REUL/Assimilated Law: the Current Rules(?): CELS Lunchtime Seminar

Speaker: Associate Professor Dora Neo (National University of Singapore)With the advancement of technology, delivery of financial services, such as payment services, can be achieved almost instantaneously. In the area of trade finance, however, banks have been less quick to harness technology for trade digitalisation. An important reason is that trade financing has historically been heavily dependent on the use of paper. While digitisation of trade documents is easily done, the digitalisation of trade finance requires a supportive legal framework to ensure that concepts like possession, which were developed in relation to tangible documents, can operate in the digital world. In the UK, this framework is now provided by the Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023 which has been described to be "one of the most important bills you have never heard of". Singapore instituted a similar framework by amending its Electronic Transactions Act in 2021. These legislative developments were based on the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR), which has gained increasing global influence since its adoption in 2017. This seminar discusses how the landscape of trade financing affects the use of technology, analyses recent legal developments relating to electronic trade documents, and identifies remaining challenges for trade digitalisation.Biography: Dora Neo is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore. She was the founding Director of the Faculty’s Centre for Banking & Finance Law, which she led for some ten years from 2013. Her areas of focus include the modernisation of trade finance law, global developments in secured transactions law, consumer protection in the finance industry and contract law. Her publications include Trade Finance: Technology, Innovation and Documentary Credits (co-edited with C Hare, Oxford University Press); The Law and Practice of Documentary Letters of Credit (co-authored with E P Ellinger, Hart Publishing);Secured Transactions Law in Asia: Principles, Perspectives and Reform (co-edited with L Gullifer, Hart Publishing) and Studies in the Contract Laws of Asia V: Ending and Changing Contracts (co-edited with M Chen-Wishart and S Vogenauer, Oxford University Press, forthcoming). In Michaelmas Term 2025, she is an academic visitor at the Cambridge Law Faculty under the sponsorship of the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law (3CL), and a Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College.3CL runs the 3CL Travers Smith Lunchtime Seminar Series, featuring leading academics from the Faculty, and high-profile practitioners.For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website:http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

The Centre for European Legal Studies (CELS) hosts an annual public lecture in honour of Lord Mackenzie-Stuart, the first British Judge to be President of the Court of Justice. Among the eminent scholars of European legal studies invited to give the lecture are Professor Joseph Weiler, former Judge David Edwards of the European Court of Justice, and Advocate-General Francis Jacobs of the European Court of Justice. The texts of the Mackenzie-Stuart Lectures are published in the Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies.The 2025-26 Mackenzie-Stuart Lecture was delivered by Professor Anand Menon, Director, UK in a Changing Europe, on the title 'Reflections on the Brexit Revolution' on 3 November 2025.Anand Menon is Director of the UK in a Changing Europe and Professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King’s College London. He has written widely on many aspects of EU politics and policy and on UK-EU relations. He is a frequent contributor to the media on matters relating to British relations with the EU.Abstract: The outcome of the Brexit referendum was driven by many forces, including increasing frustration at an economic and political model that seemed to be failing far too many people. And the vote to Leave in fact provided a unique opportunity for this discontent to be addressed. The fact that it was not has merely contributed to the growing appeal of populism. And along the way, many of the things we took for granted about our country and the way it is governed have been challenged.Lecture begins at 03:52The slides are available at:PDF: https://resources.law.cam.ac.uk/cels/MSL_2025_26_slides.pdfPowerpoint: https://resources.law.cam.ac.uk/cels/MSL_2025_26_slides.pptxMore information about this lecture, including photographs from the event, is available from the Centre for European Legal Studies website at:https://www.cels.law.cam.ac.uk/mackenzie-stuart-lectures

