A Year in Review 2024: External Engagement Highlights

13 Jan 2025

As we bid farewell to another year, we reflect on some of 2024’s highlights at the UCC School of Law.  

Now is the turn of key Alumni, External Engagement and Internationalisation Highlights

The School of Law continues to foster relationships and partnerships with universities across the world, providing students and faculty more opportunities to study and research abroad, as well as gain new insights and new perspectives.  

This year, colleagues made visits to Canada, China, Dubai, Turkey and the USA as well as to European states to further our global engagement. 

Rankings 

April 2024 – UCC School of Law ranked among the Top 100 Law Schools in the world, placed 73rd in the world. 

The School of Law again secured a Top 100 place in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2024. 

The QS Subject Rankings identify the world’s leading schools in particular fields, taking into account academic reputation, employer reputation and research impact. UCC School of Law has been consistently positioned in the Top 100 University Law Schools for the past four years due to its strengths across these fields. 

External engagement initiatives 

Inter-American Court of Human Rights Advisory Opinion on the Climate Emergency and Human Rights 

On 18 December 2023, a team of Centre for Law and the Environment researchers and Law School students submitted an amicus curiae brief to the IACtHR within the rubric of the Advisory Opinion proceedings on the climate emergency and human rights initiated by the Republics of Chile and Colombia (Case No. SOC 1/2023). The project was endorsed by Prof. Owen McIntyre, CLE Co-Director, and coordinated by PhD candidate, Mr. Julián Suárez, with the active participation of LLM and LLB students Ms. Lydia Mugisa and Mr. Cole Greer.  Professor McIntyre was subsequently invited to make an oral submission to the Court in May 2024. 

Sexual Ethics and Respectful Relationships training for the Defence Forces 

From September 2023 to May 2024 Professor Louise Crowley delivered 64, 4-hour workshops on Sexual Ethics and Respectful Relationships to members of the Irish Defence Forces in barracks nationwide. This programme was developed and delivered in response to the Women of Honour documentary with a view to educating Defence Force members to better understand the range and impact of sexual harassment and violence and to recognise their role in challenging any normalisation of such behaviour. Participants also received training to develop individual and collective capacity to make safe and effective interventions, in order to challenge all forms of sexual harassment and violence. In respect of this work, Louise was awarded the College of Business and Law Impact award and the Consultancy Project of the Year at the UCC Annual Research awards (see also Research Highlights). 

All Right All Night 

In 2023-2024 Professor Louise Crowley and Celine Griffin, Manager, UCC Bystander Intervention programme, were awarded €405,000 by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media to develop and deliver a programme to support 16–24-year-olds to be safe in the Nighttime Economy. The All Right All Night project was launched in September 2024, with teachers, sport clubs and youth club leaders signing up to facilitate workshops for young people to ensure that they have the knowledge and skills required to keep themselves and their friends safe on nights out. The early impact data indicates real change in both their ability to recognise and capacity to make safe interventions in respect of problematic behaviour. 

March 2024 – McCann FitzGerald LLP invests in legal studies at UCC 

In March leading Irish law firm McCann FitzGerald LLP and University College Cork (UCC) announced the introduction of a new sustainability focused curriculum for students at UCC’s School of Law from September 2024. 

The module, Environmental, Social & Corporate Governance (ESG) and Businesses: Law, Policy and Practice, was established in response to growing regulatory changes and increased demand from businesses for specialist advice in this complex and expanding area of legislation. The course has been co-developed and will be co-delivered by the School of Law’s Prof Femi Amao and colleagues from McCann FitzGerald LLP, to provide a unique blended learning experience for students from both academics and expert practitioners.  In November, McCann Fitzgerald hosted the students on the ESG module in their HQ in Dublin. 

UCC-University of Montana International Law Summer School 

The International Law Summer School, hosted jointly by UCC School of Law and the University of Montana Alexander Blewett III School of Law, returned to UCC this May. We would like to thank the Southern Law Association for their collaboration in hosting a CPD and social event for the Montana-led delegation of US lawyers and law students as part of their visit.

Staff External Visits 

There were a variety of external visits by colleagues during the year, as part of the Erasmus scheme, as part of sabbaticals and as part of other global engagement initiatives.  Some highlights appear below. 

April 2024 – Dr Henrietta Zeffert visits the Facultad de Derecho at Universidad Complutense de Madrid as part of the Erasmus teaching mobility scheme. 

