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Professor Eric Heinze, Licence, Maîtrise (Paris); JD (Harvard); PhD (Leiden)

Eric

Professor of Law and Humanities

Email: e.heinze@qmul.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7882 3951
Room Number: Mile End

Profile

After completing studies in Paris, Berlin, Boston, and Leiden, Eric Heinze worked with the International Commission of Jurists and UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights, in Geneva, and on private litigation before the United Nations Administrative Tribunal in New York. He conducts lectures and interviews internationally in English, French, German, and Dutch, and is a member of the Bars of New York and Massachusetts, and has also advised NGOs on human rights, including Liberty, Amnesty International and the Media Diversity Institute. From 2016 – 2019 he served as Project Leader for the four nation EU (HERA) consortium Memory Laws in European and Comparative Perspective (MELA), and in 2022 he served as General Rapporteur on the Criminalisation of Hate Speech for the 21st General Congress of the Académie Internationale de Droit Comparé, held in Asunción, Paraguay.  His prior awards and fellowships have included a Fulbright Fellowship, a French Government (Chateaubriand) Fellowship, a Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) fellowship, a Nuffield Foundation Grant, an Obermann Fellowship (Center for Advanced Studies, University of Iowa), and several Harvard University Fellowships, including a Sheldon grant, an Andres Public Interest grant, and a C. Clyde Ferguson Human Rights Fellowship.

Heinze co-founded and currently directs Queen Mary’s Centre for Law, Democracy, and Society (CLDS).  His opinion pieces have appeared in The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Independent, Times Higher Education, Aeon, The Raw Story, openDemocracy, Speakers’ Corner Trust, Quillette, The Conversation, Left Foot Forward, Eurozine, and other publications, and he has done television, radio and press interviews for media in Denmark, Brazil, the Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, the UK and the US. He serves on the Advisory Board of Social Theory and Practice, the International Journal of Human Rights, the University of Bologna Law Review and the British Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Rivista Italiana di Filosofia Politica (journal of the Italian Society of Political Philosophy) and Heliopolis: Culture Civiltà Politica.

Heinze’s most recent book, The Most Human Right: Why Free Speech is Everything (2022, The MIT Press) has been nominated for: ‘The Next Big Idea’, Season 18 (non-fiction published from February – July 2022). It has been reviewed in Joe Humphreys’ Unthinkable series in the Irish Times and in several other publications, and is currently being prepared for translation into Russian and Chinese. Heinze’s other books include Hate Speech and Democratic Citizenship (Oxford University Press, 2016), The Concept of Injustice (Routledge 2013), The Logic of Constitutional Rights (Ashgate 2005; Routledge 2017); The Logic of Liberal Rights (Ashgate 2003; Routledge 2017); The Logic of Equality (Ashgate 2003; Routledge 2019), Sexual Orientation: A Human Right (Nijhoff 1995), and the collection Of Innocence and Autonomy: Children, Sex and Human Rights (2000). Several of those books have been translated internationally.

Heinze’s articles have appeared in Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Harvard Human Rights Journal, International Theory, Modern Law Review, International Journal of Human Rights, The Journal of Comparative Law, Constitutional Commentary, the International Journal of Law in Context, Ratio Juris, Legal Studies, the Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence, Michigan Journal of International Law, National Black Law Journal, Journal of Social & Legal Studies, Law & Critique, and several other journals.  He has also contributed chapters to such collections as Extreme Speech and Democracy (Oxford University Press, Weinstein & Hare, 2009); Religious Pluralism and Human Rights (Intersentia, Loenen & Goldschmidt, 2006) and Minority and Group Rights Toward the New Millennium (Nijhoff, Bowring & Fottrell, 1999).

Professor Heinze currently convenes the LLB modules Democracy and Justice; Law, Justice and Ethics; and Law and Literature, Parts I and II. He has also taught undergraduate and post-graduate courses in Jurisprudence and Legal Theory, Public International Law, International Human Rights Law, and US Constitutional Law.  He welcomes PhD proposals in areas of legal philosophy, justice theory, law and politics, free speech, and human rights.

Undergraduate Teaching

  • LAW6015 Law and Literature: Justice in Crisis (Convenor)
  • LAW6016 Law and Literature: The Foundation of Law (Convenor)
  • LAW6154 Democracy and Justice (Convenor)
  • LAW6155 Law, Justice and Ethics (Convenor)
  • LAW6032 Public International Law
  • LAW6021 Jurisprudence and Legal Theory
  • LAW6034 International Human Rights Law

Research

Grants and fellowships

  • Project Leader, EU-funded research consortium on Memory Laws in European and Comparative Perspectives (MELA), 1 Sept 2016 – 31 Aug 2019
    • Examining ways in which public understandings of the legitimacy of law are promoted through states’ official versions of key historical events
    • Supervising € 1,177,091 grant coordinated by HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area)
    • Four Principle Investigators (Italy, Netherlands, Poland, UK) and six post-graduate researchers.
    • Chosen among eighteen finalists from an initial pool of over 600 proposals.  The International Review Panel’s ‘Consensus Statement’ (available on request) deems the project to be ‘at the forefront internationally’ and predicts it ‘will have a substantial and innovative academic and non-academic impact.’
  • Project Leader, Nuffield Foundation, UK, June 1998 – Sept. 1999
    • directed five junior researchers for project on sexuality and children’s rights
    • organised conference culminating in edited collection Of Innocence and Autonomy (see above under Publications)
  • Obermann Fellowship, Center for Advanced Studies, University of Iowa, June 1995 (groups seminar on critical approaches to EU law with special participation of Joseph Weiler and Alec Stone)
  • Chateaubriand fellowship, French Ministry of Education, Sept. 1992 - July 1993 (research on regulation of sexuality within French law)
  • Sheldon fellowship, Harvard University, June – Aug 1992 (research on anti-discrimination law)
  • Fulbright fellowship, U.S. government programme (research on sexual minorities in international human rights law), Sept. 1991 – June 1992
  • Harvard Law School Andres Public Interest grant, Harvard University (research on minority rights), June – Aug 1990
  • Harvard Law School C. Clyde Ferguson Human Rights Fellowship (funding internship at the International Commission of Jurists, Geneva), June – September 1989
  • Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (German Academic Exchange Service), full-year study at the Freie Universität Berlin, Sept. 1986 – July 87 (research on legal philosophy).

Publications

Sole-authored monographs

The Most Human Right: Why Free Speech is Everything (2022, The MIT Press)

Hate Speech and Democratic Citizenship (Oxford University Press hardback 2016; xiv + 248 pp.; paperback 2017) (ISBN10: 0198759029; ISBN13: 978-0198759027).

