Baldy Center

MARCH 31: Final deadline for research and conference grants.

3/27/23

The Baldy Center fosters and supports scholars and UB faculty whose work bridges disciplines and contributes to the great and growing mosaic of law and society scholarship. Topics include human rights, courts, environmental governance, legal geography, international trade, intellectual property, social inequality, administrative regulation, state and urban government, the legal profession, family, religion, and cultural understandings of law.

Illuminating

4/27/22

Environmental governance, legal geography, human rights, courts of law, international trade, intellectual property, social inequality, administrative regulation, state and urban government, the legal profession, family, religion, cultural understandings of law, and much more.

The Baldy Center Multimedia

12/13/22

We invite you to engage with UB’s dynamic interdisciplinary scholars focused on critical law and social policy issues. Our blog, podcast, and virtual magazines share the perspectives of faculty and visiting fellows.

Vibrant Research

4/28/22

The Baldy Center uses multiple means to advance interdisciplinary research on law, legal institutions, and social policy. These include small research grants to faculty, assistance with development of external research proposals, workshops, conferences, the Baldy Fellows program, and a globally accessible working paper series.

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New and Noteworthy

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Dr. Mary Frances Berry, History Teaches Us to Resist: Struggles and Progress in Challenging Times
3/29/23
APRIL 5, 2023
Wednesday, 3:00 p.m. ET
509 O’Brian Hall, North Campus
Dr. Mary Frances Berry is the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought, History and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She insists that each generation has the responsibility to make a dent in the wall of injustice. In her latest book, Dr. Berry recounts many of the protests in which she was active, analyzes their organizing strategies, and considers the lessons we can learn from them.
Learn more about the event.
Actual Malice: Civil Rights and Freedom of the Press in New York Times v. Sullivan
2/14/23
The University of California Press has announced the publication of Samantha Barbas' latest book, Actual Malice: Civil Rights and Freedom of the Press in New York Times v. Sullivan (2023). The book is a deeply researched legal drama that documents this landmark First Amendment ruling—one that is more critical and controversial than ever. Publisher's website.
Michael Boucai joins The Baldy Center Advisory Council
12/28/22
We welcome Michael Boucai (Law) to The Baldy Center Advisory Council, 2023. This seven member council is appointed by the UB Provost and is comprised of an interdisciplinary balance of School of Law and College of Arts and Science faculty. Council members work with The Center director to develop vision, mission, and operational guidelines. Learn more about the Advisory Council.
Amanda M. Benzin, Assistant Director
12/2/22
The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy is pleased to announce the appointment of Amanda M. Benzin as assistant director, effective November 28, 2022. Benzin graduated summa cum laude from UB with a BFA in Dance and minor in Business Administration. She holds an MFA in Dance from the University of Colorado Boulder with concentrations in performance, choreography, women and gender studies, somatics, and pedagogy. Read more.
Rachael Hinkle co-authors book on Supreme Court
1/4/23
Persuading the Supreme Court: The Significance of Briefs in Judicial Decision-Making, co-authored by Rachael K. Hinkle and Morgan L. W. Hazelton, aims to shed light on one of the more mysterious and consequential features of Supreme Court decision-making. Hinkle's research for the book was sponsored, in part, by a grant from The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy. Faculty profile.
Elgar publishes book of essays by Charles Whalen
9/7/22
Reforming Capitalism for the Common Good, Essays in Institutional and Post-Keynesian Economics (2022 ) by Charles Whalen presents a constructive analyses of vital economic problems confronting the United States since the 1970s, giving special attention to challenges facing working families. Whalen is currently a research fellow at The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy. Learn more.

