On Thursday, 12^th September, the School of Law hosted its second annual PhD Law Conference in the Moot Court at Queen’s School of Law. This event, initially launched by Dr. Alessandra Guida in June 2023, brought together PhD Law scholars from QUB to present on a diverse range of research projects. Thank you to Dr. Clayton O’Neill and his team of organisers for continuing this tradition into 2024, marking a great start to the new academic year. Thank you kindly to Dr. Eugene C Lim, Dr. John Taggart, and Dr. Alice Diver for brilliantly chairing their dedicated panels and fostering an exceptional environment for academic discussion.

The presentations were delivered by our current PhD students, who showcased their expertise in their respective fields of study. We therefore thank our presenters for their preparation and hard work, and for contributing to a lively and engaging atmosphere throughout the day. The event certainly demonstrated academic rigour, excellent presentation skills, and the value of networking and building an academic community for early career researchers. The audience thoroughly enjoyed all presentations and the full list of speakers and their topics can be found at this link.

The PhD Law Conference was convened with three panels, with one panel in the morning session and two in the afternoon. We have selected a small number of presentations from each panel to give you a flavour of the day. The first morning panel was chaired by Dr. Eugene C Lim and examined perspectives from two areas of law: intellectual property and law and technology. In this session, Katherine Pittalis, a PhD candidate on the LINAS doctoral programme, delivered an excellent talk titled ‘The Weaponisation of Algorithmic Bots – A Private or Public Problem for the Music industry?’ Katherine’s research is of an interdisciplinary nature that combines law, music, and technology. Katherine emphasised the significance of an often-overlooked area: the implementation of bots and how they are affecting markets in the music industry.

The afternoon panel focused on insights into criminal law and theory and was chaired by Dr. John Taggart. The session started with an informative presentation by Chloe Hanna. Chloe’s presentation was titled ‘Defendant Anonymity in the International Context: Alternative Approaches and Comparative Perspectives.’ Chloe offered an overview of the current legal framework in Northern Ireland before turning to some of the alternative approaches in other jurisdictions. Based on this analysis, Chloe provided some thoughts on what reform might look like in Northern Ireland.

The final panel of the day, chaired by Dr. Alice Diver, brought together a range of topics that explored corporate social responsibility, refugee rights, and environmental harm. Lydia Millar concluded the final session with a strong presentation titled ‘The Slow Violence of Conflict-Induced Environmental Harm: Using Open Source Investigation Techniques as a Pathway to Accountability.’ Lydia spoke about conflict-induced environmental harm and the use open source investigation techniques as a pathway to accountability.

Each panel was followed by a Q&A session which allowed presenters to further speak about and reflect on their chosen theories and methodologies. This opened up the space for lively discussions and constructive feedback, which is an integral part of academic research and development. Thank you to all of our presenters, academic staff, and the audience for attending and contributing to a vibrant academic community. We look forward to continuing this tradition within the School of Law for many years to come.

written by PhD Student Daniela Janikova

School of Law