Recent news from the Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law at Swansea University
Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law Recent News
School of Law Retains its Position in World Top 150
Association of Law Teachers Annual Conference
The Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law School was ranked in the World Top 150 (QS World Rankings by Subject) for the first time in 2023, and has successfully retained this position in 2024. Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), the World’s largest global higher education network, has been publishing World University Rankings since 2004, with the current format being the QS World University Rankings by Subject. To compile these rankings, QS assesses the academic reputation, employer reputation and research impact of all law schools in the world, highlighting the all-round success that this represents for the Law School at Swansea University.
On 11th and 12th April, the School of Law was proud to host the Association of Law Teachers Annual Conference.
This year’s Conference theme was ‘Opportunities & Challenges in Legal Education’. We welcomed over 70 speakers from over 40 institutions, and 120 delegates.
This included a keynote from The Right Hon. Lord Lloyd-Jones, Justice of the Supreme Court
The full schedule , and presentation and workshop abstracts are available on the Conference Website .
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New “Year in Practice” Option Approved
Student Success: Swansea Law Competitions
The Law School has been approved to offer the Year in Practice option for undergraduate students.
For the 2023/2024 academic year, the Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law continued to excel domestically and internationally at a variety of student competitions encompassing trial advocacy, appellate advocacy, negotiation, mediation, and client interviewing. Across the year we anticipate that around 100 spaces will have been available for students to represent the University and gain networking experience, as well as exposure to feedback from experienced practitioners.
This will be a four-year degree where students, at the end of year two, and who have the qualifying profile, may be able to work for a year in a law firm or related company. This will be credit-bearing opportunity to enhance the students’ employability, and they will return after the year to complete their final year of studies.
Successes to date include:
In the England and Wales National Client Interviewing Competition, Lexie Stewart and Sara Wideman beat off competition from 35 Universities to win the overall competition - the first time in Swansea’s history. They went on to represent Wales at the international competition in Lublin, Poland. The School competed for the first time in the York University National Negotiations Competition, with Emily McGilivray-Crawford and Choe Gear taking the overall win , defeating teams from across England and Wales, including the University of Oxford.
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In the Transatlantic Negotiations Competition, involving teams from across the world, Swansea student Chidinma Nwalupue was named as the best negotiator . Chidinma was also given the award for second best mediator in the UK National Mediation Competition, hosted by the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. The Swansea team finished third overall; their best ranking to date at the competition.
At the MediateWise Mediation Competition in Vienna, Norma Omiller was awarded second place in the Mediator category .
The School entered the Warsaw Negotiation Competition for the first time, with Bradley Selleck, Hailey Doyle and Lexie Stewart receiving trophies for their third place finish .
In the ALSINC Negotiations competition, hosted in Sri Lanka, Bradley Selleck and Hadley Middleton finished third , defeating teams from multiple continents.
Looking ahead, the School will be defending its titles in the Wales Mooting Competition and Mediate Guru Virtual Negotiation Competition, and also has teams in the advanced stages of multiple mooting competitions. We are also looking forward to hosting, for the second year in a row, the International Maritime Law Arbitration Moot in July, with 25 teams from around the world coming to Swansea.
Institute of International Shipping and Trade Law Research Cited
Three members of the School’s Institute of International Shipping and Trade Law have been cited in the recent consultation paper of the Law Commission of England and Wales on Aviation Autonomy, demonstrating how the Institute is delivering research capable of shaping the future direction of transport law, and the trajectory of academic discourse. Shawcross and Beaumont on Air Law, of which Professor George Leloudas is the General Editor, has been referred to in the paper more than any other publication, highlighting its prominent role in transport law and the influence of Professor Leloudas on aviation matters. Also, a recent article by Professors Baris Soyer and Andrew Tettenborn on “Artificial Intelligence and Civil Liability – Do We Need A New Regime?” [(2022) International Journal of Law and Information Technology] has been cited in the paper on several occasions underscoring the impact their research is having on advancing knowledge in machine learning and liability laws.
