City Law School: Wednesday 24 June 2026

As Britain marks two centuries of railway history—from the Stockton and Darlington Railway (1825) to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (1830)—this symposium offers a timely opportunity to explore the legal frameworks that have shaped rail transport and continue to influence its future.

We invite papers on historical, contemporary, and future-facing issues in rail law. Indicative themes include:

• Getting Railways Built: From Victorian private Acts to HS2 and hybrid Bill procedures; future authorisation mechanisms.
• Health and Safety: Regulatory evolution, liability, and emerging risks such as automation and cybersecurity.
• Environment: Impact assessment, judicial review, emissions regulation, and climate resilience.
• Industry Structure: Private enterprise, nationalisation, re-privatisation, and the new Great British Railways model.
• Passengers as Consumers: Contractual disputes, fare regulation, complaints handling, and digital ticketing challenges.
• Technology and Innovation: AI, automation, cybersecurity, and procurement issues.

Abstract deadline: 1 April 2026
Submit to: mark.wilde@citystgeorges.ac.uk Academics and practitioners are welcome. Comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives are welcomed where relevant. Please follow link for full details

Rail sym 26 call

We are excited to announce a Call for Papers for a symposium on the Meta Oversight Board and its role in shaping global standards for online content moderation.

The symposium will explore three main areas:

1. Landmark Decisions – Analysing decisions that advance international human rights law.
2. Online–Offline Divide – Exploring whether different standards of free speech should apply online.
3. Regionally Sensitive Content Moderation – Examining cultural, linguistic, and regional impacts on content moderation.

The symposium will take place at City St George’s, University of London on 22 May 2026. The organisers can cover up to £500 per participant for travel and accommodation.

View the full Call for Papers.

We aim to publish the papers as an edited volume. If you wish to take part, please send a short abstract (up to 500 words) and a bio blurb to the co-organisers, Jed Odermatt and Bilyana Petkova at: Jed.Odermatt@city.ac.uk  and B.Petkova@unwe.bg .

Abstracts will be reviewed on a rolling basis until 20 January 2026, and applicants will be informed on the success of their applications by end of January 2026.

The event is supported by the Bulgarian Science Fund and The City Law School.

by Prof. Elaine Fahey*

Global data governance is at a crossroads, shaped by the complex interplay between the EU, US, and China. While many countries rely on soft law and informal digital partnerships, Europe—especially through the EU and the Council of Europe—has led with binding regulations in areas like AI, data privacy, and content moderation. The Workshop ‘A future for binding law in global data governance? An informal scoping workshop’ held at City Law School on 1 July explored the growing reliance on soft law, its implications for accountability and individual rights, and the shifting roles of international organisations. It critically examined whether the EU’s regulatory leadership can endure amid increasing global fragmentation and the rise of soft law frameworks that often bypass democratic scrutiny.

As digitisation accelerates, international organisations increasingly recognise its complex and potentially devastating impact. Yet, digital governance is rarely framed as a truly global regulatory challenge. While hard law remains the ideal for many due to its enforceability, the rise of soft law reflects the complexity and fluidity of digital and trade regulation. Nowhere is this more apparent than in data and AI governance, where legal uncertainty, innovation concerns, and geopolitical divides complicate progress. The US and EU offer stark contrasts – while parts of the US push to limit AI regulation, the EU has adopted the world’s first baseline, comprehensive AI law, the EU AI Act. Nonetheless, recently even the EU has retracted proposals amid concerns over overregulation. While the US and EU offer stark contrasts in terms of the volume of existing hard law related to data privacy, AI or content moderation, they seem to currently be somewhat converging in vision – parts of the US push to limit AI regulation, and the EU has retracted proposals amid concerns over overregulation.  With digital partnerships and non-binding agreements on the rise, the role of international bodies like the UN remains contested viewed by some as a potential global coordinator, and by others as falling behind regional leaders like the EU, Council of Europe or even the African Union.

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As the climate crisis and other global challenges intensify, the need for transformative education has never been more urgent. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (SDG 4 on quality education and SDG 13 on climate action) highlight the importance of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in preparing students to think critically, act responsibly, and help build a more just and sustainable world. Students at City St George’s have taken change of their own learning and help to contribute to solutions to global challenges.  

On 22 April 2025, The City Law School hosted the student-led Public Interest Environmental Law (PIEL) UK conference. The topic of this year’s conference was “Greenwashing, OMNIBUS regulation, and plastic governance.” Coinciding with Earth Day, the conference examined the legal dimensions of sustainability and environmental justice.

Panels tackled pressing topics such as greenwashing under the EU Omnibus Regulation (Cenk Narter), plastic governance and the Global Plastics Treaty (Prof. Rosalind Malcolm), and corporate ESG accountability (Prof. Tapas Mishra). A panel on SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) featured environmental justice lawyer Charlie Holt, alongside moving personal testimonies from Indian activists Anuradha Talwar and Lalsu Nogoti, who described the legal harassment they face for defending their communities and the environment. Jed Odermatt (City Law School) gave a presentation on embedding climate and sustainability into education. Lakshana Pattar, PIEL Secretary and LLB student at City Law School, notes:

“The PIEL conference was a testament to what students can accomplish. Being student-led, it fostered dynamic and thoughtful discussions on urgent issues in law and policy, and highlighted the importance of student voices in shaping the future”.

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City Law School Symposium Report

By Sekander Zulker Nayeen, Laura Vialon, Cheryl Dine and Talha Boyraz

On Tuesday, 6^th May, 2025, Professor Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos organised an influential symposium entitled ‘AI and Modern Technologies in Criminal Justice: Opportunities and Human Rights Implications’ held  at the City Law School, City St George’s, University of London. It was focused on discussing the transformative impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies on the criminal justice system, while critically examining accompanying human rights considerations.

