Oxford Undergraduate Law Podcast

From the boundaries of implied consent in contact sports to antitrust disputes in collegiate programmes, legal rules both shape and respond to sporting practice. In this episode, we take a closer look at anti-doping regulation and the difficult balance it seeks to strike between protecting the rights of athletes and enforcing the rules of the game. Bonnie had the privilege of sitting down with Dr Jan Exner to consider anti-doping regulation and the frameworks that guide liability and sanctions.Dr Exner is an Assistant Professor in EU and Sports Law at the Law Faculty of Charles University and a partner at Fairzone, a sports-law firm. He contributes to the development of sports regulation, particularly in the areas of compliance, the proportionality of sanctions and the impact of EU Law on sports regulation. Most recently, his commentary on doping sanctions has been recognised in the draft 2027 World Anti-Doping Code.

When one is faced with a complex, multi-jurisdictional dispute, many questions may arise: Which court is the dispute to be resolved in? What law is applicable? Can the award rendered in one country be enforced in another? In response to these pertinent questions, Professor Reyes says that international arbitration is the answer.Professor Anselmo Reyes SC is a world-renowned international arbitrator, International Judge of the Singapore International Commercial Court (SICC), a member of the International Expert Committee of the China International Commercial Court and a member of various arbitration institutions across London, China, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore. In Michaelmas Term 2025, Isaac Tan, a Podcast Editor of the Oxford University Undergraduate Law Journal had the opportunity to sit down with Professor Reyes and discuss the principles of international arbitration; arbitrators’ duties; comparisons between the jurisdictions of the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Singapore; and the future of private international law.

Many of us scrutinise science and technology much less than we do the law. The field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) directly interrogates this incongruence. An interdisciplinary field, STS sees science and technology not as existing in a vacuum, but as producing types of authorities that can be studied just as much as law. Although science and technology are often treated as higher authorities that the law must follow as it inevitably lags behind, Professor Sheila Jasanoff (founder and director of the Harvard STS Program) rejects this characterisation. In November 2025, Professor Jasanoff delivered the Oxford Clarendon Law Lecture Series this year, together entitled ‘Science, Technology and the Constitution of Modernity’. The conversation in this episode is separate but complementary to these lectures. The first portion of the episode elucidates the key conceptual ideas pertinent to STS thinking and its relation to law. The latter portion questions the more specific positions Professor Jasanoff has voiced in her works regarding intellectual property, especially in relation to the most recent legal developments, such as the environment, AI, and the concept of personhood.Each of the Clarendon Law Lectures can be accessed below: Part 1: https://youtu.be/1pp07pHzGTY?si=Op27oAPfJp7XdDrd Part 2: https://youtu.be/QWxI-ybskEE?si=GItwlb0sROgK895C Part 3: https://youtu.be/8UaHoB8oZic?si=pOwpdY5-bMpE0fMv

Straits are incredibly important for international shipping, energy security, and military purposes. However, climate change, ecological vulnerability, and piracy are testing the international legal framework governing the straits used for international navigation around the world. Professor Nilufer Oral discusses these challenges in her paper - 'Navigating the Oceans: Old and New Challenges for the Law of the Sea for Straits Used in International Navigation’. Rachel is honoured to interview her today in a summer guest episode.Professor Nilufer Oral is Director of the Centre of International Law at the National University of Singapore. Amongst her many accomplishments, she is a member of the UN International Law Commission (ILC) and was the Chairperson of the 74th session of the ILC. She is a Co-chair of the ILC Study Group on sea-level rise in relation to international law, and is currently a Member of the Committee of Legal Experts of the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (COSIS).Transcript available at: https://rss.com/podcasts/oulp/2207117/#transcript

