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Professor Rebecca Probert is currently working as a specialist advisor with the Law Commission on a review of the law governing how and where people can marry in England and Wales. The Commission are expected to publish a report at the conclusion of the scoping phase, which is anticipated to be the end of 2015.

The question underlying the review would be whether the current law, which has evolved over a long period of time, provides a fair and coherent legal framework for enabling people to marry. Does the law allow people to marry in a way which meets their needs and wishes while recognising the interests of society and the state in protecting the status of marriage?

The current stage of the project involves a preliminary study involving research of domestic and comparative law, and engagement with key stakeholders. The aim is to identify and provide an initial analysis of the issues that need to be addressed in order to develop proposals for the reform of marriage law.

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The Centre for the Law, Governance and Regulation of the Global Economy welcomes its first Visiting Research Fellow, Dr Lorenzo Cotula who will be working with the Centre in academic year 2015 -16.

Dr Cotula is a principal researcher in law and sustainable development at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), where he leads the Legal Tools Team.

Lorenzo leads research, capacity and policy work on issues at the interface between law and international development, with a focus on the law governing natural resource rights and investments in low and middle-income countries. This includes work on international investment law, human rights, land rights and legal issues related to ‘land grabbing’, as well as the political economy of natural resource investments. Lorenzo also leads IIED’s work on ‘, an initiative to strengthen local rights and voices within natural resource investments in low and middle-income countries.

Before joining IIED in 2002, Lorenzo worked on assignments with the Legal Office of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. He holds academic qualifications in law, development studies and sustainable business from the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, the London School of Economics, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Cambridge.

Recent publications include ; ; ; ; and a wide range of research reports, journal articles and book chapters.

Lorenzo has previously collaborated with other GLOBE Centre researchers, including contributions to the Network on International Law, Natural Resources and Sustainable Development ( ) , and will be working with GLOBE to organise a workshop on international investment law under the upcoming International Law in Context Workshop Series.

Professor Gary Watt delivered a public lecture on "Shakespeare's Testamentary Performance" jointly hosted by the faculty of arts and the faculty of law at The University of Hong Kong on 10th September 2015.

Please click for further information regarding this event.

Dr Sam Adelman has been announced as the new editor of the Research Handbook on Climate Justice and Human Rights (Edward Elgar).

Congratulations Sam.

Sara Warner, one of our PhD students, has been awarded a for the second consecutive year, taking her total award to £10,000. These scholarships are awarded by the MLR on the basis of an annual competition for research students engaged on doctoral research at a university in the UK on any subject broadly within the publishing interests of the Review. Congratulations to Sara.

The Law of Disorder

The research looks at the relation between law and disorder. Legal concepts are usually framed as being a part of the everyday social order. However, in moments of disorder we find the legal system stripped of its conventional architecture: the monopoly of the use of force, the control of territory and populations, the authority of the legislature, the constitutional unity of the people, or law’s claim to neutral universal protection. In moments of disorder, law as an institution and a basis of the social order is questioned. The problem with extant ideas of the law of disorder is that they start from law’s ‘normalcy’. The ‘Law of Disorder’ reverses the priority wherein law is the horizon of meaning for understanding disorder. Instead it places the emphasis on thinking from within the ‘disordered’ event, attempting to see beyond the conventional legal understanding of constitutional ‘origins’, criminal prosecution and balancing of rights. During the ISRF fellowship, rather than beginning with war, the state of exception or transitional justice (all points of interest for ‘the Law of Disorder’), the project will focus on protest crowds. These reveal essential questions about law and social order. The project will analyse how the protest crowd generates an atmosphere in the space it occupies. From the square or park, sometimes this atmosphere begins to seep outwards, gradually settling upon the city or even the state (as a sense of crisis). Take for example the atmosphere of Madrid or Athens at the height of the Indignados occupations. In this new atmosphere, there is a revision of the type of political settlement that is realistic and possible, evidenced in Greece by the emergence and success of Syriza, the anti-austerity party.

