EXTERNAL EVENTS
Here we feature non-SLSA events of interest to members of the SLSA.
If you would like a conference, workshop or seminar added to this page, please contact Marie Selwood. For details of the SLSA Annual Conference, Postgraduate Conference, and our seminars and workshops, please visit the SLSA events section.
EVENT DETAILS
20 April 2026
Broken Bonds: New Perspectives on Marital Breakdown in the English Common Law World, 1801–1969
Date:
20 April 2026
Venue:
Northumbria University, Newcastle, and online
Keynote speaker: Baroness Hale of Richmond DBE
Bringing together leading scholars from across the UK and beyond, the conference explores the legal, social, and cultural history of marital breakdown from the early nineteenth century to the eve of the Divorce Reform Act. Papers address themes including parliamentary divorce, domestic violence, gendered narratives of abuse, bigamy, and the long shadow of coverture on modern family law.
Thanks to the generosity of the ESRC, travel bursaries are available for PhD students, ECRs, the unwaged, and those without institutional funding. Please register and contact jennifer.aston@northumbria.ac.uk for further information.
20 April 2026
Law, History and Reproduction
Date:
20 April 2026
Venue:
University of Bristol
Workshop is built around work-in-progress articles studying a diverse range of themes – abortion, gender-based violence, social reproduction, obstetric violence and gender recognition – from an array of contexts – Australia, India, Indonesia, Italy, Malta, Pakistan and the United Kingdom.
20 April 2026
Toppling Heads: Regime Change and Immunity in International Law
Date:
20 April 2026
Venue:
SOAS University of London
Speaker: Professor Philippa Webb, Professor of Public International Law, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford; Barrister, Twenty Essex
What happens to international law when it is ignored, and regime change is driven by force rather than democracy?
21 April 2026
Book Launch: Migrating Borders and Citizenship in Law by Devyani Prabhat
Date:
21 April 2026
Venue:
Chair: Professor Carl Stychin
This seminar marks the launch of Migrating Borders and Citizenship in Law by Professor Devyani Prabhat (University of Bristol), published by University of London Press as part of the Reimagining Law and Justice series.
21 April 2026
Mark George KC Memorial Lecture – Wrongful Convictions
Date:
21 April 2026
Venue:
University of Manchester
The second Mark George KC Memorial Lecture will examine the pressing issue of wrongful convictions, reflecting on recent miscarriages of justice and on the 1984 Orgreave attacks, following the announcement of a public inquiry into police misconduct towards picketing miners at the Orgreave coking plant.
23 April 2026
Republic of Amnesia: Feature Documentary about the Rise and Fall of Sri Lanka's Aragalaya ('The Struggle')
Date:
23 April 2026
Venue:
Queen's Film Theatre, QUB
Republic of Amnesia (2025, 78 mins, UK/Sri Lanka) follows the rise and fall of Sri Lanka’s Aragalaya ('The Struggle') – the youth-led protest movement that forced authoritarian president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country in 2022.
23 April 2026
Decolonizing Queer Migration: Iranian Voices in Exile: book launch
Date:
23 April 2026
Venue:
Online from School of Law, Politics and Sociology, University of Sussex
Launch of the book Decolonizing Queer Migration: Iranian Voices in Exile, published with Bristol University Press, by Moira Dustin, Nuno Ferreira, Kamran Matin, Mehran Rezaei-Toroghi and Isabel Soloaga.
23 April 2026
The ECHR and the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement
Date:
23 April 2026
Venue:
Moot Court, Queen's University Belfast
Speakers: Professor Colin Harvey (Queen's University Belfast, Commissioner on the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission); Alyson Kilpatrick (Chief Commissioner, NI Human Rights Commission); Professor Aoife O'Donoghue (Queen’s University Belfast); Professor Colin Murray (Newcastle University)
27 April 2026
Refuge in a Cold Climate: The Impact on Women
Date:
27 April 2026
Venue:
Online Women in Refugee Law (WiRL) Event
This will be the sixth and final in a series of free online seminars hosted by the Women in Refugee Law (WiRL) network on the theme of 'Refuge in a cold climate: the impact on women'.