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Panel 1 – Live Facial Recognition, technologically enhanced investigative methods and suspects’ digital rights

The first panel was chaired by the Head of Department at The City Law School, Professor Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos. He stated that the symposium would bring together three aspects: criminal justice, technology and human rights. He hoped that it would give an insight into the topics to everyone who joined both in-person and online. He then introduced and called all the panellists to start the discussion on their topics.

Madeleine Stone, a Senior Advocacy Officer of Big Brother Watch, presented on Live Facial Recognition and Human Rights. She informed that facial recognition is being used in both the private and public sectors. For example, the retailer, as a private entity, uses it. At the same time, police, as a public sector entity, use it.  It could be of two types: facial recognition for identification and facial recognition for verification.

Police usually use facial recognition for identification and verification in three ways: live facial recognition, retrospective facial recognition, operator operator-initiated facial recognition. In case of live facial recognition, police scan faces in real time in public spaces, such as streets, events, and then they match the faces against a watchlist. It can also immediately create alerts when someone on the list is detected. Retrospective facial recognition, common in the US but also used in the UK, involves matching images from CCTV or social media to extensive police databases. Operator-initiated recognition allows officers to take photos in the field and instantly compare them against existing image databases.

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By Michelle Lee Shu Ling*

   The United Kingdom and Eire Malaysian Law Students’ Union (KPUM) is proud to continue strengthening our collaboration with City Law School (CLS). Over the past few years, CLS has been a valued supporter of KPUM’s efforts to nurture the next generation of Malaysian lawyers, both academically and professionally.

  We are excited to share that CLS is now an official sponsor of KPUM, marking an important milestone in our relationship. This sponsorship recognises our shared commitment to empowering Malaysian law students through opportunities for advocacy training, practical experience, and professional development in the United Kingdom.

  CLS has been instrumental in supporting KPUM’s flagship events. We are deeply grateful to CLS for generously allowing KPUM to host our mooting competitions on their campus, not just once, but twice. Their hospitality and logistical support have enabled us to deliver high-quality events that provide our mooters with invaluable exposure to real-world legal practice.

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Call for Papers

4th Conference on Financial Law and Regulation

The City Law School

City St George’s, University of London

Thursday, 3rd July 2025

Submit your paper to ilias.kapsis@citystgeorges.ac.uk

Deadline for abstract submission: Thursday 17th April 2025.

The organisers, Dr Ilias Kapsis, Dr Clara Martins Pereira, Dr Virag Dr Virág Blazsek, Dr Andreas Kokkinis, and Professor Federico Lupo-Pasini, would like to invite paper abstract submissions for the 4th Conference on Financial Law and Regulation to take place at the City Law School, City St George’s, University of London on the 3rd of July 2025. This conference is supported by the Society of Legal Scholars, and the City Law School.

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By Dr Dogan Gultutan at the City Law School

Introduction

Moral damages are as real as material damages and, accordingly, must be compensated where appropriate in the particular case. This is not new law. The position as regards moral damages and its recoverability was settled over a century ago. In 1923 in the Opinion in the Lusitania Cases, the tribunal confirmed it in the following terms:

“That one injured is under the rules of international law, entitled to be compensated for an injury inflicted resulting in mental suffering, injury to his feelings, humiliation, shame, degradation, loss of social position or injury to his credit or to his reputation, there can be no doubt, and such compensation should be commensurate to the injury. Such damages are very real, and the mere fact that they are difficult to measure or estimate by money standards makes them none the less real and affords no reason why the injured person should not be compensated therefor as compensatory damages, but not as penalty.”

[Opinion in the Lusitania Cases, 40]

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By Professor David Collins

Maintaining a smooth trading relationship with the European Union (EU) is rightly a top priority for the new Labour government. While there is strong growth in the UK’s trade with other countries around the world, especially in the Asia-Pacific, the EU is still one of the UK’s most important trading partners. Non-tariff barriers in the form of product safety regulations are among the most significant modern impediments to trade, particularly since the EU tends to employ dense and constantly evolving regulations on a wide range of goods and services.

The Product Regulation and Metrology (PRM) Bill reflects the UK government’s concern that it does not currently have sufficient powers to respond to EU regulatory initiatives fast enough that there will not be adverse trade consequences. The EU’s new General Product Safety (GPS) Regulation, which will come into force in mid-December of this year, should entail significant product standard regulatory changes. The GPS will introduce specific safety obligations for economic operators and online marketplaces, reinforced product traceability requirements, as well as specific rules on handling product recalls, including a mandatory recall notice template.

The PRM Bill is intended to allow UK domestic law to be updated to reflect new or revised EU product requirements with a view to minimizing trade frictions. Under clause 2(7) of the PRM, future UK product regulations can provide that a product requirement is to be treated as fulfilled if it meets specified provisions in relevant EU law. This captures the government’s view that any EU regulation is presumptively valid from the standpoint of safety – a reasonable perspective given the EU’s devotion to the precautionary principle of mitigating even the most miniscule of risks. It is odd, though, that only the EU’s standards are granted this status – the Bill does not make reference to any other international standard setting bodies. It says nothing about the costs of these measures as borne by businesses.

It is not quite right, moreover, to term this clause in the PRM Bill as indicative of ‘mutual recognition’ since there is no indication that the deference will work in the opposite direction (e.g. UK standards being presumptively accepted for products entering the EU). The EU remains concerned that the UK will apply product standards in such a way that it will make it more competitive, drawing economic activity away from the continent.

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