  • Advocates construing sociological, socio-linguistic, critical-legal, empirical, and historical claims about extreme speech within contemporary democracies
  • £2500 grant awarded to Dr A Greene (UCL) and Dr R Simpson (Monash) by the Society for Applied Philosophy to hold two-day interdisciplinary conference dedicated to critical readings of the book, 1 – 2 June 2017

Reviews (excerpts available at: http://tinyurl.com/y7r7q8pr)

  • John Gardner, ‘Doubts about ‘Democratic Legitimacy’, Oxford Legal Studies Research Paper No. 3/2018
  • Robert Kahn, International and Comparative Law Review 2017, vol, 17:1, pp. 239–253.
  • Guido Alpa, Il Sole 24 Ore, 2 October 2017 (http://tinyurl.com/y6ukyhy4)
  • István Pogany, 23(2) European Public Law (2017), pp. 425-29
  • Amanda Green and Robert Simpson, 80(4) Modern Law Review (2017), 746–766
  • Katharine Gelber, (2017)(3) Public Law, pp. 534-37
  • Andrew Reid, LSE Review of Books (http://tinyurl.com/lkehkyz), reprinted in Democratic Audit¸ 26 March 2017 (http://tinyurl.com/m3d6sov)
  • Matteo Bonotti, 26(2) Social and Legal Studies (2017), pp. 276-80
  • Lesley Abdela, Democracies, free speech and the right to offend, OpenDemocracy, 22 May 2016
  • András Koltay, 8(2) Journal of Media Law (2016), pp. 302-06

The Concept of Injustice (Routledge hardback 2013; xiv + 213 pp.; paperback 2014) (ISBN10: 0415634792; ISBN13: 978-0415634793)

  • Proposes inter-disciplinary, humanities-based approach for critically evaluating justice claims

Full-length reviews

  • Adrian Howe, Legal Studies, Vol. 34 No. 4 (2014), pp. 736–748
  • Matthew J. Ball, Griffith Law Review, Vol. 22, No. 2 (2013), pp. 546-547

The Logic of Constitutional Rights (Routledge re-issue hardback & paperback 2017, vi + 115 pp., originally Ashgate 2005) (ISBN10: 0754625389; ISBN13: 978-0754625384)

  • Chinese translation as part of the series Western Classics of Legal Logic, University of China Political Science & Law Press, translated by Wang Jianfang (forthcoming 2020), including new Introduction by author in English and Chinese.
  • Examines linguistic and conceptual limits to empirical arguments through the example of constitutional rights

Review

  • Georg Vanberg, Law Courts, 16(1) (2006), pp. 1-3

The Logic of Equality (Routledge re-issue hardback 2017, paperback 2019], viii + 143 pp., originally Ashgate 2003) (ISBN10: 075462319X; ISBN13: 978-0754623199)

  • New Introductory essay entitled Equality and Dialectic in Law in Chinese translation as part of the series Western Classics of Legal Logic, University of China Political Science & Law Press, translated by Xu Mengxing (2017) including new Introduction by author in English and Chinese, entitled ‘Equality and dialectic in law’ (pp. 17-27)
  • Examines linguistic and conceptual limits to empirical arguments through the example of non-discrimination law

Reviews

  • Amelia Simpson, Federal Law Review, 33 (2005), pp. 177-79
  • Douglas Grob, Law Courts, 15(10) (2005), pp. 911-16

The Logic of Liberal Rights (Routledge 2003, ix + 342 pp.; Routledge Open Books Archive, 2017) (ISBN10: 0415300568; ISBN13: 9780415300568)

  • Examines linguistic and conceptual limits to empirical arguments through the example of ECHR, British, Dutch, German and French human rights jurisprudence
  • Chinese translation as part of the series Western Classics of Legal Logic, University of China Political Science & Law Press, translated by Yu Shiyang (forthcoming 2019) including new Introduction by author in English and Chinese.

Sexual Orientation: A Human Right (Marinus Nijhoff 1995, xxii + 416 pp.) (ISBN10: 0792330188; ISBN13: 978-0792330189)

  • Synthesises psychological and social constructionist models of sexuality with conventional human rights norms
  • Proposed model declaration generating impact as model adopted to formulate the 2006 ‘Yogyakarta Principles on International Human Rights Law in relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity’ (http://www.yogyakartaprinciples.org/)

Reviews

  • Nicholas Bamforth, European Public Law, 2(3) (1996), pp. 482-84
  • Wayne Morgan, Melbourne University Law Review, 20 (1995), pp. 621-28]
  • Translations:
  • Russian (Nikita Ivanova), Moscow, Idea Press 2004
  • Romanian (Florin Tudor & Bogdan Uilecan), Chişinău : Tehnica-Info, 2002
  • Bulgarian (Radoslav Stayanov), Sophia, Trud/Infonet, 2002

 Edited collections

Of Innocence and Autonomy: Children, Sex and Human Rights (Routledge re-issue hardback 2017, paperback 2019, xvi + 208 pp., originally Ashgate 2000) (ISBN10: 1138728292; ISBN13: 9781138728295)

  • Conference papers supplied for grant-supervised inter-disciplinary research, organised pursuant to Nuffield Foundation funding, synthesising psychological, sociological, and critical-legal approaches to controversies about children’s sexuality

Review

  • Jean Scandlyn, Human Rights and Human Welfare, 6 (2006), pp. 75-87

Landmark Cases in International Law (Kluwer 1998) (ISBN10: 9041197095; ISBN13- 978-9041197092)

  • Co-edited with Prof. M Fitzmaurice
  • Collection aimed at promoting study of ICJ cases presented in extenso

Full-length articles and book chapters

Publications on Legal Theory

‘Critical Theory and Memory Politics: Leftist Autocritique After the Ukraine War’, International Journal of Law in Context (2023), 1–20. Advance online version: doi:10.1017/S1744552323000289.

‘Global Libertarianism: How Much Public Morality Does International Human Rights Law Allow?’ International Theory, 14(3):571-594 (arguing that public morals cannot suffice as grounds for limiting human rights)

‘The Myth of Flexible Universality: Human Rights and the Limits of Comparative Naturalism’, 39:3 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies (2019), pp. 624–653 (acknowledging foundations for human rights in ancient belief systems but challenging the view that they enhance the case for universality).

‘An Anti-Liberal Defense of Free Speech: Foundations of Democracy in the Western Philosophical Canon’, Oxford Handbook of Law and Humanities (S Stern et al. eds.) Oxford University Press (2019) (examining foundations for free speech in Western philosophical tradition) (Dutch translation in De grenzen van het publieke debat - Over verdraagzaamheid en de vrijheid van meningsuiting in de democratische samenleving (Tom Herrenberg, ed.), Boom Juridische Uitgevers, pp. 111-40).

‘Theorising Law and Historical Memory: Denialism and the Pre-Conditions of Human Rights’, 13:1 Journal of Comparative Law (2018), pp. 43-60, reprinted online in (4) Diritto Penale Contemporaneo (2019), pp. 175-91, (examining states’ uses of law to avoid scrutiny of human rights abuses)

‘Democracy, Ontology, and the Limits of Deconstruction’, in Hate, Politics and Law: Critical Perspectives on Combating Hate (T. Brudholm & B. Johanssen, eds., Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 94-112 (examining necessary limits to post-structuralist critiques of democratic legal theories)

‘What is the Opposite of Injustice?’, 30:3 Ratio Juris (2017), pp. 353–371 (critiquing the formal-logical, mutual exclusion between the concepts of ‘justice’ and ‘injustice’)

‘Towards a General Theory of Law and Historical Discourse’, in Law and Memory: Towards Legal Governance of History (U. Belavusau & A. Gliszczyńska-Grabias, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 413-33 (proposing theory of governments’ uses of legal means to promote public understandings of historical events)

‘The Constitution of the Constitution: Democratic Legitimacy and Public Discourse’, in Rancière and Law (J. Extabe & M. Lopez, eds., Routledge, 2017), pp. 111-28 (examining Jacques Rancière’s notion of radical, popular democracy to argue that public discourse remains distinctly constitutive of legal legitimacy)

