Last year a proposal was approved by the International Academy to create a new academic role within the Laws programmes, the Subject Convenor. It was agreed that one Subject Convenor would be appointed for each of the 24 academic subjects currently offered and that the first appointments would commence during the 2011/12 academic year. The Subject Convenors will have overall responsibility for the academic content and resources of each course. We are delighted that the first four appointments have been confirmed for the Intermediate Subjects, Contract (Catharine MacMillan), CLRI (Dr. Adam Gearey), Criminal (Professor William Wilson) and Public law (Dr. Jo Murkens) and here are some introductions.
Criminal Law: William Wilson is a Professor of Law at Queen Mary, University of London. His primary research focus is criminal law and theory. He is the author of Criminal Law: Doctrine and Theory (2011), Cases and Materials on Criminal Law (2010), and Central Issues in Criminal Theory (2002) He has published widely in the field of homicide law and criminal defences. He has advised the Home Office and was an adviser to the Law Commission in their review of homicide, inchoate offences and kidnap. He is currently researching preparatory offences. He is an associate editor of the New Criminal Law Review (formerly Buffalo Criminal Law review). Professor Wilson was Head of the Department of Law at Queen Mary, University of London, from 2004-2008.
Contract Law: Ms Catharine MacMillan is a Reader in Legal History at Queen Mary, University of London. She has extensive experience in teaching contract law and has lectured and tutored on the subject in the Americas, Asia and Europe. Her research interests are concentrated in the areas of private obligations and property law, particularly in the nineteenth century development of contract law. She has published articles in a number of journals and edited collections. She is the author of Mistakes in Contract Law (2010).
Public Law: Dr Jo Murkens is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the London School of Economics, University of London. He studied English and European Law at Queen Mary, University of London, and at the University of Copenhagen. He was subsequently a researcher at the Constitution Unit, University College London. Jo wrote his PhD thesis at the European University Institute, Florence. Jo has taught at University College, King’s College, and Queen Mary (all University of London), and was called to the Bar in 2006. His research interests are in Constitutional and Administrative Law, Constitutional theory and history, Comparative constitutional law, European Union Law, European legal culture and history.
CLRI: Dr Adam Gearey is a Reader in Law at Birkbeck College, University of London. In 2001-2002, he was a visiting professor in the Faculty of Law at Makerere University, Uganda; and in 2003 a visiting professor at the University of Pretoria. More recently, he has been a visiting scholar at The Center for Law and Society, University of California, Berkeley and a visiting professor at the University of Peace, Costa Rica. His publications include Islam, Law and Identity (with Marinos Diamantides) and Welfare as Justice (New York: Continuum, 2012).