Norma Omiller, Chidinma Nwalupe, Chloe Gear and Emma Richards (coach) at the UK Mediation Competition
Lexie Stewart and Hadley Middleton at the National Client Interviewing Competition
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Research Fellowship Professor Karen Morrow (Environmental Law) is undertaking a two-month research fellowship at the New Institute in Hamburg as part of an international, interdisciplinary team working on the Governing the Planetary Commons: A Focus on the Amazon programme. The project seeks to address the need to better fit international governance structures and practice to the biophysical realities of the Earth System, as represented by the planetary commons. We now understand that the resilience of the planetary life support system, upon which humanity depends, is faced with the multiple threats of the poly-crisis where interlinked problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution and more operate on a truly global scale. While the poly-crisis threatens humanity as a whole, people are not equally implicated in causing it and do not experience its impacts equally, with those least responsible for the problems we face often most exposed to their impacts. It is increasingly apparent that the legal and political mechanisms which are available to address the poly-crisis in international law and policy are not up to the task. New thinking is urgently needed on how we can develop just governance to safeguard people and planet, and the project will interrogate how this might be done, focusing on the Amazon, one of the great planetary commons. Karen will bring her expertise on ecofeminism, which draws on the shared exploitation of the natural world and non-privileged people, its impacts and how it might be addressed to the programme.
Cyber Threats Research Centre (CYTREC)
TASM Conference
The 2024 Terrorism and Social Media Conference will take place at Swansea University’s Bay campus on 18-19 June. The conference will bring together more than 250 delegates from a variety of sectors including academia, government, law enforcement, civil society and the tech sector. The sessions will include workshops delivered by Meta, TikTok, the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, Tech Against Terrorism and the Meta Oversight Board, as well as presentations delivered by researchers from 16 different countries worldwide
Social & Humanitarian Award
Dr Lella Nouri was a winner of the Social & Humanitarian Award at the 2023 Ethnic Minority Welsh Women Achievement Association. Working with the Legal Innovation Lab Wales, Lella has developed the StreetSnap app, an innovative technological solution allowing local councils and their partners to better record, utilise and remove hateful graffiti and visual representations of hate throughout their boroughs. The app allows users (from council officials to police community support officers and integrated partners) to track potential areas of higher hate crime and incidences of extremism effectively and efficiently within their communities. StreetSnap enables councils to communicate with ease across departments, teams and partners as well as better allocate resources and funds into areas where issues are identified to ensure public safety and to support community cohesion.
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Christchurch Call Advisory Network Dr Katy Vaughan was reappointed for a second term as Co-Chair of the Christchurch Call Advisory Network. The Advisory Network consists of leading organisations and individuals from civil society, academia, and the technical community, convened as part of the Christchurch Call, which emerged as a response to the Christchurch massacre on March 15, 2019, when 51 Muslims were killed during prayer. The Advisory Network exists to provide expert advice on implementing the commitments in the Call to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online in a manner consistent with a free, open, and secure internet, and with international human rights law. Over the past 6 months, as Co-Chair of the Advisory Network Katy has convened a number of engagement sessions including representatives from Government and Civil Society to discuss issues surrounding the proliferation of terrorist and violent extremist content following the October 7th Hamas attack, and ongoing conflict in Israel and Gaza, including the impact of efforts from the tech industry to moderate content on affected and marginalised communities. In addition, Katy has convened online sessions with Online Safety Regulators (including the UK’s Ofcom, Ireland’s Coimisiún na Meán, and Australia’s eSafety Commissioner) and policymakers, civil society, academia and the tech industry in light of new developments in State regulation of online service providers. 9
Extremism and Short-form Video Platforms
Dr Joe Whittaker has also been involved in a project which seeks to counter extremism on short-form video platforms, such as TikTok and YouTube Shorts. The project created two reports; one which offered guidance to content creators who create counter narratives on these platforms, and the second which provides the evidence-based, strategic logic of the approach taken. CYTREC Lead Appointed Fellow of Academy of Social Sciences Professor Stuart Macdonald was appointed a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences . The Academy’s Fellowship comprises over 1,500 leading scientists from academia, public, private and third sectors. With expertise covering the breadth of the social sciences, their work helps address some of the major challenges being faced by our society and the world. Selected through an independent and robust peer review by the Academy’s Nominations Committee, Fellows are recognised for the substantial contributions they have made to industry, policy, and higher education.