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On the 15th of September, Shaheen Ali moderated a Side Event on the Promotion of the UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on Remedies and Procedures on the Right of Anyone

Deprived of His or Her Liberty by Arrest or Detention to Bring Proceedings before Court. This event took place in Room XXIV, Palais des Nations, Geneva. This event was held after the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention submitted these Principles and Guidelines to the Human Rights Council at its 30th session."

Professor Shaheen Sardar Ali was elected as Associate member of the International Academy of Comparative Law (IACL) in its election round of 2015. Founded at The Hague on 13 September 1924, the IACL is the leading international institution bringing together scholars in the field of comparative law. According to its Statutes, membership of the IACL is composed of Titular Members and Associate Members who in turn, elect new Associate Members

Recent years have seen extensive discussion about the continuing retreat from marriage, the increasing demand for the right to marry from previously excluded groups, and the need to protect those who do not wish to marry from being forced to do so. At the same time, weddings are big business, couples are spending more than ever before on getting married, and marriage ceremonies are increasingly elaborate. It is therefore timely to reflect on the rites of marriage, as well as the right to marry (or not to marry), and the relationship between them.

To this end, this new interdisciplinary collection brings together scholars from numerous fields, including law, sociology, anthropology, psychology, demography, theology and art and design. Focusing on England and Wales, it explores in depth the specific issues arising from this jurisdiction’s Anglican heritage, demographic development, current laws and social practices.

Dr Illan rua Wall gave a keynote at the 2015 Critical Legal Conference in the Aula Leopoldina at the University of Wroclaw in Poland. He presented five theses on crowds. In response to the events of Occupy, the Indignados, the so-called Arab Spring and the miriad of other recent disorders, he developed a legal theory of disorder and political turbulence.

African Constitutional Reviews, Elections and Human Rights: The Case of Tanzania

Professor Chris Maina Peter will be holding a research seminar on ‘African Constitutional Reviews, Elections and Human Rights: The Case of Tanzania.’ The seminar will begin with lunch at 12:30 and will start at 1pm in S2.12.

Professor Peter will be discussing the ongoing Tanzanian Constitutional Review and electoral process in the context of African Constitutional Reviews. Recent review processes in Africa have had significant implications for human rights and democracy and in the case of Tanzania this has raised significant issues in relation to the right to self-determination as well as general human rights including women's rights.

Professor Chris Maina Peter is a leading African expert on Human Rights and Constitutionalism. He is Professor of Law at the University of Dar es Salaam and a Member of the UN Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

(Law, ÌÒÉ«ÊÓƵ), Associate Professor Vicki Squire (PaIS, ÌÒÉ«ÊÓƵ), Professor Nick Vaughan-Williams (PaIS, ÌÒÉ«ÊÓƵ), Dr Angeliki Dimitriadi (ELIAMEP, Athens), and Dr Maria Pisani (Malta), have been awarded over 150K for an project entitled 'Crossing the Mediterranean Sea by boat: Mapping and documenting migratory journeys and experiences.’

Crossing the Mediterranean Sea by boat: Mapping and documenting migratory journeys and experiences
While migrant deaths en route to the European Union are by no means new, the level and intensity of recent tragedies is unprecedented. More than 1850 deaths were recorded January-May 2015, demanding swift action on the part of EU Member States. This project produces a timely and robust evidence base as grounds for informing policy interventions developed under emergency conditions across the Mediterranean. It does so by assessing the impact of such interventions on those that they affect most directly: migrants or refugees themselves. This project undertakes such an assessment by engaging the journeys and experiences of people migrating, asking:

• What are the impacts of policy interventions on migratory journeys and experiences across the Mediterranean?
• How do refugees or migrants negotiate complex and entwined migratory and regulatory dynamics?
• In what ways can policy be re-shaped to address migrant deaths at sea?

The project focuses on three EU island arrival points in Greece, Italy and Malta. Qualitative interview data, both textual and visual, is produced through an interdisciplinary participatory research approach. The project contributes: an interdisciplinary perspective on the legal and social implications of policy interventions in the region; a comparative perspective on migratory routes and methods of travel across the Mediterranean; a qualitative analysis of the journeys and experiences of refugees and migrants; and methodological insights into participatory research under emergency conditions.