Lecture summary: Most observers – at least in the West – agree that the twenty-first century has been particularly tumultuous. But while some explain the volatility of our times by reference to historical analogies, e.g. moments of power transition in the twentieth century, others claim that we are in a moment of polycrisis for which there is no precedent. In this talk I split the difference: mainstream International Relations is wrong to assume the twenty-first century will resemble the twentieth century, but there are other historical precedents we can use to better think about our current predicament.Ayşe Zarakol is Professor of International Relations at the University of Cambridge (Emmanuel College). She is the author of After Defeat: How the East Learned to Live with the West (Cambridge UP, 2011) and Before the West: The Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders (Cambridge UP, 2022), and the editor of Hierarchies in World Politics (Cambridge UP, 2017). Before the We has won six awards, including the SSHA and ISA annual best book prizes. In 2024, she was elected to fellowship in the British Academy and the Academia Europea. Also in 2024, she received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Copenhagen. At the moment, Zarakol is overseeing an international research collaboration on Global Disorder funded by a British Academy Knowledge Frontiers Grant. She is also one of the two Associate Editors of International Organization. Her next book, Ozymandias, is a world history of strongmen, aimed at a general audience. This book is under contract with William Collins (UK) and Grove Atlantic (US). Chair: Prof Surabhi RanganathanThis lecture was given on 31 October 2025 and is part of the Friday Lunchtime Lecture series at the Lauterpacht Centre.

Speaker: Dr Yin Harn Lee, Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of BristolBiography: Dr Yin Harn Lee is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Bristol. Her research interests lie primarily in copyright law. A significant part of her research focuses on copyright and videogames, and she is also interested in historical aspects of copyright as well as the interface between intellectual property and personal property.Abstract: The exclusive right to control the copying or reproduction of a work has been described by one leading copyright treatise as ‘the most fundamental, and historically the oldest, right of a copyright owner’. The first British copyright statute, the 1710 Statute of Anne, conferred on rightholders the exclusive right to print and reprint their books. Since then, the right has expanded far beyond its legislative origins, and now encompasses acts of copying in both digital and analogue form, those that are both temporary and permanent, and those that are merely incidental to the use of the work. Scholars have expressed concern about the now-expansive scope of the right, and there have been calls to restrict the right (e.g. by removing ‘non-expressive copying’ and copying that does not enable the use of the material in question ‘as a work’) or to replace it altogether with a broad right of ‘commercial exploitation’.This paper will show that, while these proposals are laudable and inventive, they nevertheless encounter the same pitfalls as those faced by English courts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when called upon to define the scope of what constitutes ‘copying’. It will argue that the root of the problem lies in the absence of stable, developed principles for defining the legitimate scope of the rightholder’s market, and that attempts at framing this as a question of statutory interpretation only obscure this fundamental fact.For more information see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Harro van Asselt is the Hatton Professor of Climate Law with the Department of Land Economy, a Fellow and Director of Studies at Hughes Hall, and a Fellow with the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge. He is also Professor of Climate Law and Policy at the University of Eastern Finland Law School, and an Affiliated Researcher with the Stockholm Environment Institute.The Hatton Chair is the first endowed professorship in climate law in the United Kingdom. The aim of the Chair is to advance research and teaching with a view to strengthening legal responses to the ongoing climate crisis.The lecture was followed by a panel on 'The Prospects of Global Climate Law'Co-organised by the University of Cambridge and LUISS.

Speaker: Dr Julian Ghosh, Cambridge University Abstract: In this seminar Dr Ghosh will address what, post-Lipton are the rules for REUL/AL; examples of UK Court decisions which should but do not apply REUL/AL and will provide a useful template for future litigation.For more information see:https://www.cels.law.cam.ac.uk/weekly-seminar-series

Speaker: Professor Marc Steinberg (SMU Dedman School of Law)This presentation, based on Professor Steinberg’s June 2025 Oxford University Press book Corporate Director and Officer Liability — “Discretionaries” Not Fiduciaries, posits that corporate directors and officers are not fiduciaries. In fact, the liability standards that normally apply are too lenient to be identified as fiduciary. This mischaracterization is detrimental to the rule of law, contravenes reasonable investor expectations, and impairs the integrity of the financial markets. Therefore, Professor Steinberg calls for the removal of fiduciary status replaced with the adoption of a new and neutral term that conveys an accurate description: corporate directors and officers are “discretionaries”. This term accurately portrays the status of corporate directors and officers who held to varying standards of liability depending on the applicable facts and circumstances. From this perspective, Professor Steinberg’s presentation will address a broad range of important issues, including the duty of care, the business judgment rule, exculpation statutes, the duty of good faith, and the duty of loyalty. To date, this book has received excellent reviews and is generating thoughtful discussion on the propriety of continuing to view corporate directors and officers as fiduciaries.3CL runs the 3CL Travers Smith Lunchtime Seminar Series, featuring leading academics from the Faculty, and high-profile practitioners.For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website:http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/

