University of Reading School of Law School Workshop for Women in Cyber Fellows

In early July, the governments of Australia, Canada, Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom jointly sponsored a global workshop for participants in the “Women in Cyber Fellowship” program. The Fellows are key diplomats and other government officials involved in international cyber policy and law, including those representing their nations in the ongoing United Nations negotiations regarding the applicability of international law to cyber operations and the development of norms of responsible state behavior in cyberspace.

The workshop, which the School of Law certifies as Executive Education, was co-directed by the School’s Professor Mike Schmitt.  Conducted online, the three-day workshop was offered twice, once for Fellows from the Asia Pacific region and once for those based in Africa and the Americas. The topics ranged from sovereignty in cyberspace and the prohibition on using cyber means to intervene in other state’s internal affairs to the use of cyber weapons during armed conflict.  Much of the discussion understandably centered on malicious cyber operations related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the academic partner with numerous governments in international cyber law capacity building, the School of Law is a global leader in ensuring officials around the world understand how international law governs cyber activities and assisting them to build their own national cyber strategies and policies. In July, for instance, week-long Executive Education workshops will be offered for Indonesian officials and for those from throughout the Americas, all of whom are responsible to cyber policy and law in their nations.

‘The Disruptive Power of Legal Biography: The Life of Lord Phillimore – Churchman and Judge’ by Dr Charlotte Smith

Dr Charlotte Smith’s article ‘The Disruptive Power of Legal Biography: The Life of Lord Phillimore – Churchman and Judge’ has been published in the latest issue of The Journal of Legal History.  The article uses a biography of Lord Walter George Frank Phillimore, a prominent high churchman and judge in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to explore the ability of legal biography to disrupt settled or uncritical readings of his comments on the nature of an established church in the case of Marshall v Graham (1907). In so doing it highlights the impact of the nineteenth century’s legal and constitutional reforms upon high churchmen and lawyers such as Phillimore and examines the impact of his churchmanship upon his personal and professional life.

Patsy Kirkwood’s case report on NT1 & NT2 v Google LLC

PhD candidate Patsy Kirkwood’s case report on NT1 & NT2 v Google LLC has been published by European Data Protection Law Review. This was the first case on the right to be forgotten in the UK, and therefore presented the first opportunity for the principles from the Court of Justice of the European Union’s judgment in the Google Spain case (where the right was developed) to be examined by our domestic courts.

Patsy Kirkwood and the right to be forgotten

PhD candidate Patsy Kirkwood has written a chapter entitled ‘Where now for the right to be forgotten ? A review of the issues post Google Spain with particular regard to the decision reached in the UK’ which features in the recently published edited collection Personal Data Protection and Legal Developments in the European Union .

Patsy’s chapter examines recent cases within the EU where the new right to be forgotten has been applied, their impact on defining its scope where the links to information relate to matter of greater public interest and the territorial extent of the right. In particular, it focuses on the UK joined cases of NT1 and NT2 and the questions that arise with regard to linking to criminal convictions.