Podcast
Public Lectures from the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge
Hosted by Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge · EN
The Faculty of Law has a thriving calendar of lectures and seminars spanning the entire gamut of legal, political and philosophical topics. Regular programmes are run by many of the Faculty's Research Centres, and a number of high-profile speakers who are leaders in their fields often speak at the Faculty on other occasions as well.
Audio recordings from such events are published in our various podcast collections. Video recordings are available via YouTube.
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Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures 2026: Lecture 3: 'Immunities of State Officials and Prosecutions for International Crimes - Where does the Law Stand?' - Prof Dapo Akande, University of Oxford
1w ago01:01:30Tap to summarizeThe Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture is an annual three-part lecture series given in Cambridge to commemorate the unique contribution to the development of international law of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht. These lectures are given annually by a person of eminence in the field of international law. This year's lecture will be given by Professor Dapo Akande, Chichele Professor of Public International Law at the University of Oxford.A sandwich lunch for lecture attendees will be held from 12.30 pm in the Old Library on all days.Lecture 1: 1 pm Monday 8 June - 'International Law Immunities - Do we need them?'Lecture 2: 1 pm Tuesday 9 June - 'Immunities and Prosecutions for International Crimes in Foreign Domestic Courts'Lecture 3: 1 pm Wednesday 10 June - 'Immunities and International Criminal Tribunals'
Transcribe →Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures 2026: Lecture 2: 'Immunities of State Officials and Prosecutions for International Crimes - Where does the Law Stand?' - Prof Dapo Akande, University of Oxford
2w ago00:59:32Tap to summarizeThe Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture is an annual three-part lecture series given in Cambridge to commemorate the unique contribution to the development of international law of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht. These lectures are given annually by a person of eminence in the field of international law. This year's lecture will be given by Professor Dapo Akande, Chichele Professor of Public International Law at the University of Oxford.A sandwich lunch for lecture attendees will be held from 12.30 pm in the Old Library on all days.Lecture 1: 1 pm Monday 8 June - 'International Law Immunities - Do we need them?'Lecture 2: 1 pm Tuesday 9 June - 'Immunities and Prosecutions for International Crimes in Foreign Domestic Courts'Lecture 3: 1 pm Wednesday 10 June - 'Immunities and International Criminal Tribunals'
Transcribe →Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures 2026: Lecture 1: 'Immunities of State Officials and Prosecutions for International Crimes - Where does the Law Stand?' - Prof Dapo Akande, University of Oxford
2w ago01:01:02Tap to summarizeThe Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture is an annual three-part lecture series given in Cambridge to commemorate the unique contribution to the development of international law of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht. These lectures are given annually by a person of eminence in the field of international law. This year's lecture will be given by Professor Dapo Akande, Chichele Professor of Public International Law at the University of Oxford.A sandwich lunch for lecture attendees will be held from 12.30 pm in the Old Library on all days.Lecture 1: 1 pm Monday 8 June - 'International Law Immunities - Do we need them?'Lecture 2: 1 pm Tuesday 9 June - 'Immunities and Prosecutions for International Crimes in Foreign Domestic Courts'Lecture 3: 1 pm Wednesday 10 June - 'Immunities and International Criminal Tribunals'
Transcribe →The Global Housing Crisis and International Law: A Critical Assessment
4w ago00:40:34Tap to summarizeIn this talk, I’ll focus on multiple dimension of the global housing crisis - affordability, homelessness, loss of homes due to climate crisis, mass destruction of homes or domicide during conflict, migration and the idea of a home, the contestation over land, and the persistence of forced evictions, discrimination and increasing segregation - from an international legal perspective. Drawing on my work as UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to adequate housing, the key focus will be to ask how much international law matters to bring solutions to these aspects of the global housing crisis and how much international law itself is part of the root causes of these dimension of the housing crisis.Speaker: Balakrishnan Rajagopal is Associate Professor of Law and Development at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing. He founded the Program on Human Rights and Justice at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and the Displacement Research and Action Network. He is recognized as a leading participant in the Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) Network of scholars and is one of its founders, and is recognized as a leading global commentator on issues concerning the global South.Prof Rajagopal is visiting the University of Cambridge this term as the Leverhulme Professor.Chair: Dr Joanna GomulaThis lecture was delivered on 22 May 2026 as part of the Centre's Friday Lunchtime Lecture series.