The jurisdiction of England and Wales has one of the highest numbers of children in detention across Western Europe, and is one of the few jurisdictions in Europe that still has mandatory life sentences for children. Given the frequency and severity of punitive measures levied towards children in England and Wales, it is all the more important that children are adequately represented in sentencing and appeal processes. However, whether this is a reality is a question that Elysia Boon explores in this episode with Dr Laura Janes.Dr Janes is a consultant solicitor at GT Stewart Solicitors and Scott-Moncrieff and Associates. She specialises in prison law, criminal appeals, mental health law and public law, with a particular focus on representing children, youth and vulnerable people in detention both in penal and mental health settings. She is also the founder of Young Legal Aid Lawyers, holds a professional doctorate in youth justice, and teaches at the London South Bank University. Most recently, she was appointed honorary King’s Council!Publications and cases referenced/drawn from:ZA v R [2023] EWCA Crim 596R v S [2010] EWCA Crim 1462Children Convicted of Sexual Offences: Do Lifelong Labels Really Help? (The Howard Journal Vol 50 No 2. May 2011)JF & Anor, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2009] EWCA Civ 792Child appeals (Solicitors Journal: Justice Gap series, 2012)R (on the application of M) v Chief Magistrate [2010] EWHC 433

The definition of disability is primarily governed by the Equality Act 2010. One is considered to have a disability if they have a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on one’s ability to do normal daily activities. The law as it relates to disability affects a range of social interactions, from discrimination to a duty to make reasonable adjustments, and conversations surrounding it primarily focus on ethical considerations and the legal decisions themselves. However, an often-forgotten aspect of disability law is the terminology legislation and the judiciary specifically use to describe and label disability, which has profound impact on how people understand and treat people with disabilities. In this episode, Elysia interviews Dr Heloise Robinson, Singer Fellow in Law at the University of Oxford. Dr Robinson is interested in the philosophical foundations that inform the law, with a special focus on legal and ethical issues surrounding the selection against disability, including in relation to eugenics, and to gender equality. Her work has been published in leading law and bioethics journals, such as the Modern Law Review, Legal Studies, the Journal of Medical Ethics, and the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics.Publications referenced/drawn from:Robinson H, Herring J. Naming and Describing Disability in Law and Medicine. Camb Q Healthc Ethics. 2024 Jul;33(3):401-412. doi: 10.1017/S0963180123000609. Epub 2024 Jan 2. PMID: 38163993.Robinson, H. (2023). Discrimination in Abortion Law and the Message the Law is Sending: R (Crowter) v Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. The Modern Law Review, 87(1), 218–230. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12831. Accessed from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-2230.12831.

With President Donald J. Trump's recent inauguration, the US election has been on everyone’s mind, but there are some equally important upcoming elections in 2025 and 2027 just south of the border. It is no secret that the Mexican judiciary is in dire need of reform and that the appetite to rid the system of corruption has never been greater. It cannot be said, however, that the reforms proposed by Manuel Lopez Obrador do anything to address these concerns. At their very best, they are a noble but misguided attempt to enact the much-needed change for which the majority of Mexicans voted. At their very worst, these proposals are an attempt to increase the power of the executive by decreasing the ability of one of the key organs of the state, the judiciary, to check the actions of the Government: the hallmark of authoritarianism. In this episode, Jake interviews Luz Orozco y Villa, legal scholar and author of “The Dangerous Path of Mexico’s Judicial Reform: What is at Stake for Judicial Independence in the Americas.” Luz is a Dphil (PhD) in Law candidate at the Faculty of Law. Her research lies at the intersection of constitutional law and emerging technologies. Supervised by Professor Jacob Rowbottom, her doctoral thesis focuses on the constitutionalisation of the digital environment, specifically the case of online service providers regarding content moderation. Prior to joining Oxford, Luz worked as a career clerk for the Mexican Supreme Court of Justice and as a research advisor at the Gender Equality Program of the Federal Judicial Council. She has taught International Human Rights Law, Philosophy of Human Rights, Family Law, and Gender Justice to undergraduate law students at different universities. She completed an LL.M. from Columbia Law School (New York City, NY, USA) as a Fulbright scholar and an LL.B from Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (Mexico City, Mexico). Luz is currently the co-convener of the Future of Technology and Society Discussion Group.Publications referenced/drawn from:L Villa, 'The Dangerous Path of Mexico’s Judicial Reform: What is at Stake for Judicial Independence in the Americas' (Oxford Human Rights Hub, 9 August 2024) <https://ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/the-dangerous-path-of-mexicos-judicial-reform-what-is-at-stake-for-judicial-independence-in-the-americas/>. In particular at 26:13 and 36:56.09:29 and 17:45- A Spitalier, 'Justice Denied: The Case for Judicial Reform in Mexico' (Wilson Center, 5 September 2024) <https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/justice-denied-case-judicial-reform-mexico>. 11:35- C Parra and R Heckel, 'The 2024 Judicial Reform in Mexico: On the Erosion of Democratic Checks and Electoral Manipulation' (Verfassungsblog, 22 September 2024) <https://verfassungsblog.de/judicial-reform-mexico/>. 19:53- T Mattiace, 'AMLO's Judicial Reform Overlooks the Key Weakness of Mexican Justice. Americas' (Human Rights Watch, 8 August 2024) <https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/08/08/amlos-judicial-reform-overlooks-key-weakness-mexican-justice>. 21:11- R (on the application of Finch on behalf of the Weald Action Group) (Appellant) v Surrey County Council and others (Respondents) [2024] UKSC 20 {21} per Lord Leggatt.