UPCOMING EVENTS

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Michael Levien, A Green New Deal in Red States? Towards a Sociology of Energy Transition
3/23/23
APRIL 6, 2023
Thursday, 3:00 p.m. ET
509 O’Brian Hall, North Campus
Attend in-person or via Zoom.
Averting catastrophic climate change requires winding down fossil fuel production over the next few decades. Although renewable energy will create “green jobs,” these are thus far more poorly paid and less unionized than those in fossil fuel industries. They are also unlikely to employ the exact same workers in the same regions. Without major efforts to the contrary, a renewable energy transition is thus likely to deindustrialize fossil fuel producing regions, generating a familiar pattern of job loss, social dislocation and political resentment. Continue reading.
Interventions in Social Reproduction: Labor, Social Justice, and the Value of Human Life
1/4/23
2022-23 Conference Events: Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) is the theme of the year-long conference hosted by the UB Gender Institute as a series of lectures, panel table discussions, and reading groups. The events will highlight the most recent feminist contributions and SRT developments as core concerns of political economy and social policy.
Alison Des Forges Annual Symposium
3/7/23
April 26, 2023: The Baldy Center is pleased to co-sponsor the 2023 Alison Des Forges Annual Symposium, “The Russo-Ukrainian War: Achievements and Limitations of Today’s International System". This symposium will examine the Russo-Ukrainian war and what it tells us about the strengths and weaknesses of the contemporary international system. It will explore war crimes, crimes against humanity and alleged genocide arising from the conflict. It will also revisit the enduring dichotomy between Russian authoritarian imperialism and Ukrainian democratic nationalism.
While Waiting for Rain: Community, Law and Economy in a Time of Change
3/7/23
April 28, 2023: Join us for a conference that examines the new book by John Henry Schlegel, While Waiting for Rain: Community, Law and Economy in a Time of Change. The book is about how innovation will save the United States—and Buffalo—from economic decline.
Critical Encounters with Habermas' Legal Theory
1/26/23
May 26 and 27, 2023: Join us for the conference, Critical Encounters with Habermas' Legal Theory in Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. The event is dedicated to re-examining the principal work on legal theory by the eminent German philosopher, Jürgen Habermas.

The Baldy Center Fellows

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Jennifer L. Gaynor
11/17/21
Jennifer L. Gaynor works on Southeast Asia and its surrounding seas from the seventeenth century to the present. The author of Intertidal History in Island Southeast Asia: Submerged Genealogy and the Legacy of Coastal Capture (Cornell University Press, 2016), she has contributed chapters to a number of books, including Blue Legalities (Duke University Press, 2020), edited by Irus Braverman and Elizabeth R. Johnson. Building on her previous research, her current book projects examine the history of capture, slavery, and piracy in maritime Asia, as well as the recent history of global land reclamation.
Daniel Brantes Ferreira
1/18/22
Daniel Brantes Ferreira is a professor at Universidade Cândido Mendes and Vice-President for Academic affairs at the Brazilian Center of Arbitration and Mediation (CBMA), where he is an arbitrator. Daniel is also President of the Brazilian Bar Association, Rio de Janeiro Section, Legislative Affairs Commission. Research topics: legal theory, legal history, legal education, comparative studies, and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). Daniel is a partner at Bruno Freire Law Firm where he practices labor law and torts. At The Baldy Center he is researching American Legal Realism. In January 2021, Brantes Ferreira was interviewed by Brazil's major newspaper, Estadáo, about his perspective on Trump’s call to Raffensperger and it’s legal repercussions. That interview is here.
Brantes Ferreira is first author on the paper, Arbitration chambers and trust in technology provider: Impacts of trust in technology intermediated dispute resolution proceeding, published by the Journal Technology in Society (Scopus Q1), 2022.
Celene Reynolds
3/29/23
MAY 5, 2023
Friday at Noon
"Repurposing Title IX: How Sexual Harassment Became Sex Discrimination In American Higher Education"
Gender Institute Speaker
Zoom Registration
Celene Reynolds, PhD, The Baldy Center Postdoctoral Fellow, studies gender inequality in organizations and the laws designed to reduce it. Learn more.
Miriam Driessen
8/1/22
Miriam Driessen, 2022-2023 Baldy Center Senior Fellow, is an anthropologist trained at Oxford. Her work explores local courts as global actors and examines the role of lower courts in Ethiopia in disciplining Chinese capital and containing its excesses. Learn more.
Tian Xu, Seminar
3/13/23
Tian Xu, Postdoctoral Fellow at The Baldy Center, earned his PhD in History from the Catholic University of America in 2021 and works on race, law, and social policy in post-Civil War America. His book project, tentatively titled Navigating Worthiness in America, compares white attorneys’ work in two strands of negotiations between federal authorities and their minority subjects: the distribution of military pensions to African Americans, and the admission of Chinese immigrants to the United States. Continue readling.
Charles J. Whalen
11/17/21
Charles J. Whalen, an economist with a career spanning three decades, has contributed to national economic policy discussions, equitable regional development, and business success. During his appointment at The Baldy Center, Whalen has been active—as president (2018), past president (2019), and trustee (2020-)—in the Association for Evolutionary Economics. Last year, Whalen's AFEE presidential address—on reclaiming the right to work as a progressive cause—appeared (in versions of varying length) in Buffalo Legal Studies Research Paper Series, Journal of Economic Issues, and Challenge (an economics bimonthly).
Whalen is the editor of Institutional Economics: Perspectives and Methods in Pursuit of a Better World (Routledge, 2021).
Whalen is featured in the Legal-Economic Nexus podcast, produced at Michigan State University, here.
Nick Cheesman
8/1/22
Nick Cheesman, Baldy Center Senior Fellow Fall 2022, is a Fellow in the Department of Political & Social Change and a Fellow in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. Learn more.