‘Taking legitimacy seriously: A return to deontology’ (invited article responding to debate between Jeremy Waldron and James Weinstein, also including Robert Post, Vincent Blasi, Frederick Schauer, and Steven Shiffrin), 32:3 Constitutional Commentary (2017), pp. 631-50 (drawing upon socio-linguistic theory to challenge Waldron’s view of democratic legitimacy)

‘Hate speech and the normative foundations of regulation’, review essay: Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech (Harvard University Press, 2012) and M Herz & P Molnar, eds., The Content and Context of Hate Speech (Cambridge University Press, 2012), in 9(4) International Journal of Law in Context (2013), pp 590-617 (challenging conventional, liberal assumptions invoked both to oppose and to support limitations on expression)

‘The Reality and Hyper-reality of Human Rights: Public Consciousness and the Mass Media’, in Examining Critical Perspectives on Human Rights: The End of an Era?, R. Dickenson et al., eds., Cambridge University Press (2012), pp 193-216 (arguing that not only bias and distortions, but even the media at their best inevitably create serious problems surrounding public understandings of human rights)

‘Wild-West Cowboys versus Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: Some Problems in Comparative Approaches to Extreme Speech, in Extreme Speech and Democracy chapter 10, James Weinstein and Ivan Hare, eds., Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 182 – 203 (warning against unjustifiable comparisons across legal systems in view of divergent historical and cultural contexts) (http://tinyurl.com/y7vljxzv)

‘The Meta-ethics of Law: Book One of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics’, 6(1) International Journal of Law in Context (2009), pp. 23 – 44 (examining Aristotle’s assumption of the ethical content of law grounded in culture)

'Even-handedness and the Politics of Human Rights’, 21 Harvard Human Rights Journal (2008), pp. 7 – 46 (proposing general theory as to what does and does not count as legitimately ‘politicising’ human rights)

‘Truth and Myth in Critical Race Theory and LatCrit: Human Rights and the Ethnocentrism of Anti-Ethnocentrism’, 20 National Black Law Journal (Columbia University edition) (2008), pp. 107 – 62 (examining paradoxes within legal-realist and critical-legal jurisprudence)

  • Reprinted in Rights in Context Law and Justice in Late Modern Society 6 (R Banakar, ed., Autumn 2010).
  • Reprinted in Natural Law: A Jurisprudential Debate, Sabiha Khanum, ed., Hyderabad, IN: Icfai University Press, 2008, ch. 3.

‘Epinomia: Plato and the First Theory of Law’, 20:1 Ratio Juris (2007), pp. 97 – 135 (examining Plato’s critique of market-driven legal regimes)

‘The Status of Classical Natural Law: Plato and the Parochialism of Modern Theory’, 20 Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence (2007), pp. 323 – 50 (examining the importance of Greek, as opposed to the more usual post-Roman or Biblical foundations for justice theory)

‘Viewpoint Absolutism and Hate Speech’, 69 Modern Law Review (2006), pp. 543 – 82 (examining tensions between philosophical, empirical, and doctrinal claims about free expression)

‘The Logic of Standards of Review in Constitutional Cases’, 28 Vermont Law Review (2003), pp. 121 – 47 (arguing that the necessary conceptual indeterminacy within concepts justifying judicial review can emerge only within wholly determinate conceptual assumptions)

‘The Universal Child?’ in Of Innocence and Autonomy: Children, Sex and Human Rights, Eric Heinze, ed., Ashgate (2000), pp. 3-24 (examining the extent and limits of children’s autonomy over their sexual activity)

‘The Construction and Contingency of the Minority Concept,’ in Minority and Group Rights Toward the New Millennium, Bill Bowring & Deirdre Fottrell, eds., Kluwer (1999), pp. 25 – 74 (examining conceptual limitations of the minority concept within human rights law)

‘Principles for a Meta-Discourse of Liberal Rights: The Example of the European Convention on Human Rights,’ 9 Indiana International & Comparative Law Review (1999), pp. 319 – 94 (arguing that the necessary conceptual indeterminacy within the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights can emerge only within wholly determinate conceptual assumptions)

‘Discourses of Sexuality: Classical, Modernist and Post-Modernist’, 67 Nordic Journal of International Law (1998), pp. 37 – 76 (contrasting classical liberal, modernist social-scientific, and post-structuralist theories of the legal regulation of sexual conduct)

‘Beyond Parapraxes: Right and Wrong Approaches to the Universality of Human Rights Law,’ 12 Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights (1994), pp. 369 – 91 (examining the extent and limits of formal concepts of the universality of human rights)

Publications on Law and Policy

‘No-platforming and safe spaces: Should universities censor more (or less) speech than the law requires?’ Croatian Political Science Review, Vol. 55, No. 4, 2018, pp. 79-108

'Public Awareness of Human Rights’, 14 International Journal of Human Rights 2010, pp. 491 – 523 (co-authored with R Freedman) (critically examining patterns of mass reporting of human rights)

‘Cumulative Jurisprudence and Hate Speech: Sexual Orientation and Analogies to Disability, Age and Obesity’, 12 International Journal of Human Rights (2009), pp. 193 – 209 (arguing, from the perspective of a scholar favourable to rights of individual sexuality, against the inclusion of sexual minorities within the purview of hate speech bans)

  • Reprinted in Extreme Speech and Democracy chapter 14, James Weinstein and Ivan Hare, eds., Oxford University Press, pp. 264 – 84 (2009) (http://tinyurl.com/y7vljxzv)
  • Reprinted in Protection of Sexual Minorities since Stonewall—Progress and Stalemate in Developed and Developing Countries, Phil C. W. Chan, London: Routledge, (2010), pp. 62 – 78.

‘Towards the Abolition of Hate Speech Bans’, in Religious Pluralism and Human Rights,  Titia Loenen & Jenny Goldschmidt, eds., Intersentia (2007), pp. 295 – 309 (examining bans on anti-religious hate speech) (http://tinyurl.com/y8y6jknz)

‘Children’s Rights’, in Governments of the world: a global guide to citizens' rights and responsibilities (ed. Chester Neal Tate), New York: Macmillan (2006), pp. 172-76.

‘Sexual Orientation and International Law: A Study in the Manufacture of Cross-Cultural “Sensitivity”‘, 22 Michigan Journal of International Law (2001), pp. 283 – 309 (arguing, contrary to global trends seeming to favour gay rights, that such developments have induced hostile states to crack down far more brutally)

  • Reprinted in Discrimination and Toleration, Kirstin Hastrup, ed. (Nijhoff, 2002), pp. 205 – 27.