Surrogacy is the practice of a person (the “surrogate”) carrying a child that may, or may not, be genetically related to them and giving birth to the child for another family (the “intended parents”). With the rise of modern family structures, and the demands that modern life places upon those who wish to have children, surrogacy has become a viable option for people unable to carry children or wish to have children at a later time in life. However, it is unclear if the laws and regulations surrounding surrogacy have responded adequately to its rise.In this episode, Elysia interviews Professor Amel Alghrani, a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Oxford and a full-time Professor of Law at the School of Law and Social Justice at the University of Liverpool. Professor Alghrani is an expert particularly in health law, where she focuses on the regulation of reproduction and assisted reproduction including surrogacy, and in education law, where she focuses on healthcare and educational rights of children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. Her work has been published in many prolific journals such as the Journal of Law and the Biosciences, Child and Family Law Quarterly and more, and has been cited by the UK Supreme Court. Publications referenced/drawn from:Alghrani, A., & Griffiths, D. (2017). The regulation of surrogacy in the United Kingdom: the case for reform (Version 2). University of Sussex. https://hdl.handle.net/10779/uos.23445044.v2Griffiths, D., Alghrani, A., Diduck, A. (Ed.), Peleg, N. (Ed.), & Reece, H. (Ed.) (2014). Surrogacy Law: From Piecemeal Tweaks to Sustained Review and Reform. In Law and Michael Freeman (1 ed., Vol. 1). Brill .Alghrani A. SURROGACY: 'A CAUTIONARY TALE': Re T (a child) (surrogacy: residence order) [2011] EWCH 33 (Fam). Med Law Rev. 2012 Autumn;20(4):631-41. doi: 10.1093/medlaw/fws032. Epub 2012 Oct 24. PMID: 23097458.