See all fellows

The Baldy Center Multimedia

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Kathy Jamil: Policy meets practice – Title IX and WNY Girls in Sports
3/29/23
“Sports impact your whole life. There are a lot of times you’re going to lose in life, and you need to be able to move forward from there," observes Mary Wilson, founder of WNY Girls in Sports. The program was established for the purpose of improving the lives of girls in Buffalo through physical activity and sports. Wilson envisioned a program that would empower girls and young women to be healthy, confident, and self-aware through their participation in sports and physical activity. Continue reading.
Katerina Bezrukova: Title IX - Those 37 Words and What Comes Next
2/28/23
Title IX stands as a great example of the power of a few, well-chosen words. Those 37 words are mostly known for increasing access to women’s athletic programs, guaranteeing female participation in “any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” The Women’s Sports Foundation reported that, since Title IX’s passage in 1972, female sport participants at NCAA schools increased from just under 30,000 to 219,000 in 2019. Over the same period, male participation grew from 170,000 to 279,000. Continue reading.
Podcast: The challenge of implementing Erin’s Law
1/18/23
According to the Child Advocacy Center, Erie County has the 2nd highest rate of reported child abuse in New York State — more than 3,000 cases annually. Erin’s Law requires all public schools in each state implement a prevention-oriented child sexual abuse program. In Episode 31 of The Baldy Center Podcast, Claire Cameron, observes that the challenge of implementing Erin’s Law involves the difficulty of having conversations about domestic violence and the sexual abuse of women and children. She suggests that having conversations about implementing Erin's Law can become a way to heal the wounds of domestic violence.
Blog: It’s Every Adult's Responsibility
1/24/23
About 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 13 boys in the USA experience child sexual abuse every year. Alarmingly, 91% of the time the abuser is a known and trusted adult to the child. Even more jarring is the fact that child sexual abuse is an underreported problem, making these statistics an underrepresentation of the transgressions against America’s children. Continue reading.
Podcast: Advocacy for victims of family violence
10/21/22
Judith Olin discusses Erin’s Law, which mandates child sexual abuse prevention curricula in schools. She discusses the weaknesses in the implementation of Erin’s Law in New York and the critical need for training school professionals in responding to children who disclose sexual abuse.
Blog: The Cycle of Domestic Violence
1/24/23
Domestic Violence is difficult for many to discuss, however it is a public health issue that must be addressed. Domestic Violence is non-discriminatory in those that it affects and tends to disproportionately impact already vulnerable groups. Continue reading.
Blog: Erin’s Law and Preventing Domestic Violence
1/24/23
Erin Merryn is the founder of Erin’s Law. During her childhood, Merryn suffered from years of sexual abuse at the hands of two trusted males. Galvanized by her own survivorship, Merryn is fiercely crusading across the country and campaigning for all states to mandate an educational program on child sexual abuse awareness and prevention. Erin’s Law requires all public schools to implement a prevention-oriented child sexual abuse program to train school personnel, caregivers, and students in grades preK-12. Continue reading.