‘Gay and Poor’, 38 Howard Law Review (1994), pp. 433 – 48 (arguing that sexual minorities living at sub-standard income levels require legal services distinct from those designed either particularly for sexual minorities or particularly for poor people)

‘Equality: Between Hegemony and Subsidiarity,’ 52 Review of the International Commission of Jurists (1994), pp. 56-65 (examining the character of the equality concept within human rights)

Publications on Law and Humanities

‘Foundations of Sovereign Authority: The Example of Shakespearean Political Drama’, in Shakespeare and Authority (K Halsey & A Vine, eds) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp 135-54 (using literary model to re-evaluate early modern conceptions of sovereign legitimacy contrary to the straightforwardly ‘system building’ models of such writers as Bodin, Hobbes, and Locke)

‘Selecting the Memory, Controlling the Myth: The Propaganda of Legal Foundations in Early Modern Drama’, in Injustice, Memory and Faith in Human Rights (K Chainoglou & B Collins, eds) (Routledge, 2017), pp. 57-75 (examining public consciousness as an element of authority and governance)

‘Legal Hybridity in Literature: Revisiting the Post-Colonial in The Tempest and Cymbeline’, in Hybridity: Law, Culture and Development, eds. Nicolas Lemay-Hébert & Rosa Freedman (Routledge, 2017), pp. 122 – 40 (examining notions of legal cross-fertilisation within colonial contexts)

‘The Literary Model in Comparative Law: Shakespeare, Corneille, Racine’, 9(2) Journal of Comparative Law (2014), pp. 17-27 (examining the comparison of early modern literary works as a means of identifying core concerns of comparative legal theory)

‘Where be his quiddities now?: Law and Language in Hamlet’, in Law and Language: Current Legal Issues, vol. 15, Michael Freeman & Fiona Smith, eds., Oxford University Press (2013), pp 201-20 (examining socio-linguistic elements of law as an instrument of government power and social control) (http://tinyurl.com/y9a4pcap)

‘He’d turn the world itself into a prison: Empire and Enlightenment in Jean Racine’s Alexander the Great’, 4(1) Law & Humanities (2010), pp. 63 – 89 (examining conflicting models of law within early modern understandings of empire)

‘This power isn’t power if it’s shared: Law and Violence in Jean Racine’s La Thébaïde’, 22(1) Law & Literature (2010), pp. 76 – 109 (examining problems of sovereign legitimacy arising within the early modern state)

 ‘Were it not against our laws: Oppression and Resistance in Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors’, 29 Legal Studies (2009), pp. 230 – 63 (drawing upon Aristotle and Hegel to examine socio-legal hierarchies in early modernity)

‘Power Politics and the Rule of Law: Shakespeare’s First Historical Tetralogy and Law’s “Foundations”‘, 29 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies (2009), pp. 230 – 63 (examining problems of establishing the authority of the Early modern nation state)

‘Imperialism and Nationalism in Early Modernity: The “Cosmopolitan” and The “Provincial” in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline’, 18(3) Journal of Social & Legal Studies (2009), pp. 373-96 (examining conflicting models of law within early modern understandings of empire)

‘Heir, Celebrity, Martyr, Monster: Legal and Political Legitimacy in Shakespeare and Beyond’, 20(1) Law & Critique (2009), pp. 79 – 103 (examining conflicting models of sovereign authority)

Shorter Essays and Reviews

  • Review of Alex Brown, Hate Speech Law: A Philosophical Examination, in International Dialogue, A Multidisciplinary Journal of World Affairs (2018), 8: 30-38.
  • ‘Is democracy necessary for human rights?’, This Century’s Review, 2018, No. 1, pp. 13-17.
  • Review of Eric Barendt, Anonymous Speech: Literature, Law and Politics, in 81:1, Modern Law Review (2018) (co-authored with T Hannant, 50% - 50%)
  • Foreword to Emanuela Fronza, Memory and Punishment: Historical Denialism, Free Speech, and the Limits of Criminal Law, The Hague: Asser Press, 2018, pp. vii – xi.
  • Review essay: Leone Niglia, The Struggle for European Private Law: A Critique of Codification, 10(1) Journal of Comparative Law (2016) (co-authored with Andreas Marcou), pp. 163-68 (examining concerns about codification within globalising institutions as a vehicle for overriding local autonomy)
  • ‘Victimless Crimes’, 4 Encyclopaedia of Applied Ethics, 2nd ed., Ruth Chadwick, et al. eds. (2012) , pp. 471 – 82 (revising ‘Victimless Crimes’, 4 Encyclopaedia of Applied Ethics, Dan Callahan, et al. eds. 1997, pp. 463 – 75) (critiquing the concept of ‘harm’ in law with reference to Mill’s harm principle) (http://tinyurl.com/y79vcnxd)
  • Review of Alan Norrie, Dialectic and Difference, in 19:4 Journal of Social & Legal Studies (2010), pp. 525-29 (critically examining the author’s concept of critical realism)
  • Review of Murray Dry, Civil Peace and the Quest for Truth, in 69:2 American Journal of Legal History (2009), pp. 231-33 (critically examining the author’s analysis of free speech law)
  • Review of Randall Baldwin Clark, The Law Most Beautiful and Best, in 69:3 American Journal of Legal History (2009), pp. 348 – 51 (critically examining the author’s literary reading of Plato)
  • Review of Elias Kastanas, Unité et diversité: Notions autonomes et marge d’appréciation des États dans la jurisprudence de la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme, 63:1 Modern Law Review (2000), pp. 155-58 (critically examining the author’s proposed synthesis of ‘margin of appreciation’ doctrines)
  • Review essay: I. Schulte-Tenckhoff, La Question des peuples autochtones, in 46(2) Netherlands International Law Review, 269 – 76 (1999) (criticising deployments of international norms and concepts that disregard historical and cultural contexts)

Works in Progress

  • The Most Human Right: Why free speech is everything (sole-authored monograph forthcoming 2020, MIT Press)
  • ‘Beyond Managerialism: Free Speech as the Foundation of Human Rights’ (currently under review) (proposing a discursive model of human rights)
  • ‘Higher-Order Liberty  and Universal Rights: The Example of LGBT+ Minorities’ (currently under review) (casting doubt on universalist ethics of human rights)
  • Critical Approaches to Human Rights Law (co-edited collection commissioned by Elgar Publishing, forthcoming 2021) (co-editors: Luke Mason, David McGrogan, Ioanna Tourkochoriti)

Supervision

Professor Heinze welcomes proposals for postgraduate supervision in the fields of jurisprudence, legal theory, legal philosophy, law and humanities, and human rights.

Doctoral supervision

  • Ryan Perera (first supervisor), starting Sept 2023
    • Title: Theorising Human Rights and the (In)Compatibility with Cultural and Legal Pluralism
    • Projected completion: 2026
  • Jill Marshall (jointly supervised with Professor K O’Donovan), Sept 2001-June 2004.
    • Title: Humanity, Freedom and Feminism
    • Examiners: Nicola Lacey (LSE), Richard Collier (Newcastle)
    • Successfully published: Ashgate 2005
  • Lara Kretzer (jointly supervised with Professor K O’Donovan), Sept 2005-June 2008
    • Examiners: Marinos Diamantides (Birkbeck), Andrew Edgar (Cardiff)
    • Title: Health, Solidarity and Justice: A Discourse-Theoretical Perspective
  • Rosa Freedman (first supervisor), September 2008-June 2011.
    • Title: The United Nations Human Rights Council: An Early Assessment
    • Examiners: Philippe Sands (UCL), Walter Kälin (Bern)
    • Successfully published: Routledge 2013
  • Tom Hannant (first supervisor), September 2013-July 2016
    • Title: A Republican Theory of Human Rights
    • Examiners: Richard Bellamy (UCL/EUI), Graham Gee (Birmingham)
    • Immediate pass (only minor revisions), pending submission for publication
  • Sam Fowles (first supervisor), September 2014-present
    • Title: The Place of The Rights of Peoples
    • Examiners: Matthew Craven (SOAS), Rosa Freedman (Reading)
    • projected completion: 2017
  • Andreas Marcou, (first supervisor), September 2014-present
    • Title: A Republican Theory of Civil Disobedience
    • Examiners: Richard Bellamy, Yossi Nehushtan
    • projected completion: 2018
  • Fiona Tate, part-time candidate (first supervisor), September 2013-present.
    • Title: The Status of Rape in International Law
    • Examiners: Kim Stevenson, Gina Heathcoate
    • projected completion: 2019
  • Sam Sarshar, (first supervisor), starting Sept 2019
    • Title: Cultural Relativism versus Human Rights Universalism: Advocating Human Rights through Rawls’s Original Position
    • projected completion: 2022

Recent Doctoral examination

  • Nathalie Alkiviadou, Challenging Right-Wing Extremism in England and Wales and Greece: Tools Available in International, European and National Law, February 2017, University of Amsterdam (passed)
  • Malcolm David Sinclair, The Identification of Fundamental Law and Its Basic Principles, Manchester Metropolitan University, July 2016 (passed)
  • Kevin Dalton Barker, Law and Caribbean Critical Thought: Defining a Caribbean Jurisprudence passed, March 2010 (passed).

