Funded projects and collaborations

PROTECT: The Right to International Protection

'PROTECT The Right to International Protection. A Pendulum between Globalization and Nativization?' is funded by the European Commission under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 framework program. The research project studies the impact of the UN’s Global Compacts on Refugees and Migration on refugees’ right to international protection.

The vision of PROTECT is to discover ways of advancing the international protection system within today’s turbulent political context.

PROTECT consists of 11 partner universities in Europe, Canada, and South Africa.

Professor Elspeth Guild is part of the Steering Committee for this project.

Find out more about the project and their activites on the PROTECT website.

The EU at the Crossroads of Global Order (EUCROSS)

The Jean Monnet Network ‘The European Union at the Crossroads of Global Order’ (EUCROSS) investigates the challenges and opportunities that the European Union (‘EU’ or ‘Union’) and its main international partners face in times when our conventional understanding of the global order is put into question and multilateralism is ‘contested’.

EUCROSS focuses on two central themes:

• The EU’s strategic re-orientation in global affairs - including the new emphasis on ‘principled pragmatism’ and ‘resilience’ in its 2016 Global Strategy - and its enduring support for a rules-based and cooperative international order;
• The specific challenges and opportunities for the EU to foster bilateral and multilateral cooperation with its main international partners, i.e. the United States and Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS), while duly taking into account the latter’s recent actions and changes in strategic direction.

More specifically, EUCROSS will investigate these two themes through the lens of the following five policy areas: Trade, sustainable development, migration, counter-terrorism, and human rights.

The Network is coordinated by the University of Leuven and brings together Queen Mary University of London, University of Liege, University of Florida, American University in Washington DC, Jindal Global University, Raoul Wallenberg Institute, Jagiellonian University, German Development Institute, University of Rio Grande, and Plekhanov Russian University of Economics.

The Queen Mary Team brings together Professor Valsamis Mitsilegas, Dr Matthieu Burnay, Dr Niovi Vavoula, Dr Saskia Hufnagel, and Dr Violeta Moreno-Lax.

Find out more about EU at the Crossroads of Global Order (EUCROSS).

The International State Crime Initiative (ISCI)

Thomas MacManus has taken the lead in academic research into the situation of the Rohingya people in Burma/Bangladesh, and partnered with the Permanent People's Tribunal (Rome, Italy) in order to launch a tribunal on Myanmar’s State Crimes against the Rohingya, Kachin and other Groups at the Law School in March 2017. The Centre was central also in providing evidence to, and working closely with researchers at, the United Nations Human Rights Council Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar (established March 2017).

Professor Penny Green is leading two ESRC grants; ‘A Comparative Study of Civil Society Resistance to State violence and Corruption’ in Burma, Turkey, Tunisia, Kenya, PNG and Colombia; and ‘Rapid Descent into Genocide?:  Myanmar’s persecution of the Rohingya’with ISCI researchers Thomas MacManus and Alicia de la Cour Venning. Read more on statecrime.org.

(Image via: Hafiz Johari / Shutterstock.com)

Cloud Computing

• Professor Christopher Millard and Professor Jon Crowcroft (Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge) are jointly leading on research into cloud computing in a new virtual research centre, The Microsoft Cloud Computing Research Centre. The research is looking at the resilience, privacy and law enforcement access to data in the cloud.
• The Cloud Legal Research Project (CLP) launched in 2009 to investigate various aspects of the legal and regulatory status of cloud computing.

Cross-border internet dispute resolution

Professor Julia Hornle is a member of the ODR Advisory Group of the Civil Justice Council- researching on the future of Online Dispute Resolution in the UK.

Games and interactive entertainment law

The More Than Just a Game (MTJG) project features a series of academic-led conferences on Games and Interactive Entertainment Law. It brings together creators, innovators, industry experts, practitioners, and academics in order to exchange ideas, discuss challenges, explore solutions, and map those legal issues that must be addressed for a better understanding of interactive entertainment law, contracts and regulation, and their impact of society as a whole. The flagship event is organised in London every April, but MTJG conferences are held annually in Frankfurt, Maastricht, Madrid, Milan, Paris, and Warsaw, with new locations added to the series every year. For more information and to find out where the next event will be held visit the website.

In 2018, the MTJG network launched the peer-reviewed academic journal ‘Interactive Entertainment Law Review’ published by Edgar Elgar.

Regulation of third-party funding in international arbitration

In 2014 the Institute for Regulation and Ethics collaborated with the International Commercial Council of Arbitration (ICCA) to create the ICCA-Queen Mary Task Force in order to examine the legal, ethical, and regulatory implications of the use of third party funding in international arbitration. The Task Force is constituted by representatives from all relevant stakeholders, including arbitration practitioners, funders, government representatives and academics.
The ICCA-Queen Mary Task Force report on third-party funding was issued in 2018 and can be found here.

Intellectual Property (IP)

Professor Guido Wesktamp is part of a multi-institutional project, Enhancing Intellectual Property Capacities for Agricultural Development - IP4Growth, which aims to contribute to the agricultural and socio-economic development of West African countries by improving universities’ IP management.

Open source software

Professor Ian Walden has been given funding by The Open Invention Network to undertake a comparative study of the different approaches that have recently emerged towards patent non- assertion within an open source context, in order to better understand their legal nature, scope and implications. The objective is to examine current practices, with the possibility of identifying some industry best practices.

Provision of legal support as a professional service

Professor Ian Walden has been allocated additional funding by the Commission FP7 project funding for iLinc, to research and develop models and supporting tools for the provision of legal support as a professional service. This follows on from the establishment of the qLegal advice service initiative, led by Professor Walden.

International arbitration

The School of International Arbitration at QMUL and Pinset Masons LLP launch ninth global arbitration survey in 2019.