Transgender people have existed throughout history. Yet, the way transgender identity intersects with the law is complex. Trans identity has been litigated and legislated, from the High Court case Corbett v Corbett in 1970, to the European Court of Human Rights case Goodwin v United Kingdom in 2002, to the Gender Recognition Act in 2004, to the recent 2023 judgement upholding the UK Government’s use of a Section 35 order to block the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. The Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill was a bill aiming to improve the system by which trans people can apply for legal recognition of their gender through a Gender Recognition Certificate. This Bill intended to remove the current requirements for a medical diagnosis, reduce the time that applicants for gender recognition need to have lived in their acquired gender from two years to three months, and reduce the age at which one may apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate from 18 years to 16 years. While the bill was supported by the Scottish Government, it was blocked by the UK Government with a Section 35 order under the Scotland Act. The Section 35 order means that the Bill cannot be implemented at this time, but the Scottish Government has committed not to withdraw the bill either.In this episode, Rach interviews Sharon Cowan on the intersections between the law and transgender identity. Professor Sharon Cowan is a Professor of Feminist and Queer Legal Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Sharon has published extensively on the legal regulation of gender and sex and is presently working on a comparative socio-legal project looking at the impact of law on transgender people. She was also involved in consultations on the Reform of the Gender Recognition Act. Recent projects also include a national empirical project looking at how women asylum claimants, whose applications are based on a claim of rape, are treated, and along with Dr Chloe Kennedy (Edinburgh) and Professor Munro (Warwick), she is a co-editor of the Scottish Feminist Judgments Project @ScottishFemJP.Articles mentioned:Cowan, Sharon (2005). “Gender is No Substitute for Sex”: A Comparative Human Rights Analysis of the Legal Regulation of Sexual Identity. Feminist Legal Studies 13 (1)Cowan, Sharon, The Best Place on the Planet to be Trans? Transgender Equality and Legal Consciousness in Scotland (December 1, 2020). Dunne, Peter. and Raj, Sen (2020) The Queer Outside in Law (Palgrave MacMillan), Edinburgh School of Law Research Paper No. 2020/05, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3777503Cowan, Sharon. (2009). Looking Back (To)wards the Body: Medicalization and the GRA. Social & Legal Studies, 18(2), 247-252. https://doi.org/10.1177/0964663909103627Sandland, Ralph. Feminism and the Gender Recognition Act 2004. Feminist Legal Stud 13, 43–66 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-005-1456-3Cowan, Sharon (2005). “Gender is No Substitute for Sex”: A Comparative Human Rights Analysis of the Legal Regulation of Sexual Identity. Feminist Legal Studies 13 (1): 93Books mentioned:Whipping Girl, by Julia SeranoAutogenerated transcript available at:https://rss.com/podcasts/oulp/1573226/#transcript

We all want to order our family lives around the values that matter to us, and family law is a means for us to achieve this order. Yet, as societies grow more multicultural and multireligious, we face a challenge - how can we protect the rights of religious citizens, while also enabling them to order their affairs according to their different religions? This complexities of navigating cultural and religious tensions in family law has arisen in visitation rights cases such as J v B [2017]. In the case of a divorce, what happens when, for example, one parent’s identity is not accepted by the religion and culture the children are raised in?In this episode, Rach interviews Tristan Cummings, the Baker-Fellingham College Assistant Professor at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge. He did his undergraduate studies and the Bachelor of Civil Law at Oxford, where he was awarded the Vinerian Scholarship for Best Overall Performance on the BCL and the Law Faculty Prizes in Children, Families and the State and Comparative Equality Law. He is currently an Editor of the University of Oxford Human Rights Hub Journal. His research is focused on the intersection of family law, human rights law and religious freedom.We discuss Dr Cummings’ article in the Journal of Law, Religion and State today: ‘Utilizing Systems Theory and Reflexive Law to Navigate the ‘Collision Between… Un-connecting Worlds’ in Family Law’.Autogenerated transcript available at: https://rss.com/podcasts/oulp/1475459/#transcript

