Past FLJS events

From Locke on Toleration to the First Amendment

In this lecture, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Dan Robinson will demonstrate that the First Amendment, in protecting the basic liberties — freedom of religion, speech, press, petition, and assembly — has suffered from diverse and conflicting interpretations.

Populism and Constitutions

As part of Wolfson College's 50th Anniversary celebrations, the Foundation for Law, Justice and Society will hold a colloquium entitled 'Populism and Constitutions', by Professor Denis Galligan, FLJS Director of Programmes and Professor of Socio-Legal Studies at Oxford University.

Max Watson Annual Lecture: The Supreme Court Re-Assessed

In this Max Watson Annual Lecture, Alan Paterson OBE, Professor of Law and Director of the Centre for Professional Legal Studies at the Strathclyde University of Law, will take a detailed look at the Supreme Court, its past, present and future.

Free Film: Bridge of Spies

Directed by Stephen Spielberg and based on a true story, Tom Hanks plays Jim Donovan, an American lawyer recruited by the CIA in 1957 to represent Rudolph Abel at trial, after the European artist, living in the US, was arrested for spying for the

Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring, Triumphs and Disasters

The Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, along with Wolfson College and the Foundation for Law, Justice, and Society invites you to a book colloquium to discuss the newly-released book Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring, Triumphs and Disasters.

Workshop: How Judges Decide

Denis Galligan, Professor of Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford and Director of the FLJS, will open the workshop 'How Judges Decide'.

Lecture: How Judges Decide

Courts operate under principles of independence, which means they are neither directly responsive nor directly accountable to the political process. In this lecture, Justice Robert Sharpe of the Ontario Court of Appeal ask: How then do judges decide cases, especially hard cases? What are the underlying principles, the informal guidelines, the constraints and limitations?

Conference on Consumer ADR/ODR

The Foundation for Law Justice and Society is delighted to support the fourth annual Civil Justice Conference on Consumer ADR/ODR.

Environmental Implications of the Laudato Sì

This roundtable meeting brings together a small group of scholars from the United Kingdom, Italy and the United States to discuss the environmental implications of Pope Francis’s Laudato Sì, the encyclical in which he tackles questions about environmental damage and global warming.

Undoing the Demos

In this book colloquium, a panel of discussants, led by Professor D.J. Galligan, will critique Wendy Brown's original and compelling argument, in Undoing the Demos, that neoliberal reason undoes the political form and political imaginary it falsely promises to secure and reinvigorate.

Free Film Screening: The Square

A free screening of the Oscar-nominated and multi award-winning documentary The Square. The film details the incredible sacrifices made by a group of young Egyptian activists battling injustice, corruption and poverty.

Workshop: The Science of Constitutions

This free workshop continues the Foundation for Law, Justice and Society's Science of Constitutions programme of research and discussion. Led by Denis Galligan, Professor of Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford, the participants will analyse the variables affecting the success and failures of constitutions. They will discuss and analyse merging constitutions in the Gulf States, as well as examining countries with constitutional systems currently undergoing stresses and strains, including Chile, Turkey, Poland and France. All welcome. Please register at www.fljs.org

Can The Referendum Be Democratic?

In this FLJS lecture, Stephen Tierney, Professor of Constitutional Theory, University of Edinburgh, discusses the circumstances surrounding the forthcoming referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union. He will ask whether a number of the perceived democratic failings of the referendum are, in fact, problems of practice rather than principle.

The Intellectual Life of Edmund Burke: From the Sublime and Beautiful to American Independence

In this book colloquium on David Bromwich’s biography of Edmund Burke, legal and political experts from both sides of the Atlantic will discuss Burke's life and work.

Neoliberalism, Employment, and the Law

This workshop will assess the impact of employment regulations on the strategic behaviour of employers in the aftermath of privatization.

Free Film Screening: Timbuktu

A free screening of the Palme D’Or-nominated film, Timbuktu depicts the dignified resistance of the Malian community living under extremist laws, and offers an elegiac exposition of the forces behind the migrant crisis.

William Browder on the State of Law in Putin's Russia

In this lecture, William Browder, author of New York Times bestseller Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice, will give a firsthand account of corruption, dirty politics, and murder in Russia, as told by one of Putin’s Most Wanted.

Hate Speech and Democratic Citizenship

In this Max Watson Memorial Lecture, Eric Heinze, Professor of law and Humanities from Queen Mary University London argues that modern democracies have better ways of combating hate speech than by resorting to censorship and punishment of those who incite hatred.

Social Media: Foundations of the Cyber-Society and the Role of Law

This workshop will identify the key concepts that make-up the cognitive, normative, and regulatory structure of the online social arena, or cyber-society.

The Politics of West Papua: Research and Policy

Against the background of an ongoing conflict for independence from Indonesia, West Papua has experienced decades of violence and underdevelopment. This roundtable brings together leading researchers and policymakers to discuss the underlying sources of these problems.