28 April 2026
How Have the Four UK Nations Sought to Tackle Child Poverty through Devolved Social Security and Welfare? And What Might They Learn from Each Other?
Date:
28 April 2026
Venue:
Webinar from the Campaign for Social Science
Speakers:
Chair: Mairi Spowage, Professor of Practice and Director of the Fraser of Allander Institute, University of Strathclyde
Ruth Patrick, Professor in Social and Public Policy (Urban Studies & Social Policy) at the University of Glasgow
Ciara Fitzpatrick, Senior Lecturer at Ulster University School of Law and the Social Justice Institute
Hayley Bennett, Lecturer in Social Policy, University of Edinburgh
Jed Meers, Senior Lecturer at York Law School, University of York
Sioned Pearce, Lecturer in Social Policy, Cardiff University
28 April 2026
Comic Pleading 1000–1600: Law, Comedy, Dialogue
Date:
28 April 2026
Venue:
Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London
This 2-day workshop brings together eight scholars from a range of disciplines – including History, English, Law, and French – who tackle various aspects of comic pleading in legal, religious, poetic, and dramatic texts, and think together about the intersection of law, comedy, and dialogue in the long medieval. The papers discussed will be published in a special issue of Law & Literature.
5 May 2026
Beyond Assad: Statelessness and Justice for Syria’s Future
Date:
5 May 2026
Venue:
67-69 Lincoln's Inn Fields, Queen Mary University of London
This event brings together academics and practitioners to explore how statelessness, refugee return, and transitional justice intersect in post-Assad Syria.
11 May 2026
Evidence Matters before Regional Human Rights Courts: The African Court in Critical and Comparative Perspective
Date:
11 May 2026
Venue:
Pretoria, South Africa
This three day conference will take place from 11–13 May 2025. The organisers are hoping to attract submissions covering not only legal but also interdisciplinary perspectives, in particular anthropological and socio-legal insights.
Keynote speakers:
Marie-Bénédicte Dembour, Ghent University
Justice Ben Kioko, African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights
Christopher Roberts, Chinese University of Hong Kong
19 May 2026
The State of the United States: Universities and Higher Education
Date:
19 May 2026
Venue:
UCL Laws
Speakers: Frederick M Lawrence, Secretary and CEO of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, Distinguished Lecturer, Georgetown University Law Centre, and former President of Brandeis University, and Professor Larry Kramer, President and Vice Chancellor of the London School of Economics and Political Science
21 May 2026
Trauma-Informed Justice for Women: Possibilities and Pitfalls
Date:
21 May 2026
Venue:
University of Greenwich and online
Exploring both the potential and the challenges of trauma-informed frameworks within justice systems, this one-day consortium, co-sponsored by the British Society of Criminology and the Centre for Communities and Social Justice, brings together scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to critically examine trauma-informed approaches to justice for women.
21 May 2026
The Four Nations Law and the Humanities Forums, Glasgow
Date:
21 May 2026
Venue:
University of Glasgow
Located at the University of Glasgow, this first forum in the series will happen in May, providing an important space to develop research excellence at the intersections of law and the humanities, and foster intellectual community, supporting early-career scholars.
4 June 2026
Social Justice in Tourism, Hospitality, Events and Leisure
Date:
4 June 2026
Venue:
Edinburgh Napier University
The symposium aims to foster critical dialogue, interdisciplinary exchange and collaborative thinking around how tourism, hospitality, events and leisure can contribute to more just and equitable futures.
8 June 2026
Postgraduate Research Workshop on Comparative Law
Date:
8 June 2026
Venue:
Edinburgh Law School
This workshop is designed for students working towards the degree of PhD or LLM by research, in any area of the law, and whose work adopts a comparative approach, or includes a significant comparative law element.