The rise of algorithmic management has allowed for new ways to measure, control, and sanction workers. Yet, it is unclear how employment law and discrimination law can respond to a world where automation has not replaced workers, but their bosses. In this episode, Rach interviews Sangh Rakshita from iManage, a pioneering project based in the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights funded by the European Research Council. iManage intends to develop the first systematic account of the challenges and potential of algorithmic management, examine its implications for legal regulation, and develop concrete solutions to avoid harmful path-dependencies. iManage is led by Prof Jeremias Adams Prassl and comprises Halefom Abraha, Six Silberman, Sangh Rakshita, and Aislinn Kelly-Lyth. Sangh Rakshita completed her BCL in law at Oxford, and has previously consulted with organisations such as the United Nations Development Programme and the Human Rights Watch. She also teaches Regulation of Internet Technologies for Stanford University, and has worked as a law and technology researcher at the Centre for Communication Governance, India and as a legislative assistant in the Parliament of India.Articles mentioned:Adams-Prassl, J., Abraha, H., Kelly-Lyth, A., Silberman, M. ‘Six’, & Rakshita, S. (2023). Regulating algorithmic management: A blueprint. European Labour Law Journal, 14(2), 124-151. https://doi.org/10.1177/20319525231167299Reuben Binns, Jeremias Adams-Prassl and Aislinn Kelly-Lyth. 2023. Legal Taxonomies of Machine Bias: Revisiting Direct Discrimination. In 2023 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT '23), June 12-15, 2023, Chicago, IL, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 14 Pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3593013.3594121Autogenerated transcript available at: https://rss.com/podcasts/oulp/1341032/

We have recently seen the rise of financial influencers, who may, for example, give investment advice on social media. However, as seen in the GameStop short squeeze or recent cryptocurrency fraud scheme scandals, financial influencers may come with issues such as conflict of interests. In this episode, Rach interviews Felix Pflücke. Felix Pflücke is a legal academic focusing on European Union law. He read law at the undergraduate level at the Universities of Maastricht and Glasgow and at the graduate and postgraduate levels at Brasenose College, Oxford. He has been a lecturer in law at Oxford since 2018, in Contract, Tort and EU Law. He is part of the INDIGO Project of the University of Luxembourg, which addresses the impact of digitalisation on the implementation of policies in Europe. His research combines a comparative and empirical approach to understand how online platforms function and how consumer redress can be improved, and leading outlets like the European Law Journal and Oxford University Press featured his research. He recently published a paper, ‘Regulating Finfluencers’ in the Journal of European Consumer and Market Law, which critically analyses whether the current framework sufficiently protects consumers.Autogenerated transcript available at: https://rss.com/podcasts/oulp/1325412/

In this episode, Juliet Van Gyseghem interviews Nisha Waller. Nisha is a final year PhD candidate in the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford and is a researcher at charity law practice APPEAL. Nisha's PhD research focuses on complicity law (commonly referred to as 'joint enterprise') and its relationship to the criminalisation of young black men. Over the course of her doctorate, Nisha has visited a number of prisons in England, interviewing young black men convicted as secondary parties to murder. Her research is also informed by interviews with legal practitioners and the families of those convicted.JENGbA's website: https://jointenterprise.co/Key reports on JE: https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/publications/dangerous-associations-joint-enterprise-gangs-and-racism, https://barrowcadbury.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Stories-of-Injustice-women-and-JE.pdf, https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/publications/usual-suspects-second-editionAPPEAL https://appeal.org.uk/

Sustainability and carbon neutrality have become one of the world’s foremost priorities. As a result, companies may potentially employ sustainability agreements with their competitors. However, these agreements may fall afoul of competition law. In July 2023 and October 2023 respectively, the European Commission and the UK Competition and Markets Authority have released guidelines to differentiate between sustainability agreements that are anticompetitive, and those which are permissible. In this episode, Rach speaks with Benoît Durand about the potential intersections between competition law and sustainability agreements, and the tension between maintaining a healthy competitive market and enabling the cooperation necessary to advance global goals. Benoît Durand is a Partner at RBB Economics. RBB Economics is a global leader in competition economics, which works alongside law firms to advise companies in the context of competition law investigations by enforcers or in the context of litigation in front of courts. He has a PhD in Economics from Boston College and has over 20 years of experience in competition economics, particularly in the context of competition law investigations, and he has advised companies like Nespresso, Google, Amazon, British Airways and DuPont, among others. He was previously the Director of Economic Analysis at the UK’s Competition Commission (which is now part of the UK Competition and Markets Authority) in London, and a member of the Chief Economist Team at the Directorate General for Competition at the European Commission, in Brussels.Autogenerated transcript available at: https://rss.com/podcasts/oulp/1235124/