Other Supervision

  • Dr Nanor Kebranian, Post-Graduate Research Assistant (see above under ‘Grants and Fellowships‘)
    • Conducting research on the Armenian genocide and on late Ottoman law and society
    • Assuming several project management functions

Masters-level supervision: continuous since 1995 (list available upon request).

Public Engagement

Interviews and live media appearances

Directly authored media pieces

Professional Affiliations

  • UK Liberal Democratic Party, Candidate for Local Council, Waltham Forest, Valley Ward, 5 May 2022
  • General Rapporteur, The International Academy of Comparative Law, ‘Criminalization of hate speech’, General Congress, Asunción (Paraguay) from 23 – 28 October 2022.
  • Member of Scientific Committee, International Congress on the legal and social challenges of the extreme exercise of freedom of expression, Centro de Medios Audiovisuales - Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), 8 – 10 June 2021
  • Member of Scientific Committee, Rivista Italiana di Filosofia Politica (journal of the Italian Society of Political Philosophy), 2021 – present.
  • Advisory Board (Comitato Scientifico), Heliopolis: Culture Civiltà Politica (2020 – present)
  • Advisory Board, University of Bologna Law Review (2018 - present)
  • Editorial Board, International Journal of Human Rights (2008 – present)
  • Editorial Board, British Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies (2014 – 2016)
  • Board of Advisers, Pericles Foundation (2016 - present)
  • Policy advisor on human rights to Media Diversity Institute, London (2008 – present)
  • Admission to Bar, State of New York, 1992
  • Admission to Bar, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1992

Advisory Roles

Professional Consultation

Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO): Multiple Peer Review

  • Proposed project title: ‘Collisions of Identities in Public & Private Legal Settings: Sexual Orientation Equality versus Freedom of Religion’, report submitted: 12 Dec 2014
  • Proposed project title: ‘Hate Speech and Freedom of Religion’, report submitted: 9 Jan 2011
  • Proposed project title: ‘Religious Hate Speech in International and Domestic Law’, 12 March 2010

Polish National Science Centre: Peer Review

  • Proposed project title: ‘Hate Speech: From automatic classification to understanding emotional dynamics’, No. 432088, Panel HS6, report submitted: 10 June 2019
  • 1 Oct 2017 – 1 March 2019: 18 –month funded project (ca. US$395,000) by US State Department
  • 1 Aug 2015 – 31 July 2016: One-year funded project (ca. US$320.000) by US State Department (copy of the final project report available upon request) and Twitter Corporation
  • Provided training on Islamophobia and antisemitism
  • MDI representative to Brussels Sub-Committee meeting on Cyberhate, Brussels, Oct 2016

European Law Students Association (ELSA): European Human Rights Moot Court Competition

  • Invited Judge, Semi-final and final oral arguments, Strasbourg, 15 – 18 April 2019
  • Academic Board Member:  2019 - present

Policy Advisor to Media Diversity Institute, 1 Aug 2015 – 31 July 2016, 1 Oct 2017 – 1 March 2019

Sky News, February 2016 (advised on documentary about hate speech in Britain)

Amnesty International, June 1998

  • Advised on sexual minorities in sub-Saharan Africa
  • Advised on Laskey, Jaggard and Brown v. United Kingdom