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THE BALDY CENTER CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS (since 2016)

Redistribution: Politics, Law, and Policy
3/1/23
Spring 2016 workshop: Redistribution: Politics, Law, and Policy. The theme of this gathering is the redistribution of income, with particular focus on questions that concern preferences, taxation, and state capacity.
Buddhist Law and State Law in Comparative Perspective
12/29/20
Sept 30 and Oct 1, 2016: The two-day conference, builds on the edited collection, Buddhism and Law: An Introduction (Cambridge, 2014) by Rebecca French and Mark Nathan. It will also serve as the official launch of the first issue of the new peer-reviewed, academic journal, Buddhism, Law & Society (William S. Hein Publishing).
Gene Editing: Life and Law Beyond the Human
12/29/20
October 21 and 22, 2016, join us for a groundbreaking workshop that will bring together scholars from a diverse range of disciplines to contemplate the cultural, scientific, regulatory, and normative implications of gene editing technologies for the future of life.
Global Governance and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
4/30/21
Join us on Saturday, November 5, 2016, for Global Governance and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Symposium. The goal of this one-day symposium is to critically evaluate the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Billed as a “21st century trade agreement,” this far-reaching accord seeks to harmonize and, in some instances, to deepen the transnational governance of labor, the environment, and intellectual property, among other areas.
Ocean Legalities: The Law and Life of the Sea
12/17/20
February 23 and 24, 2017, join us for a two-day workshop that examines the limits of legal frameworks rooted in humanistic and terrestrial assumptions. The event brings together legal scholars, geographers, anthropologists, sociologists, environmental scholars, and historians to expose the biopolitical hierarchies naturalized through modes of classification and operation by exploring a new subject of inquiry: ocean legalities.
The Changing Climate: Reflections on Current Law, Policy, Justice, and Regulation
12/29/20
Join us, March 10 and 11, 2017, for a conference that explores the legal challenges for climate change advocacy, alternative policy approaches, and the stumbling blocks for existing and proposed legal theories.
Trump and the Law Speaker Series
7/7/21
Fall 2017: The Trump and the Law speaker series seeks to create a space for discussion, inquiry, and action as we enter new and ever more turbulent legal and political waters. To that end, we are hosting a series of speakers who will engage in public discussions of the policies and politics of the current administration. The talks are organized around particular policy or legal issues and bring to campus distinguished scholars, lawyers, and others engaged with the issues of the day.
Buffaronto Sociolegal Conversations
12/29/20
Join us on Saturday, September 23, 2017, for Buffaronto Sociolegal Conversations. The event will bring together scholars from Buffalo and Toronto for informal, wide-ranging discussion of pressing issues in sociolegal research. We invite you to participate in this conversation, which we hope will be the first of an ongoing series.
Global Glyphosate: New Challenges in Regulating Pervasive Chemicals in the Anthropocene
1/19/23
November 11 & 12, 2021: Global Glyphosate: New Challenges in Regulating Pervasive Chemicals in the Anthropocene.
Disability and Higher Education
12/29/20
For most people familiar with the process of seeking accommodations through institutional channels, we know that there is often a disconnect between following the letter of the law and maximizing the learning experience for everyone involved. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 requires us to provide reasonable accommodations for students and workers with disabilities. When is it not enough? What can universities do better? This discussion will bring together scholars, students, and advocates to discuss the particulars of succeeding as a student, teacher, and researcher while disabled. Date: April 11, 2018
Universities, Innovation, and Development
5/14/19
This invited workshop will focus on the internal and external facilitators and barriers of the transactional, developmental, and hybrid roles of the research university, in an effort to address the absence of systematic quantifiable measures of university-based research that address broader developmental aspects. Participants in this workshop will share their current work on this topic as well as plan for future collaboration.
Dates: April 7 and 8, 2018