Whistleblowers have been essential figures in uncovering secrecy and demanding public accountability, both for state institutions and private organisations. But disclosure comes with significant risks to the whistleblower. In this episode, Juliet Van Gyseghem speaks with Dr Vigjilenca Abazi about the legal mechanisms that have been put in place to protect whistleblowers and the integrity of their disclosures. Dr Vigjilenca Abazi is an Assistant Professor at Maastricht University, and co-drafted the model EU Directive for the protection of whistleblowers. Our conversation will touch on the Directive, as part of a wider exploration of whistleblower law. We’ll be discussing the conflicting interests that complicate potential solutions, and explore the law’s interplay with non-legal routes to build a wider culture of transparency and accountability.

In this episode, Professor John Armour and Professor Thom Wetzer discuss their joint research paper, ‘Green Pills’ with Dorothea Oyetunde, and the role of this novel mechanism in making corporate climate commitments credible. In light of the move to transition to a net-zero economy, they discuss why corporate climate commitments matter in the first instance, and how the problem of the lack of credibility in corporate climate pledges arises. Through identifying a gap in traditional corporate governance measures, Professor John Armour and Professor Thom Wetzer discuss the need for their ‘Green pill’, a contractual mechanism allowing firms to deliver a degree of commitment that can be tailored to the firm’s circumstance, resolving the credibility problem. The adoption of the 'green pill' emphasises the important role that legal frameworks can play in resolving the societal challenges arising from the climate crisis. The research paper is also joint work with Professor Luca Enriques.

In this first episode of Trinity Term 2023, Chen discusses the historical foundations, politics and evolution of legal translation in the EU with Professors Alice Leal (Witswatersrand) and Martina Bajčić (Rijeka). They also discuss the cultural implications and challenges of having versions of treaties and judgments in 27 Member State languages; and the impact of recent developments such as Brexit on the role of English, and on the status of member state languages more widely. Professor Martina Bajčić is the Head of the Department of Foreign Languages at the University of Rijeka and an Associate Professor of the Law Faculty. Her research and teaching interests are in the area of legal terminology, multilingual aspects of EU law, LSP and institutional translation and interpretation, on which she has published an impressive plethora of books and articles in journals including Perspectives and the International Journal of Language & Law. Professor Alice Leal has studied, taught and researched in Brazil and Austria, and is now Head of the Translation and Interpretation Studies department at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. Alice has written prolifically on the epistemology, politics and philosophy of legal translation. Her second book, Language policy and the future of Europe, co-written with Sean O’Riain, will be published by Routledge in June of this year.

In this episode Dorothea Oyetunde speaks with Professor Scott Hershovitz about his theory of 'Law as a Moral Practice', which is the title of his upcoming book, to be released in December 2023. Professor Hershovitz's book invites readers to re-conceptualize the way we understand the relationship between our legal obligations and our moral obligations, in an attempt to resolve the ongoing debates in jurisprudence as to how the law relates to morality and whether individuals have an obligation to obey the law.

In this episode, Dorothea Oyetunde and Dr. Nicola Palmer will discuss the legality of the UK-Rwanda Asylum Partnership, which involves offshoring refugees to Rwanda. She will also discuss why the partnership has been reached with Rwanda specifically, the issues that arise from externalising responsibility for asylum procedure and the need to take into account considerations of Rwanda's political context and foreign policy.

In this episode, Chen will discuss administrative and constitutional law which Dr Ewan Smith, including accountability mechanisms, good faith in public law and whether the UK should adopt a codified constitution. Dr. Smith has studied, researched and taught in inter alia Paris, Harvard and three elite Chinese Universities. He has practicised law in the US, and worked for the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In the last few years, he has been a Hauser Global Fellow at New York University Law School, a Fixed Term Student at Christ Church (Oxford) and an Early Career Fellow at the Oxford Bonavero Institute of Human Rights. He is now an Associate Professor at University College London.