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Recent Reports
As part of the EU-funded Tech Against Terrorism Europe project, Professor Stuart Macdonald, Dr Ashley Mattheis and David Wells published a report on the use of AI and machine learning to identify terrorist content online. The report’s recommendations include: (1) human input into content moderation processes remains necessary, and a set of minimum standards for those employing moderators should be developed; (2) international organisations and governments should support the development of openly available automated content moderation tools by NGOs; and, (3) the largest tech platforms should develop and make openly available automated content moderation tools, accompanied by a good practice guide that explains how the tool works, its limitations, and how it can be integrated into a platform. Stuart Macdonald and Sean McCafferty published the report Online Jihadist Propaganda Dissemination Strategies . Using a dataset collected from jihadist channels on four platforms (an archiving service, a decentralised messaging service, and two decentralised chat apps on the Rocketchat server), the report identifies evolutions in how jihadist propaganda is being disseminated online. In particular, it highlights the use of in-links to manually create echo chambers and the low takedown rates for content attached to, or embedded in, in-channel posts. Dr Joe Whittaker was part of a team that conducted the largest survey of involuntary celibates (incels) to date, attempting to understand their psychological experiences, their adherence to ideology, and their online networking. The research , funded by the UK Home Office, found that a large number purport extremely hostile and misogynistic attitudes and a sizable minority justify the use of violence. At the same time, they suffer from exceptionally poor mental health and have high levels of neurodiversity.
New Book: Proving International Crimes
Professor Yvonne McDermott Rees’s book on the law of evidence before international criminal courts and tribunals has been submitted and will be published by Oxford University Press later in 2024.
Academic Bencher of the Inner Temple
Professor Yvonne McDermott Rees has been elected Master of the Bench of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. This honour is conveyed on distinguished academics whose work contributes to the study of law and disciplines relevant to the education of future legal practitioners. Benchers hold office for life once elected, and are expected to contribute to the governance and education and training activities of the Inn. The Inner Temple is one of the four Inns of Court in London, which hold the exclusive right to call students to practise law at the Bar of England and Wales.
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Cybercrime and Online Harms Practice and Research Network (COPRNET) Sara Correia-Hopkins founded, and now chairs, the Cybercrime and Online Harms Practice and Research Network (COPRNET), a pan-Wales network of 40+ organisations and individuals from across law enforcement, academia, industry and the charity sectors with an interest in victims and those vulnerable to cybercrime and online harms.
Outreach: TRUE Project
The TRUE project, a large multi-disciplinary project led by Professor Yvonne McDermott Rees, has conducted training with Ukrainian judges as part of USAID’s Justice4All initiative and on behalf of the European Union Assistance Mission in Ukraine. The project has recently published a guide for judges and fact-finders on evaluating open source evidence, and held a conference for legal practitioners in London in November 2023. Feedback from attendees indicated that the event strengthened their understanding of the key benefits and challenges of open source and user generated evidence. Professor McDermott Rees and Anne Hausknecht, a PhD student on the project, presented their research to prosecutors and police from across Europe at a Europol workshop in The Hague in January 2024. Professor McDermott Rees has given keynote addresses and invited lectures at Imperial College London; Vilnius University, Lithuania; Vrije University, Amsterdam; Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany; the Siracusa International Institute for Criminal Justice and Human Rights; the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and Queen’s University Belfast, amongst others.
Since its launch in July 2023, the network has met quarterly and led to new collaborations.
Sara Correia-Hopkins was invited to attend the Global Fraud Summit in March 2024 organised by the UK Home Office and Ministry of Justice in London. This was a high profile event ( details here ) which brought together Ministers from the G7, Five Eyes, Singapore and South Korea, as well as academics, industry and victim support/campaigning organisations. Sara Correia-Hopkins collaborated with colleagues at Cardiff Metropolitan University to secure funding to deliver training on matters of cyber law and privacy to young people and those working with vulnerable groups, in deprived areas of Powys, Wales.