19 June 2026
Law and Humanities Roundtable 2026: Visions of Democracy in Art and Literature
Date:
19 June 2026
Venue:
Trinity College Dublin
The organisers of the eighth annual Law and Humanities roundtable invite original, and interdisciplinary paper presentations in response to this year’s theme. See call for papers for details.
22 June 2026
The Ombudsman’s Response to Global Crises
Date:
22 June 2026
Venue:
Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade
This two-day workshop will run from 22–23 June 2026.
Convenors: Luka Glušac (University of Belgrade), Naomi Creutzfeldt (University of Kent), and Chris Gill (University of Glasgow)
See website below for details.
25 June 2026
Foucault on Power, Law, and Society: A Reappraisal
Date:
25 June 2026
Venue:
Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London
A book symposium on Marco Brigaglia's book Foucault on Power, Law, and Society A Reappraisal (Routledge 2026).
Speaker: Marco Brigaglia, Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Palermo, Italy.
25 June 2026
The Legacy of Brexit and the Changing Political Landscape
Date:
25 June 2026
Venue:
University of Worcester
Dates: 25–26 June 2026
The co-convenors of the Society of Legal Scholars Public Law section are delighted to announce a two-day, in-person conference at the University of Worcester. The conference, which is supported by the Society of Legal Scholars Subject Section Fund, will explore the public law and constitutional implications of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union (Brexit).
26 June 2026
Rights Resistance Critique: A Conference Celebrating the Work of Costas Douzinas
Date:
26 June 2026
Venue:
Centre for Law and Humanities, Birkbeck University of London
A two-day event from 26–27 June 2026.
A conference to celebrate the work of Costas Douzinas. The speakers are Peter Goodrich, Gil Leung, Adam Gearey, Ozan Kamiloglou, Julia Chryssostalis, Andreas Philippopoulos-Michalopoulos, Patrick Hanafin, Cormac Deane, Ceylan Yildiz, Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, Dan Matthews, Marcus De Matos, Moniza Rizzini-Ansari, Alexis Alvarez-Nakagawa, Illan Wall, Jaco Barnard-Naude.
See website for details.
1 July 2026
Legal Humanities and Creative Writing Workshop
Date:
1 July 2026
Venue:
University of Southampton
The School of Law and the Department of English at the University of Southampton, UK, warmly invite abstracts for submissions for oral contributions to a Legal Humanities and Creative Writing Workshop: Stories of ‘Separation’ and ‘Gathering’ in Legal and Creative Imaginaries (spring/summer 2026, date tbc) on the productive role of fictional genre in law and legal thought. Please see the full Call for Abstracts for details.
This is a two-day event running from 1 to 2 July 2026.
2 July 2026
Centre for Access to Justice and Inclusion (CAJI) Conference 2026: call for papers
Date:
2 July 2026
Venue:
Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge
The call for papers is open and international, inviting contributions across disciplines, jurisdictions, and professional backgrounds, structured around the overarching conference theme and the cluster strands. To submit your proposal, please fill in the following form by 20 April 2026.
Further information is available on the website.
2 July 2026
Ethnography and Law: Methods and Challenges in Times of Crisis
Date:
2 July 2026
Venue:
University of Hamburg
Two-day workshop from 2–3 July 2026.
2 September 2026
Society of Legal Scholars: 117th Annual Conference: call for papers
Date:
2 September 2026
Venue:
University of East Anglia
This three-day event will run from 2 to 4 September 2026.
Theme: 'Doing Law Differently'. See website below for details.
Call opens on 30 January and closes on 27 March 2026.
Registration opens on 11 May 2026.
7 September 2026
What Truth? Evidence as Politics in Human Rights Courts
Date:
7 September 2026
Venue:
Tarragona, Spain
This is a three-day event from 7–9 September 2026 is the final conference of the DISSECT research project (ERC) for the study of evidence in international human rights adjudication. See announcement and link below for details.