Speaker: Professor Andrew Christie, University of MelbourneBiography: Professor Andrew Christie was the foundation appointment to the Chair of Intellectual Property at the University of Melbourne in 2002.He holds BSc and LLB (Hons) degrees from the University of Melbourne, a LLM from the University of London, and a PhD from the University of Cambridge (Emmanuel College). Admitted to legal practice in Australia and the United Kingdom, he has worked in the intellectual property departments of law firms in Melbourne and London. He is a former Fulbright Senior Scholar, and has held research and teaching appointments at the University of Cambridge, Duke University, the National University of Singapore, and the University of Toronto.Awarded 12 Australian Research Council grants and instrumental in winning other research funding in excess of $11 million, he has authored more than 120 publications, and delivered by invitation more than 180 public addresses in 20 countries, across all areas of intellectual property law. He has served on all of the Australian government’s advisory committees on intellectual property – the Copyright Law Review Committee, the Advisory Council on Intellectual Property, and the Plant Breeder’s Rights Advisory Committee – and has been an expert advisor to World Intellectual Property Organization on a number of occasions. He currently chairs the Trans-Tasman IP Attorneys Board, the regulator of the Australian and New Zealand patent attorney profession.Abstract: With more than 18 million patents for inventions in force across 140 jurisdictions, patents are a significant area of the law. However, the traditional justifications for having a patent system are incomplete, and do not take full account of developments in economic thinking that recognise the primary purpose of economics is to enhance human wellbeing. The primary purpose of patents should be likewise. There is sparse academic and policy literature on the relevance of wellbeing economics to patent policy, and what exists leaves unanswered many questions about how the patent system can be used to achieve this policy objective. This presentation answers those questions, by tracing the evolution of wellbeing economics, identifying the doctrinal levers available to implement patent policy, and providing practical examples of the application of those levers to ensure the patent system incentivises innovations that advance wellbeing.For more information see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

International organizations law has always revolved around the relationship between the organization and its member states. This has proven to be of some use, but leaves important gaps unaddressed. What, e.g., about purely international affairs (think judicial review, think relations between organs)? And it ignores the existence of a vast external world. By concentrating solely on the relations with member states, it proves difficult, perhaps impossible, to hold international organizations to account for their acts affecting third parties, and equally difficult to make sense of relations between international organizations inter se. By shifting the perspective to relations with the private sector, perhaps it might be possible to come to a better, more comprehensive understanding of international organizations than is currently provided by both law and theory.Jan Klabbers was educated in international law and political science at the University of Amsterdam, where he also defended his doctoral thesis. In 1996 he was appointed professor of international law at the University of Helsinki, a position he recently left to take up the Whewell Chair in Cambridge. His research focuses mostly on the law of treaties and the law of international organizations – today’s talk taps into his current, ERC-sponsored PRIVIGO project.Chair: Prof Surabhi Ranganathan, Centre Deputy DirectorThis lecture was given on 10 October 2025 and part of the Friday Lunchtime Lecture series at the Lauterpacht Centre.

On 26 September 2025 Cambridge Women in Law (CWIL) hosted the Right Honourable Lady Arden of Heswall DBE as she chaired a compelling discussion with four exceptional legal minds shaping the future of human rights law, Nicola Greaney KC, Irena Sabic KC, Katherine Apps KC and Dr Kirsty Hughes, Associate Professor of Human Rights Law. The event took place as part of the Cambridge Alumni Festival, and was generously hosted by Murray Edwards College, Cambridge.CWIL is an exciting social network of alumnae at the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, which features a diverse range of women from all sectors.In this session, you’ll hear personal reflections on how each panellist carved out a path in human rights practice, and gain insights into:The current intersection of human rights, legislation and common law in the UK’s Constitutional frameworkNew frontiers for Human Rights litigation including private law and international human rights in a post Brexit UKHuman Rights and GeopoliticsFor more information and to sign up to the CWIL mailing list to receive information about future news and events, see https://www.law.cam.ac.uk/alumni-developmentalumni-events/cambridge-women-law-cwil