Transcribe →Trademarks and Free Speech: Conflicts and Resolutions: CIPIL Evening Seminar
May 1500:53:33Tap to summarizeSpeaker: Lisa P. Ramsey, Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of LawProfessor Lisa P. Ramsey, Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law and an expert on trademark law, will be speaking on her new book, Trademarks and Free Speech: Conflicts and Resolutions (CUP: 2026). This book explores how trademark laws can conflict with the right to freedom of expression and proposes a framework for evaluating free speech challenges to trademark registration and enforcement laws. It also explains why granting trademark rights in informational terms, political messages, widely used phrases, decorative product features, and other language and designs with substantial pre-existing communicative value can harm free expression and fair competition. Lisa Ramsey encourages governments to not register or protect broad trademark rights in these types of inherently valuable expression. She also recommends that trademark statutes explicitly allow certain informational, expressive, and decorative fair uses of another’s trademark, and proposes other speech-protective and pro-competitive reforms of trademark law for consideration by legislatures, courts, and trademark offices in the United States, Europe, and other countries.You can order a copy of the book from CUP’s website here, using the code RAMSEY25 at checkout for a 20% discount.Biography: Lisa P. Ramsey is a Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, where she teaches and writes in the intellectual property law area. She is an expert on trademark law and has given presentations on this topic to attorneys, professors, and students throughout the United States and around the world. Professor Ramsey’s scholarship focuses on potential conflicts between trademark laws and free speech rights, and explains how trademark protection of certain inherently valuable words, symbols, and product features can harm fair competition and freedom of expression. In 2024, she testified at a hearing held by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's Intellectual Property Subcommittee about the First Amendment implications of a proposed anti-impersonation law targeted at unauthorized digital replicas called the No FAKES Act. She has also talked about free speech limits on trademark rights on panels at San Diego Comic-Con in 2023 and 2024. Professor Ramsey is an active member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association and worked on the subcommittee that updated the International Trademark Association’s Model Trademark Law Guidelines in 2019. Before joining the USD law faculty in 2004, she was an intellectual property litigator at Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich and a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Rebecca Beach Smith in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. In July 2025, she was named a Women of Influence in Law 2025 Honoree by the San Diego Business Journal. Information about her publications is available on her website at www.lisapramsey.com.For more information see:https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars
Transcribe →'Federal Impartiality: Navigating Divisive Rights in the EU and the US' CELS and CPL Book launch
May 1401:02:58Tap to summarizeThe Centre for European Legal Studies and the Centre for Public Law held a book launch and panel discussion on Dr Mohamed Moussa's recent monograph: Federal Impartiality: Navigating Divisive Rights in the EU and the US (Hart, 2026)Panel MembersChairProfessor Catherine Barnard (Cambridge), Chair of European LawDiscussantProfessor Mark Tushnet (Harvard), William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, Emeritus
Transcribe →The Death Penalty in the Commonwealth - A Complex Landscape: Cambridge Pro Bono Project Annual Lecture 2026
May 800:44:30Tap to summarizeThe Cambridge Pro Bono Project (CPP) hosted the annual lecture featuring Saul Lehrfreund MBE on Thursday 7th May 2026. Saul is Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of The Death Penalty Project, an international legal action charity based at Simons Muirhead & Burton LLP in London.The Cambridge Pro Bono Project is a research centre that draws on the subject-matter expertise of graduate researchers and Faculty experts to produce reports on a wide range of public interest matters. Every year, we invite distinguished speakers to address our researchers, staff, and students at the University of Cambridge. For more information about the Cambridge Pro Bono Project, see https://www.cpp.law.cam.ac.uk/ Twitter (https://twitter.com/Cam_ProBono) or Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/CamProBono).
Transcribe →'Implications of U.S. Foreign Aid Cuts and Reciprocal Tariffs for African Countries - A View from the Global South' - Prof Olabisi D Akinkugbe, University of Dalhousie
May 100:38:15Tap to summarizeLecture summary: President Trump’s decisive attack on foreign aid and USAID, leading to the restructuring of the latter and the closure of ongoing and future development aid work across the world, has left many vulnerable regions of the world in potential crisis. With some of the funds hitherto allocated to development aid in vulnerable Global South countries reallocated to national economic projects or redirected to support programs that deepen U.S. foreign policy objectives of America First abroad, one thing is clear: economic nationalism, power-based relations, and opposition to the rules-based order is back.Calculated, unfair, and transactional politics is the name of the game for President Trump’s return to office so far. Whether it is in relation to a developed, developing, or least-developed country, the Trump administration has unapologetically proven that it does not care whose ox is gored. Despite the US Supreme Court ruling, the “Reciprocal Tariff Policy” has disrupted and entrenched the uncertainty in the multilateral trading system that was already confronted with crisis about its own existence, especially the World Trade Organization, and the resulting fragmentation in international trade has further exacerbated the socio-economic and fragile status of developing countries.Olabisi Delebayo Akinkugbe is the Purdy Crawford Chair in Business Law and Associate Professor at the Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University. Prof Akinkugbe obtained a Ph.D. in law from the University of Ottawa, an LL.M. from the University of Toronto, and an LL.B. from the University of Lagos, Nigeria. He previously served as the Viscount Bennett Professor of Law at the Schulich School of Law and was convenor of the annual Viscount Bennett Roundtable on International Economic Law.In 2024, he was the recipient of the Hannah and Harold Barnett Excellence in Teaching Award.In this paper, I analyse the multiple implications for developing countries in the African continent.Chair: Prof Lorand BartelsThis lecture was delivered on 1 May 2026 and is part of the Friday Lunchtime Lecture series.
Transcribe →Child Contact Arrangements in the Context of Gender-Based Violence. A look at the Spanish no-contact rule: Family Law Seminar
Apr 3000:28:18Tap to summarizeSpeaker: Dr Maitena Arakistain Arriola (Assistant Professor in Civil Law, University of the Basque Country; Visiting Fellow CFL; Bye Fellow, Robinson College)Can the pro-contact culture that prevails in the justice system in child arrangement cases be changed through legislative reform? This is exactly what the Spanish legislator tried to do in 2021 when he amended the Civil Code to introduce a no-contact rule in cases of gendered-based violence. Now the presumption is that there will be no contact unless proven to be in the child’s best interests. Has it worked? The number of cases where unsafe contact is still awarded by the courts suggests that it has not, or, at least, not yet. In this seminar we will look at the position under Spanish Law and we will examine some of the arguments used to avoid the new no-contact rule.For more information about the Faculty Family Law Centre (CFL), see:https://www.family.law.cam.ac.uk/
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Conversation with Professor Anthony Anghie
Apr 2300:54:42Tap to summarizeProfessor Anthony Anghie was the Arthur Goodhart Visiting Professor of Legal Science for the academic years 2024-25. He was interviewed at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law in Cambridge on 16 June 2025.For more information, see the Squire website at:http://www.squire.law.cam.ac.uk/eminent_scholars/
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