Addiction as a chronic illness? Promises and perils of a new drug policy paradigm
4/30/21
On September 21 and 22, 2018, we hosted the symposium, Addiction as a chronic illness? Promises and perils of a new drug policy paradigm. Activists and physicians have worked hard to end punitive responses to addiction and recast it as a chronic illness treatable, in part, with medications like buprenorphine. But the “chronic illness” paradigm raises new questions: How to avoid the stigma and social limitations associated with chronic illness? How to prevent pharmaceutical industry influence over medication assisted treatment (MAT)? This symposium brings together leading scholars of addiction, pharmaceuticals, and chronic illness to explore the promises and perils of applying this paradigm to drug dependence and addiction.
Tempering Power
6/22/20
On November 10, 2018, we hosted "Tempering Power", The Baldy Center's 40th Anniversary Conference held in conjunction with the Mitchell Lecture. On November 9, the Mitchell Lecture was delivered by John Braithwaite, the prolific and highly distinguished professor at Australian National University. His working title is “Tempered Power, Variegated Capitalism, Law and Society”. The talk was complemented by the Baldy Center's day-long conference.
From Protest to Politics: Women's Movements and Strengthening Democracies
4/30/21
Conference: “From Protest to Politics: Women’s Movements and Strengthening Democracies.” For the last sixty years, there has been a consistent pattern of the growth of democratic governments produced by engaged citizens working together in social movements. Often led by diverse women, these social movements won the expansion of civil rights, political participation, and new laws to ensure equality. However, we now face a global rise in authoritarian politics and a rising concern over the future of liberal democracies. Our conference brings together scholars to analyze the current moment. Dates: April 11 & 12, 2019.
Environmental Justice in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank
12/29/20
Workshop: Environmental Justice in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank. Fifty years into the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, it is important to understand the lesser known aspects of this apparatus. The focus of the workshop is on the administration of environmental injustice in the occupied Palestinian West Bank. Dates: February 7 and 8, 2019.
Journal of Law and Political Economy: Developing the Field
6/23/21
The Baldy Center Workshop, October 11 & 12, 2019, marks the launch of The Journal of Law and Political Economy (JLPE). The peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary online publication seeks to promote multi- and interdisciplinary analyses of the mutually constitutive interactions among law, society, institutions, and politics. Its central goal is to explore power in all its manifestations (race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, global inequality, etc.) and the relationship of law to power.
The Second International Conference on Buddhism and Law
12/29/20
September 26 to 28, 2019: The Second International Conference on Buddhism and Law. Hosted by the journal Buddhism, Law & Society, this conference focuses on the many legal features of Buddhism, and how law and the state relate to Buddhist actors, institutions and texts. The conference will cover themes, such as: Buddhism and politics; current issues in implementing Buddhist religious values into legal systems; Buddhist law and constitutionalism in emerging democracies; legal aspects of different versions of the Vinaya in Sanskrit, Pali and other vernacular sources; Buddhism and social policy; the relationship of Buddhism to religious education, criminal law, and property law; colonialism and its relationship to Buddhist law; and Buddhist legal processes, among many others. The conference is free and open to the public. We invite all persons interested in the topic to attend.
Legacies of Suffrage: Women's Activism, Then and Now
2/26/22
Friday, March 6, 2020: The symposium, Legacies of Suffrage: Women's Activism Then and Now, marks the ratification centennial of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Organized by Carrie Bramen, the symposium brings together scholars to explore the lessons of hard-won voting rights, the need for civic engagement, and, the role of trailblazers in the suffrage movement.
Serious Fun: A conference with & around Schlegel!
7/6/21
The Del Cotto Professorship, The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy, and the Buffalo Law Review are pleased to announce publication of the symposium issue Serious Fun: A conference with & around Schlegel! Essays focus on legal and economic history, legal scholarship, and teaching. Serious Fun is being planned. The 2021 symposium issue is here.