Liberty, Spring 1996

  • Advised on Laskey, Jaggard and Brown v. United Kingdom

Presentations by special invitation*

  • Key-Note Speaker at the Final Conference of the first phase of “The Future of Free Speech,” Parliament of Denmark, Copenhagen, 15 December 2022.
  • General Rapporteur, The International Academy of Comparative Law, ‘Criminalization of hate speech’, General Congress, Asunción (Paraguay) from 23 – 28 October 2022.
  • ‘Disloyalty Propaganda as Hate Speech’, 15th EISA Pan-European Conference on International Relations, Panteion University, Athens, 4 Sept 2022.
  • ‘What is free speech good for?’ A virtual panel discussion featuring Katherine Cross, Jamal Greene, Eric Heinze, & Nadine Strossen, Northeastern Illinois University, 24 August 2022
  • ‘Roundtable: The Ethics and Politics of “Harm”,’ British International Studies Association, 17 June 2022, University of Newcastle (James Pattison, chair; panelists: David J. Karp, Lara Montesinos Coleman (organisers), Owen Thomas, Alex Hoseason)
  • Keynote address: ‘Global Memory Politics’, Capturing the Past: Monuments, Conflicts, Law, Universiteit Gent, 21 January 2022 (organisers: Eva Brems and Alina Cherviatsova).
  • General Rapporteur, The International Academy of Comparative Law, ‘Criminalization of hate speech’, General Congress, Asunción (Paraguay) from 23 – 28 October 2022.
  • Podcast Debate with Prof. Adrienne Stone (Melbourne): ‘Free Speech Crisis in University’, Oxford Human Rights Hub, 21 Sept 2021 https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-09-21-new-oxhrh-rightsup-podcast-free-speech-crisis-university-0
  • ‘How much free speech do human rights require?’, International Congress on the legal and social challenges of the extreme exercise of freedom of expression, Centro de Medios Audiovisuales - Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), 8 – 10 June 2021
  • ‘Theorising Law and Historical Memory’, Negotiating Troubled Pasts: History, Politics, Arts and the Media, organised by RePast (Horizon 2020), online, 28 May 2021
  • ‘Historical memory, human rights, and free speech’, presentation at colloquium on Just Memories: Remembrance and Restoration in the Aftermath of Political Violence, organised by Jeremy Sarkin, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa / Intersentia Publishing company (online), 10 Dec 2020
  • Hate Crime Consultation Online Roundtable (online) (commenting on UK Law Commission consultation paper concerning hate crimes legislation), organised by UK Free Speech Union, Wednesday, 28 October 2020.
  • ‘How much free speech do universities need?’, Associação de Direito de Família e das Sucessões (ADFAS) Brazil, International Congress (online), 19-21 August 2020.
  • ‘Why limit speech?’, Russian journalists UK Press Tour sponsored by the British Embassy in Moscow, organised by Thomson Reuters Foundation, London, 12 February 2020
  • ‘The Inconsistency Inherent within Prevailing Conceptions of Human Rights’, Consistency in Human Rights, Department of International Development (ODID), Oxford University, 16 December 2019
  • ‘Non-Western Traditions and Universal Rights’, Multi-disciplinary approaches to contemporary issues in Religion and Society, University of Westminster, London, 17 October 2019
  • ‘Does Islam confirm the universality of human rights?’, Muslim Minorities and Human Rights, Centre for Arab Progress, Senate House, University of London, 5 September 2019
  • ‘From Memory Laws to Law and Historical Memory’, Collaborative Creativity for Digital Memories, Schools of Management, Drama, and Computer Science, Royal Holloway, University of London, 17 June 2019
  • Guest speaker (delivered in French), ‘Quel est le «monde» des minorités sexuelles?’, Échanges pluridisciplinaires concernant la protection des minorités sexuelles et des minorités de genres au XXIème siècle : entre violence, tolérance et acceptation, Centre LGBT+ de Bordeaux, le Girofard, Université de Bordeaux, 5 June 2019
  • Keynote speaker, ‘The Arguments against No-Platforming’, No-Platforming and Freedom of Expression, Journalism and Media International Centre (JMIC), Oslo, 6 - 7 May 2019
  • Guest speaker, ‘An Anti-Universal Model of International Human Rights’, Civita Academy, Oslo, Norway, 4 May 2019
  • Invited participant, ‘Heritage and Change’, Global Issues – Integrating Different Perspectives (collaboratively hosted by The Wallenberg Foundation, Sweden; Carlsberg Foundation, Denmark; Compagnia di San Paolo, Italy; Volkswagen Foundation, Germany; Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Sweden) Lund, Sweden, 2-3 May 2019
  • Guest lecturer, ‘Three Lectures on the Concept of “Legal Modernity”.’ School of Law, Renmin University, Beijing, 2 – 4 April 2019
  • Panelist, ‘Historical denialism within Speech Act Theory’, commenting on Daniel Innerarity, ‘Democracy as Interpretation: How to Combat Fake News’, University of Bologna, 13 March 2019
  • ‘Hate speech and stirring up of hatred offences’, Law Commission, Hate Crime Research Conference, Oxford Brookes University, 8 March 2019
  • Panel speaker on university No-Platforming, Common Ground, Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, 24 Jan 2019
  • Guest speaker, ‘Should the Right to Free Speech be Unconditional?’, Chevening Society, QM London, 10 Dec 2018
  • ‘Do “No Platform” policies threaten free speech at university’, Debating Society, St. George’s University, London, 7 Dec 2018
  • Discussant, ‘We The Peoples Film Festival’, Human Rights themed films at Miranda, 24 Nov. 2018 (commenting three films: Are you volleyball?!, Facing Death with Wirecutter, and Afghanistanbul)
  • ‘On the Theory of Law and Historical Memory’, T.M.C. Asser Institute, The Hague, 19 Oct 2018
  • ‘A Linguistic Turn for Human Rights’, Conference on Systems Theory and Human Rights, Centre for Law & Society, University of Lancaster, School of Law, 18 October 2018
  • Introductory Remarks, ‘Memory Laws in Post-Transitional Democracies: Case Studies form Post-Communist States’, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, 9 Oct 2018
  • ‘No-platforming and safe spaces: Should universities censor more (or less) speech than the law requires?’, Tackling Extremism within Higher Education Institutions: Preserving Academic Freedom and Fighting Intolerance, Public Policy Exchange, London, 5 Sept 2018
  • ‘Shifting paradigms in historical memory’, Circulating across Europe? Transgressive Narratives about the Past, Harvard University, 28-29 August 2018
  • ‘Free Speech, Not Censorship’, The ‘How to’ Academy, London, 3 July 2018
  • Panel discussant, ‘Deirdre McCloskey, Bourgeois Equality’, Oxford University Foundation for Law, Justice and Society (FLJS), 14 June 2018
  • ‘Revisiting gender in Shakespeare’, Othello on Trial (or the Tragedy of Desdemona, the Wife), Performance/Discussion, Bloomsbury Studio, 11 June 2018
  • ‘Free speech within transitional democracy’, Guest lecture and panellist presentation, Hate Speech, Symbols, and Memories, Department of Political Science, University of Zagreb, lecture and workshop, 5-6 June 2018
  • ‘Historical denialism and human rights’, Recognition, Denial, and Human Rights: Theoretical Approaches, QMUL, 24 May 2018
  • ‘Historical denialism and the political foundation of human rights’, Speaker Series Time, Memory and Criminal Law, University of Bologna, 16 May 2018
  • Keynote address, ‘A theory of post-conflict human rights’, After the War: Diplomatic Strategies for Post-Conflict Environments, Kings College London, 12 April 2018
  • ‘Towards a Theory of Law and Historical Memory’, Legal Governance of Historical Memory in Comparative Perspective, UC Berkeley Law School, Co-sponsored by the T.M.C. Asser Institute (The Hague), the Center for the Study of Law and Society (UC Berkeley) and the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law (UC Berkeley), 3 April 2018
  • Discussant for panel on Engineering Citizens and Values via Memory Laws, Council for European Studies, 25th annual conference, Chicago, Illinois, 29 March 2018
  • ‘The performance of law’s legitimacy in Richard II’, Kingston Shakespeare Seminar (KiSS), 24 March 2018
  • Seminar on Hate Speech and Democratic Citizenship, Legal and Political Theory Events Series / Irish Centre for Human Rights, University of Galway, 9 March 2018
  • Panel discussant, ‘The Square and the Tower: Networks, Hierarchies and the Struggle for Global Power: Book Colloquium on Niall Ferguson’s reconceptualization of the Networked Age’, Oxford University Foundation for Law, Justice and Society (FLJS), 28 February 2018
  • ‘An anti-libertarian defence of free speech’, Philosophy Department, New College of the Humanities, London, 31 January 2018
  • ‘Theorising the discipline’, Book Colloquium: Law and Memory, Oxford University Foundation for Law, Justice and Society (FLJS), 17 January 2018
  • ‘US versus European approaches to cyber-hate’, Mandatory/Minimum Continuing Legal Education (MCLE London), 13 January 2018
  • ‘Denialism and the Pre-conditions of Human Rights’, ‘(Dis)Claiming Pasts: Ownership, Responsibility and Contestation’, 14-15 December 2017, University of Ghent, Belgium
  • Keynote speaker (Delivered in Dutch), ‘Zijn de democratische beginselen van vrije meningsuiting per se liberaal?’ (‘Are democratic free speech principles necessarily liberal ones?’), in conference on Vrijheid van meningsuiting en de tweede Wilders-zaak (‘Freedom of expression and the second Wilders trial’), University of Leiden, 1 December 2017
  • Invited debater proposing the motion, ‘This House Regrets No-Platforming Policies in Universities’, University of Warwick Debating Society, 26 October 2017
  • ‘Nietzsche versus Machiavelli in Shakespeare’, Kingston Shakespeare Seminar (KiSS), 2 Sept 2017
  • Seminar presentation, ‘Down with happiness, up with εὐδαιμονία: Towards a general theory of law and happiness’, Journal of Comparative Law Workshop, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, 21 July 2017
  • Discussant, Symposium on monograph Hate Speech and Democratic Citizenship, 1-2 June 2017, Society for Applied Philosophy, Queen Mary, University of London
  • Panelist: ‘The Question of Moral Coherence: What do we Mean by Ethics “in the Context” of Palestine and Israel?’, The Occupation at 50: Past, Present, Futures, University of Sussex, 11-12 May 2017
  • Discussant for Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom Mark Regev, 27 April 2017, SOAS Jewish Society (JSoc) and Model United Nations Society, SOAS, London
  • Panelist, ‘The Legal Regulation of Historical Knowledge and its Significance for Human Rights’, MELA conference for 1st JCL special issue, 24 March 2017
  • Seminar presentation, ‘From national to global citizenship – What are the consequences for free speech?’, 9 March 2017, Terrorism & the Law: Freedom and Security in a Networked World Seminar Series, Queen Mary, University of London
  • Seminar presentation, ‘Do human rights require democracy?’ 8 March 2017, Juris North 2016-17 Working Paper Series, Durham University Law School
  • Plenary Speaker, ‘What is global citizenship?’, Strategies for Combating Intolerance on Social Media, 2 – 3 March 2017, Citizens’ Rights and Immigration Services, Barcelona City Council, Spain
