technoscientific Capitalism (MIT Press, 2020) and available Open Access (thanks to funding by Arcadia, charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin). The book is edited by Kean Birch and Fabian Muniesa. The edited volume examines how assets are constructed and how a variety of things can be turned into assets, analyzing the interests, activities, skills, organizations, and relations entangled in this process. In Dr Kang’s chapter, she analyses the ways in which knowledge becomes turned into an asset by patent law. In particular, she develops a differentiated notion of patents as assets as financial assets distinct from commoditisation. Patents, she argues, are not only legal instruments of market monopolisation, but the legal rights themselves have become shell instruments of financial speculation.
  • Zimbabwe compensates white farmers with billions: Dr Alex Magaisa is interviewed for an article on DW.COM – In the article, Dr Magaisa’s reaction to the new compensation plan in Zimbabwe was less euphoric than that of President Mnangagwa: “Although it represents the first step towards drawing a line under the chapter of land reform, “ten or fifteen years ago, the issue of compensation would have been much higher on the list of priorities,” he told DW. “Today it is no longer one of their most pressing problems.”
  • Big Saturday Read: weekly, expert analysis of Zimbabwean law and politics by Dr Alex Magaisa (as a former chief advisor to Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe’s former Prime Minister, Dr Magaisa oversaw the affairs of the Office of the Prime Minister and was closely involved in the campaign for the 2013 elections.)
  • ZEC Role In Filling Party-list Seats, A Candid Conversation With Dr Alex Magaisa: Watch Dr Alex Magaisa in conversation with Taku Mandura from Open Parly ZW discussing the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s Role In Filling Party-list Seats & explaining the law of elections and democratic representation in Zimbabwe.
  • Articles for Forbes by PhD legal scholar Ewelina Ochab:
  • Six years since Yazidi massacre: PhD scholar Ewelina Ochab (co-founder of the Coalition for Genocide Response) was interviewed by Natasha Fatah for the CBC News Network on Saturday 15 August. Ewelina works on the topic of genocide, with specific focus on persecution of religious minorities around the world, with main projects including Daesh genocide in Syria and Iraq, Boko Haram atrocities in West Africa, and the situation of religious minorities in South Asia. Her PhD is in international law, human rights and medical ethics.
  • Image-based sexual abuse: Dr Erika Rackley was invited to take part in a panel discussion on image-based sexual abuse for Mariella Frostrup’s show on Times Radio on 23 September. Dr Rackley joined activist/law reform campaigner Noelle Martin and Folami Prehaye, an author for Victims of Image Crime (VOIC) to talk about the rise of Revenge Porn and Deep fake Pornography (Listen again 00:06:12 mins in)
  • Breathing Spaces and Early Intervention: Some Issues: A post by Professor Iain Ramsay on his ‘Credit Debt and Insolvency’ blog. Intro: The government has now published draft regulations for a ‘breathing space’ for individuals with problem debt in England and Wales (see here). The breathing space of 60 days, to be accessed through FCA regulated debt advisors, will protect an individual against creditor action and permit a debtor to consider possible debt solutions.
  • Transformative Gender Justice: What does Nationalism have to do with it? Dr Josipa Saric delivered an interactive Zoom session for the Nadira Hassan Law Department of Kinnaird College on 20 August as part of their NHLD Webinar Series.
  • Re-Cast(e)ing Navtej Singh v. Union of India: PhD legal scholar Gee Semmalar provides an alternative judgment in the case around the decriminalisation of §377 in Navtej Singh v Union of India, adjudicated by the Supreme Court of India in 2018 for the National University of Juridical Sciences Law Review
  • Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship: PhD scholar, and Graduate Teaching Assistant, Lara Tessaro, has been awarded a doctoral scholarship by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (colloquially called “big SSHRC”) is worth $35K Cdn (approx £20k) per year for the next three years. A big SSHRC is only tenable at Canadian universities – but for PhD students studying abroad, SSHRC will convert a big SSHRC into a little SSHRC, which is worth $20K Cdn/year. Lara started her PhD programme in 2019 and was awarded a Vice Chancellor’s scholarship by Kent Law School. Her thesis is titled: Toxic temporalities: cosmetics labelling and the entanglements of law, mattter, and time
  • Policing hostile activity at UK ports and border: Draconian police powers have been introduced at UK ports to combat the threat of “hostile activity” from actors on behalf of a foreign State. They will also facilitate intrusive monitoring of ordinary everyday travel post-Brexit in the Northern Ireland border area with the Republic of Ireland. Expert analysis from Professor Dermot Walsh on the Criminal Justice Notes blog
  • Garda discretion under spotlight after verbal warning for Hogan: Professor Dermot Walsh‘s criticism of Section 41 of the Garda Síochána Act 2005 is referenced in this article published in the Irish Times on 25 August
  • Preserve the Ashes of Moria: an article for Verfassungsblog by Itamar Mann with a contribution by Dr Thanos Zartaloudis. On Wednesday night, first images began to circulate online from the fires in Moria, the large and infamous refugee camp on Lesvos. Children and young adults displaced by war, once again displaced by flames, fleeing in medical facemasks. When Wednesday morning broke out, we learned that the camp was indeed burned to the ground, with around 13,000 refugees remaining shelterless in the surrounding area. In the afternoon, local authorities declared next steps.
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