BU Research Blog

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Brief overview of the activity. I give lectures (in English) at Pisa University. The students are mainly Italian law students who do English as an ancillary subject. My subjects for the four talks relate to recent developments in human rights law in the UK but this subject also involves human rights themes at a European and international level. I also attend one or two of the language classes the students have and answer questions on the English legal system and English life as a whole.

What do you hope to achieve? Italian law students study a codified “civilian” legal system and so I hope to interest them a bit in the somewhat different common law system that we have in the UK. In particular it is interesting to consider how universal norms such as human rights can be given effect as positive legal rules given the qualities and structures of the different systems. The interest is reciprocal and I hope to learn from them about how the civil law system works in this context, too. The other point is that these lectures can be used to try out first drafts of articles or first attempts to make sense of recent developments and changes to, in my case, the law. The lectures work at a high, general level; so not so good for the detail but quite good for trying out the context and the general framework.

Future plans I have been doing this for a number of years and have built up a good friendly and professional relationship with both some legal academics and also members of the language school over there.

Any advice for anyone considering applying to the Fusion Fund Give it a go, it is a good combination of work and enjoyments. People at other universities always seem pleased to meet.