  • Plenary Speaker, (Delivered in French) ‘De la pénalisation à la permission : analyse et critique des conditions de la libre expression dans les démocraties modernes’ [‘From penalisation to permissiveness : analysis and critique of free expression in modern democracies’], Colloque sur la cybercriminalité, 8 February 2017, Université de Montpellier
  • Invited discussant for Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom Mark Regev, 6 February 2017, Queen Mary Jewish Society, London
  • Seminar presentation, ‘Human rights and democracy?’, Political Theory Research Seminars, 2 Feb 2017, Cardiff University Political Theory Research Unit
  • Seminar presentation, ‘Revisiting the legitimacy of human rights: discursive instead of ontological foundations’, 7 Dec 2016, School of Law, Royal Holloway, University of London
  • Plenary Speaker: ‘Preserving democratic citizenship online’, International Congress on Crime and Cyberspace: Challenges for the 21th Century—Radicalism and hate on the Internet, Centro Crímina para el Estudio y Prevención de la Delincuencia (CRIMINA), 1 – 2 December 2016, Universidad Miguel Hernández Avda, Hélike Elche, Alicante, Spain
  • Plenary Speaker, ‘Is the UN even designed to be fair?’, panellist address at ‘Is the UN fair in its treatment of Israel-Palestine?’, 22 November 2016, University College London
  • Keynote Address, ‘History and the Problem of Human Rights Denialism’, Law and Memory: Addressing Historical Injustice by Law, 2 – 3 July 2016, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
  • Panelist: ‘Defending speech with which we disagree’, Academic Freedom, International Law, and ‘Balance’, Sussex Centre for Human Rights Research Roundtable, 12 May 2016
  • Seminar presentation, ‘Campus hate preachers: Government policy is getting it precisely wrong’, Countering Violent Extremism, Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, Goodenough College, London, 2 March 2016
  • Plenary Speaker: ‘Recorded as a Precedent: Revisiting Law and Sovereignty in The Merchant of Venice, Kingston Shakespeare Seminar in Theory (KiSSiT), 19 Dec 2015
  • Plenary Speaker, ‘How shall we divide up the freedom pie?’, Experiencing the Law: Asylum Seekers, Refugees and Human Rights, Institute of Contemporary British History, Kings College London, 10 December 2015
  • Plenary Speaker, ‘Free Speech and Democratic Values’, Society for Applied Philosophy workshop on Hate Speech Law and Political Philosophy, London, Senate House, 12 November 2015
  • 2015-16 Inaugural Oxford University Max Watson Memorial Lecture, ‘Hate Speech and Democratic Citizenship’, Oxford University Foundation for Law, Justice and Society (FLJS), 29 October 2015
  • Plenary Speaker, (Delivered in French) « Et pourtant, Jean-Jacques aimait bien parler... quel rapport entre la démocratie et la liberté d’expression ? » (‘And yet Rousseau liked to talk… what links democracy to free expression ?’), Liberté d’expression et « discours de haine » , Université de Lyon 3 – Jean Moulin, 27 March 2015
  • Panel Debate on Free Speech, North London Literary Festival, 24 March 2015 (with British journalists Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Kurt Barling, and Christina Patterson)
  • ‘Seeing and Time: Mass Media and the “Temporality” of Human Rights’, Awareness’, Human Rights in the UK Media: Representation and Reality, School of Law and Social Justice, University of Liverpool, 19 September 2014
  • Keynote Speaker, ‘Debating Hate Speech’, War of Words: International Conference on Media, Armed Conflict, and Hate Speech, International Federation of Journalists, Residence Palace, Brussels, 25 April 2014
  • Plenary Speaker, ‘Legal and Cultural Hybridity in Shakespeare’, Hybridity: Power, Social Structures and Institutions beyond the Liberal West, Institute of Advanced Studies, The University of Birmingham, 13 March 2014
  • General series discussant for Kingston Shakespeare Seminar (KiSS), and featured speaker: ‘Equivocation will undo us: Linguistic transformation as legal strategy in Shakespearean political drama’, 27 February 2014
  • Keynote Speaker, Online Hate Speech, Conference of the European Law Students Association, Oslo, Norway, 3-8 December 2013
  • ‘Law and Literature: a Dilettante’s Dream?’, discussant for Prof William Twining, Wolfson College, Oxford, 26 November 2013
  • Seminar presentation, ‘Democracy and Hate Speech’, School of Law, University of Surrey, Wednesday 13 November 2013
  • Plenary Speaker, ‘Hate Speech and the Role of the Media’, Media-4-Change Conference, Cagliari, Sardinia from 24-26 October 2013
  • Conference on ‘Hate Crime: The Case for Extending the Existing Offences’, UK Law Commission conference, 17 September 2013
  • Seminar presentation, ‘On the General Theory of Comparative Law: Some Analogies to Literature’, Inter-Disciplinary Approaches to Comparative Law, University of Notre Dame in London, 25 July 2013
  • Seminar presentation, ‘Sex, Islam and Empire’, Law, Religion & LGBT Rights, Brunel University Law Department, 5 July 2013
  • Seminar presentation, ‘State, Empire, and Historical Memory in Early Modernity’, Law, Faith and Historical Memory, University of East London, 12 June 2013
  • Seminar presentation, ‘The Future of Hate Speech Bans’, Staff Seminar, Institute for Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, 31 June 2013
  • Seminar presentation, (Delivered in French) ‘Droit et limites dans l’Andromaque de Jean Racine’, Droit et Frontières, Sciences-Po, Paris, 23 May 2013
  • Seminar presentation, ‘The hermeneutics of the bargain in Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens’, Money Matters – Transactions between Money and Literature, QMUL, London, 2 May 2013
  • Seminar presentation, ‘Hamlet and the thresholds of “sense”‘, Law and the Senses, University of Westminster, 18 April 2013
  • Seminar presentation, ‘The Problem of Ahistoricism in Legal Theory’, IVR-UK, Queen Mary, London, 12 April 2013
  • Seminar presentation, The Critique of Law in Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part II and Hamlet, Staff Seminar, Liverpool John Moores University, 4 Dec 2012.
  • Seminar presentation, ‘Arguing about Hate Speech Bans’, Civil Society Colloquium, Norway-Civitas, New College, Oxford, 16 Sept 2012
  • Seminar presentation, ‘The Empirically Imperial in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline’, Face to Face – Encounters between the Arts and Sciences: Interdisciplinary Colloquium, Queen Mary University of London, 22 June 2012
  • Seminar presentation, ‘Where be his quiddities now?’: Law and Language in Hamlet’, Current Legal Issues Colloquium 2011: Law and Language, UCL, 4 – 5 July 2011
  • ‘Hate Speech Bans: For and Against’ (debate with Henning Koch), University of Copenhagen Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, 6 April 2011
  • Seminar presentation, ‘The Concept of Injustice’, Leicester University, Department of Law, 23 March 2011
  • Seminar presentation, ‘What is Injustice?’ Warwick University, Law Dept, 24 Nov 2010
  • Keynote Speaker, ‘The challenges of human rights in an era of globalisation’, The challenge of upholding universal Human Rights: Can universal Human Rights survive in today’s globalised world?, Oxford University Weidenfeld Scholarships and Leadership Programme alumni conference, Ascot, 24 October 2010
  • Keynote Speaker, ‘Human Rights and the Mass Media’, Law and Politics: Democracy, Human Rights and Power, University of Westminster, 10 June 2010
  • Seminar presentation, ‘The Politics of Rights’, special lecture within the ongoing seminar series Retreat from Human Rights, 27 November 2009, Newcastle Law School.
  • Plenary Speaker, ‘Majorities, Beliefs, and Sex’, Multiculturalism - Dilemmas, Paradoxes, Traps, 15 Oct 2009, Anti-discrimination Training Academy, Villa Decius, Krakow, Poland.
  • Seminar presentation, ‘Human Rights, Gender and the Media’, Gender Futures: Law, Critique and the Struggle for Something More, 3 – 4 April 2009, Expert Committee Member, Media 4 Diversity - Seminar on Media and Diversity, Prague, 5 – 7 February 2009
  • Seminar presentation, ‘Cumulative Jurisprudence and Hate Speech: Sexual Orientation and Analogies to Disability, Age and Obesity’, Sexuality, Hatred and Law, 6 May 2008, Durham University
  • Seminar presentation, ‘“Truth” and “Myth” in Critical Theory: Liberal Rights and the Ethnocentrism of Anti-Ethnocentrism’, Workshop on Rights Discourse, International Institute for the Sociology of Law, 15 – 16 May 2008, Oñati, Spain.
  • Plenary Speaker, ‘Child Protection: An Absolute Value?’, Child Protection and the Internet, April 30, 2007, University of Toronto, Canada
  • Invited comment on Yale Law Professor R. Post’s presentation about hate speech, plenary session for Extreme Speech and Democracy: A Comparative View, 23 April, 2007, Cambridge University
  • Comment on presentation by Professor C. Brants on ‘Glorification of Terrorism’, Religious Pluralism and human rights in Europe: where to draw the line? May 9-10, 2006, Utrecht University
  • Seminar presentation, ‘A Coherence Theory of Hate Speech Bans’, Hate Speech: Conference and Consultation, Central European University, Budapest, March 30 – April 1, 2006.
  • Plenary Speaker, ‘Hate Speech in l’état social’, Mainstreaming Diversity, Luxemburg Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Mondorf-les-Bains, Luxemburg, 27-28 June 2005.
  • Seminar presentation, ‘Sexual Orientation and the Manufacture of Cross-Cultural “Sensitivity”‘, Human Rights and Cultural Relativism, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford University, Wolfson College, 1 Dec. 2000.
  • Plenary Speaker, ‘Tolerance as Discrimination’, ‘Discrimination and Tolerance,’ Danish Centre for Human Rights, Copenhagen, 7-9 May 2000.
  • Seminar presentation, ‘If Two’s Company, is Three a Minority Group?’, ‘Legal Recognition of Same-Sex Partnerships: A Conference on National, European and International Law,’ Centre of European Law, School of Law, King’s College, University of London, 1-3 July 1999.
  • Seminar presentation, ‘The Concepts of Race and Ethnicity in International Human Rights Law’, Lecture Series, ‘Human Rights – 50 Years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,’ Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London, February 2, 1999.
  • Seminar presentation, ‘Legal Meta-Discourse and Comparative Discrimination Law,’ International Conference on Comparative Non-Discrimination Law, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, 22-24 June 1998.
  • Plenary Speaker, ‘Discourses of Sexuality: Classical, Modernist and Post-Modernist,’ Conference on ‘Sexual Rights as Human Rights,’ Institute for Human Rights, Åbo Akademi University, Finland, 14-16 February 1997.
  • Seminar presentation, ‘The Construction and Contingency of the Minority Concept,’ Conference on ‘Minority and Group Rights Toward the New Millenium’, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London, 3 May 1996.
  • Chair and Co-Organiser (with Marian Hobson), ‘The forces of monotheism’ - Professor Julia Kristeva, QMUL, 25 May 2010