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Children’s Legal Centre Wales The Children’s Legal Centre Wales (CLC Wales), is taking forward work on policy advocacy, strategic litigation, legal education for children and young people, and 2 Children’s Rights Training Contracts, all with external funding. With four academic leads (Professor Jane Williams, Professor Simon Hoffman, Dr Anthony Charles and Michaela Leyshon), and Manager Hannah Bussicott, CLC Wales is now embedded at Swansea and networked across the 4 nations of the UK, and internationally. CLC Wales is influencing change on multiple child rights issues, from treatment of children in the criminal justice system in relation to strip search, to guardianship for unaccompanied minors, poverty alleviation and legal education, working to hold duty bearers to account via legal challenge and international human rights monitoring. Current campaigns have had direct impact on UK Concluding Observations 2023 , issuing their first ever recommendation to a State party to abolish strip search of children. Work in this area has been referred to in Senedd plenary and by Nation Cymru . The CLCW will be hosting the Child Law Network UK conference this year for the first time, with a public event on Wednesday 25th September bringing legal partners across the UK together to consider possible Child Rights Strategic Litigation cases. The CLCW has also been shortlisted for the University’s Research and Innovation Awards, in the category of Outstanding Contribution to Civic Mission. 15
Smart Partnership to Enhance Cybersecurity in Small Businesses The Welsh Government, in collaboration with PureCyber and Swansea University, unveiled a pioneering initiative aimed at bolstering cybersecurity measures for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) across Wales. Recognising the critical need to fortify cybersecurity defences for SMEs, the Smart Partnership is designed to address existing barriers hindering SMEs from accessing robust cybersecurity solutions. This collaboration brings together the expertise of PureCyber, a leading cybersecurity solutions provider, and the academic excellence of Swansea University’s Law School. Carrying out in-depth research, and leveraging cutting-edge technologies, expertise and strategic insights, the partnership aims to identify cyber security improvement barriers, and offer SMEs an accessible multi-layered approach to cybersecurity.
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Street Law
Swansea Law Clinic
Street Law expanded rapidly during 2023-24 with over 60 students engaged in research and the delivery of interactive sessions for diverse lay audiences, on topics from assault, battery and theft to protest, discrimination, women in the law, freedom of information and police powers. Street Law student trainers Elenor Marano and Sa’d Khalayleh presented to the Association of Law Teachers Conference on the potential for integration of Street Law methods in core law subject teaching. Street Law intersects with the delivery of clinical services at Swansea Law Clinic, for example with local charities supporting people with dementia, children not accessing a full education, and their carers. Street Law is supporting the Children’s Legal Centre Wales to deliver an externally funded project on children’s rights education. Professor Jane Williams, with Professor Yvonne Vissing (Salem State University), is developing a pilot project in online international peer-to-peer learning on human rights, deploying Street Law approaches, on which they jointly presented to the Conference of the International Association of Human Rights Education.
Swansea Law Clinic has continued to advise members of the public mainly on housing, immigration, family breakdown, employment, equality and consumer issues.
In November 2023, students participated in the 5th Global Day of Action for Climate Justice. This is an annual event when university law clinics from across the globe take part in action to raise awareness of the climate emergency, and to think about the role law teachers, lawyers and law students can play in tackling major societal changes such as climate change. The Clinic hosted a ‘Climate Walk & Talk Day’ to discuss the theme ‘The Right to a Healthy Climate’, with our focus on transportation and its pollution impacts. This involved an eight mile walk from the Singleton Campus of Swansea University to Mumbles Pier, along the waterfront promenade, and back again. Upon return to Singleton Campus there was a talk and presentation given by Environmental Law Professor, Karen Morrow.
The event started a conversation amongst students and staff on the issues with transit and how transportation pollution challenges our right to a healthy environment and what we can do.
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During the current academic year, the Clinic has launched a personal injury clinic, working in association with London-based law firm, Hodge, Jones & Allen.
The Clinic again received funding to run advice sessions at Swansea Carers’ Centre. Working in partnership with the Smith Llewelyn Partnership, we have advised carers mainly in issues relating to powers of attorney, will writing and carers’ needs assessments.
We are working on a new project with four departments from Singleton Hospital to provide holistic medical and legal care for victims of domestic abuse.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission, on its own initiative, has reopened one of the cases referred to them by the Clinic and is reviewing it.
Use of the inter-agency referral app, which aims to improve the client’s journey by making referrals between agencies easier, and which is being piloted by the Clinic, continues to increase. We were pleased to sign up our first publicly funded legal aid lawyers, which will improve communication between the free social welfare advice sector and the publicly funded sector when clients/patients transfer between the two.
The Clinic continues to volunteer with the Ukraine Advice Project, in association with DLA Piper LLP, to provide advice to those affected by the war in Ukraine.
Working in collaboration with the Legal Innovation Lab Wales, we have secured funding to develop a legal toolkit for small and medium sized enterprises.
The Clinic continues to contribute to policy formation and law reform. At the moment, this is focused on the UK Ministry of Justice’s Review of Civil Legal Aid and the forthcoming UK General Election. The Clinic Director, Professor Richard Owen, was invited to brief the Shadow Secretary of State for Justice ahead of the Election, and the Clinic has made submissions to the Ministry of Justice’s review.
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