Medical Posthumanities: Governing Health Beyond the Human
7/20/22
April 14, 15 & 16, 2021: While medical humanities have tended to focus almost exclusively on humans, a medical posthumanities, by contrast, would take seriously the role of "more-than-human" actors to explore the complex entanglements of human, animal, and ecological health.
Workshop on Marx, Law, and the Administrative State
5/18/21
June 25, 2021, Marx, Law, and the Administrative State, workshop organized by Matthew Dimick. The online event is sponsored, in part, by: The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy; the University at Buffalo School of Law; and Legal Form.
Looking Back, Moving Forward: Law, Policy and Environmental Justice
7/19/22
April 22 and 23, 2022: Join us online for the conference, Looking Back, Moving Forward: Law, Policy and Environmental Justice. The two-day virtual event critically examines the past, present, and potential future roles of the law and legal strategies to advance environmental justice (EJ) policy and action.
Rustgi Undergraduate Conference on South Asia
7/19/22
April 29 and 30: The University at Buffalo is proud to present the 2022 Rustgi Undergraduate Conference on South Asia by reflecting upon the rich history of South Asia and its connection to present-day conditions.
Exploring The Law and Political Economy Difference
6/5/22
LPE Workshop, June 9 & 10, 2022: Exploring The Law and Political Economy Difference. The multiple crises of the 21st century — covid, climate, financial instability, inequality, and rising authoritarianism – have spurred a new intellectual movement, Law and Political Economy (LPE).
The State of Democracy and Rise of Autocracy
3/1/23
OCTOBER 28 and 29, 2022, join us for the conference, The State of Democracy and Rise of Autocracy in view of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. The event includes presentations on democracy, authoritarianism, law, and illiberalism. Participants aim to illuminate environmental policies and political problems of weakening democratic sustainability with the simultaneous growth of autocracies worldwide.
Visionaries and Troublemakers: Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at 50
3/1/23
OCTOBER 28 and 29, 2022, join us for the workshop, "Visionaries and Troublemakers: Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at 50". The event has the dual aim of critically reflecting on fifty years of women's studies at UB and examining how the teaching and research conducted by faculty and students has been part of broader struggles to promote the rights of women and sexual minorities.
Critical Encounters with Habermas' Legal Theory
1/26/23
May 26 and 27, 2023: Join us for the conference, Critical Encounters with Habermas' Legal Theory in Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. The event is dedicated to re-examining the principal work on legal theory by the eminent German philosopher, Jürgen Habermas.
While Waiting for Rain: Community, Law and Economy in a Time of Change
3/7/23
April 28, 2023: Join us for a conference that examines the new book by John Henry Schlegel, While Waiting for Rain: Community, Law and Economy in a Time of Change. The book is about how innovation will save the United States—and Buffalo—from economic decline.
Alison Des Forges Annual Symposium
3/7/23
April 26, 2023: The Baldy Center is pleased to co-sponsor the 2023 Alison Des Forges Annual Symposium, “The Russo-Ukrainian War: Achievements and Limitations of Today’s International System". This symposium will examine the Russo-Ukrainian war and what it tells us about the strengths and weaknesses of the contemporary international system. It will explore war crimes, crimes against humanity and alleged genocide arising from the conflict. It will also revisit the enduring dichotomy between Russian authoritarian imperialism and Ukrainian democratic nationalism.
Interventions in Social Reproduction: Labor, Social Justice, and the Value of Human Life
1/4/23
2022-23 Conference Events: Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) is the theme of the year-long conference hosted by the UB Gender Institute as a series of lectures, panel table discussions, and reading groups. The events will highlight the most recent feminist contributions and SRT developments as core concerns of political economy and social policy.

New and Noteworthy

UPCOMING EVENTS

The Baldy Center Fellows

The Baldy Center Multimedia

THE BALDY CENTER CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS (since 2016)

The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy

School of Law