Other conference activity

Participation in panels for Law & Society Association, Socio-Legal Studies Assoication, Critical Legal Studies, International Political Science Association, Internationale Vereinigung für Rechtsphilosophie (IVR), Society of Legal Scholars, Int’l Assoc. for Philosophy of Law & Social Philosophy

Conference Organiser

  • Chair and Co-Organiser (with Marian Hobson), ‘Let Her Letter Go’ - Professor Hélène Cixous, QMUL, 8 February 2009
  • Chair and Co-Organiser (with Marian Hobson), Workshop with Jacques Derrida, QMUL, 13 June 2003
  • Organiser, Lecture by Sadie Plant, QMUL, 17 April 2002
  • Organiser, Lecture by Quentin Skinner, QMUL, 24 October 2001
  • Organiser of International Conference: Of Innocence and Autonomy: Children, Sex and Human Rights, QMW Law Faculty, April 3, 1998.
  • Organiser of Legal Theory Streams for Socio-Legal Studies Conference (Glasgow 2004, Liverpool 2005, Stirling 2006) and Critical Legal Theory Conference (Westminster 2004)

Co-Founder and Executive Director, QMUL Centre for Law, Democracy and Society (CLDS), 2016 - present, promoting inter-departmental, inter-disciplinary events on problems of democracy within social contexts

  • What is a war crime? Identifying priorities for prosecution in international law, QMUL, Spring 2020
  • Disobeying democratic law: Loss of legitimacy and substantive injustice, QMUL, Autumn 2019
  • Nationality Now: The History, Culture, and Politics of Contemporary Citizenship, QMUL, 1 April 2019.
  • The Role of Free Speech in Democracy, QMUL, 15 February 2019
  • Recognition, Denial, and Human Rights: Theoretical Approaches, QMUL, 24 May 2018
  • Weber’s Theory of the Bureaucratic State, QMUL, Prof Morton Kinander, University of Oslo, 13 Oct 2017
  • Law and Historical Memory, QMUL, Dr Ulad Belavusau, Asser Institute (The Hague), 15 March 2017

Project management: ‘Memory Laws in European and Comparative Perspectives’

  • Supervision of and coordination of twelve-member consortium across four national teams, 1 Sept 2016 – 31 August 2019, including management of €1,177,091 award from EU HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area)
  • Supervision of Dr. Nanor Kebranian, Post-Graduate Research Assistant (conducting research on the Armenian genocide and on late Ottoman law and society and assisting in project administration and reporting)
  • Conference for final presentation, Gdansk, European Solidarity Centre, Gdansk, Poland, 11-12 September 2019
  • Conference for NGO consultation on model Declaration on Law and Historical Memory, University of Kent in Brussels, 23-24 May 2019
  • Roundtable for NGO consultation on model Declaration on Law and Historical Memory, QMUL, London, 23 April 2019
  • Conference for second special journal issue, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, 9 Oct 2018
  • Conference for first special journal issue, University of Bologna, 24 March  2017
  • Presentation at HERA Launch, Prague 15-16 Sept 2016
  • Organisation of major conference streams at MANCEPT, University of Manchester, 10-12 September 2018; Law and Society, 20 – 23 June 2017

* Includes only appearances via personal invitation, not participation in conferences such as SLS, Law & Society, I-CON, IVR and other broadly open, application-based events.

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