Kayliegh Richardson,
Ana Speed and Victoria Roper secured funding from the Modern Law Review to host
a conference entitled ‘Gender-Based Violence: Approaches to Education,
Engagement and Elimination’. The conference, which took place in June 2020, was
attended by academics, legal practitioners and domestic abuse specialists from
countries including England, Bangladesh, India and Canada.
In December 2020, Callum Thompson was invited to speak at an event hosted by the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy about the rights of women and girls and protecting the future.
Kayliegh Richardson and Ana Speed were invited to present their research about the ability of gender-based violence victims to access justice during lockdowns at the Policing, Vulnerability and Victimisation Conference in November 2020.
Kayliegh Richardson, Ana Speed and Callum Thompson were invited in August 2020 to present their research above to the Local Family Justice Board.
In November 2019, Dr Caroline Andow from the University of Winchester visited to present her ethnographic study of everyday life inside a secure children's home in England.
Gender-based Violence Conference 2019
On 29 January 2019 and 30 January 2019, the Family Justice research interest group held a conference on the theme of gender-based violence in the
Great Hall at Northumbria University.
Attendees had the opportunity to:
- Engage in a range of debates and discussions around the themes of gender-based violence on both a domestic and an international level.
- Participate in lectures, workshops and seminars run by domestic abuse agencies, academics and practitioners from local law firms.
- Network with both academics and lawyers who have expertise in a variety of areas, including: image-based sexual violence, gender-based online abuse, human trafficking, and forced marriage.
Speakers and facilitators included:
Professor Claire McGlynn (Durham University)
Dr Shahrzad Fouladvand (University of Sussex)
Professor Vanessa Bettinson (De Montfort University)
Cris McCurley (Ben Hoare
Bell Solicitors)
Jessica Ritchie (University
of Queensland)
The
event was open to staff and students.
Visit from Dr Máire Ní Shúilleabháin
On 27 November 2018, we will be delighted to welcome Dr Máire Ní
Shúilleabháin from the university of Dublin. Dr Shúilleabháin will be
giving a talk at 2pm in CCE1-223B (Faculty of Law and Business). The title of Maire’s paper is ‘Surrogacy, System Shopping and Article 8 of the
European Convention on Human Rights’
Abstract: Contracting
States of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) are bound to secure
the rights guaranteed by the Convention. Article 8 ECHR, which guarantees the
right to respect for private and family life, has been interpreted as importing
extensive obligations to recognise parent-child relationships created through
overseas surrogacy arrangements. These ECHR obligations (first articulated in
2014) signify an acceleration in the privatisation of family law and in the
legitimatisation of system shopping. Whilst the EU institutions had previously
indicated a willingness to accommodate party autonomy and system shopping in
its private international law instruments, these accommodations were carefully
calibrated, in particular where children were concerned. This paper
critiques the Article 8 ECHR jurisprudence on international commercial
surrogacy and the role of the child’s ‘best interests’. It questions the
desirability of the Strasbourg Court’s interventions in a domain where human
rights considerations are so conflicted. It is argued that the European Court
of Human Rights (ECtHR) has facilitated untrammelled system shopping in a very
sensitive field of child law, and has dismantled domestic legislative choices,
without providing a convincing alternative analysis.
Members of staff and students are encouraged to attend this event.
Home Affairs Committee
report on domestic abuse
Following a
consultation in early 2018, the Home Affairs Committee have now released their
report on domestic abuse. The aim of the report is to help inform the
government in their preparation of the draft domestic abuse bill. On
behalf of the Family Justice research interest group and a number of other law school research interest groups/signature research areas, we
submitted evidence to the government in response to their consultation.
Further, Kayliegh Richardson and Claire Bessant contributed written evidence to
the final published report.
Access the report