Dr Zeffert conducted a seminar with faculty members and PhD students on current trends in alternative dispute resolution in the UK and Ireland.  She also met with colleagues in the Meditation Institute at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid to exchange knowledge on facilitating closer connections between academics and judges amid the growth of court-annexed mediation and on creating more opportunities for LLM students to gain practical mediation observation experience during their studies. Dr Zeffert also gave a series of seminars on facilitative mediation and critiques of ADR to undergraduate law students in the Facultad de Derecho at Complutense. Dr Zeffert was able to share news and information with students and faculty at both Complutense and Carlos III about UCC School of Law’s new LLM in Alternative Dispute Resolution.

March 2024 – Prof Conor O’Mahony’s visit to The Child Law Research Group at the Law Faculty at UiT- The Arctic University of Norway  

As part of his sabbatical in semester 2 of 2023-24, Prof Conor O’Mahony spent one month being hosted by the Child Law Research Group at The Arctic University of Norway Law Faculty in Tromso with whom he had many shared interests - including his current research focus of the constitutional protection of children's rights. 

Between March-May 2024, Dr Dug Cubie undertook a Visiting Erskine Fellowship at the University of Canterbury as part of a research sabbatical to strengthen academic networks between Ireland and Aotearoa New Zealand. 

Over the course of six months in late 2010 and early 2011, the city of Christchurch was subjected to a series of strong earthquakes which caused devastation to the city’s buildings and infrastructure and tragically resulted in over 180 deaths and multiple injuries. Over the past decade, Christchurch has been engaged in an ambitious programme of recovery and resilience – to rebuild the city and to prepare for future natural hazards. Central to this process has been the inter-disciplinary work of academics in the University of Canterbury, including the Cluster for Community and Urban Resilience (CuRE) in the Department of Civil Engineering and the Institute of Law, Emergencies and Disasters (LEAD) in the Faculty of Law. During his fellowship, Dr Cubie provided a series of guest seminars with civil engineering and law students, and undertook research on sources of disaster law and the legal implications of sea-level rise. Dr Cubie also visited UCC alumni, Dr Anna Marie Brennan in the Te Piringa Faculty of Law at the University of Waikato, and Dr Bjørn-Oliver Magsig and Dr Ruby Moynihan-Magsig in the Faculty of Law, Victoria University Wellington, as well as attending the Work-Integrated Learning New Zealand annual conference. These visits have helped to strengthen the academic networks between UCC and colleagues in Aotearoa New Zealand, and discussions are ongoing regarding a series of joint research and teaching opportunities. 

July -August 2024 – Professors Mark Poustie and Owen McIntyre delivered Summer Programme Courses in China  

Prof Poustie taught an introduction to common law on the East China University of Political Science and Law (ECUPL) summer school programme at their Songjiang Campus in Shanghai in July 2024.   ECUPL is a long-standing partner of UCC’s with a very active reciprocal student exchange programme.  Prof Poustie had previously contributed to the ECUPL summer school programme remotely during the pandemic.  Prof Poustie also met an ECUPL delegation visiting UCC in late October 

Prof McIntyre delivered a Special Course on 'Convergence in International Law: International Water Law as an Exemplar of the Phenomenon' at the 17th Summer Programme of the Xiamen Academy of International Law, Xiamen University, China. 

The Academy was founded in 2005 by former International Court of Justice President, Judge Shi Jiuyong, and is modelled on the highly prestigious Hague Academy of International Law.  It has offered its annual Academy Summer Programmes since 2006, at which leading academic authorities, international judges, diplomats and other experts are invited to teach on their specialist issue-areas.   The content of Prof McIntyre’s lectures will be published as a research monograph in 2025 by Brill Nijhoff as part of the Collected Courses of the Xiamen Academy of International Law series. 

September 2024 – Prof Mark Poustie convened panel at 2024 European China Law Studies Conference, Hong Kong 

Prof Poustie attended this year’s European China Law Studies Association Annual Conference hosted this year by Chinese University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law, convening a panel on Reconceptualisation, Fragmentation or Recommitment to Multilateralism: Chinese Perspectives on International Economic Law featuring Dr Xinyue Li of East China University of Political Science and Law, Dr Michelle Zang of Victoria University Wellington NZ, and Dr Niu Xin of Renmin University. 

University College Cork will be hosting the 2025 ECLS Conference in September 2025! 

UCC Disaster Research Cluster experts participate in international webinar 

In September 2024 Dr Marie Aronsson-Storrier and Dr Dug Cubie were invited to present as part of an expert webinar on the International Law Commission’s Draft Articles on the Protection of Persons in the event of Disasters. The online event was organised by the Permanent Missions of The Bahamas, Colombia, Croatia, Italy, Jamaica and Thailand in collaboration with the International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law & Human Rights and the Yearbook of International Disaster Law. The ILC Draft Articles were completed in 2016 and provide an international framework for the offer and acceptance of humanitarian assistance and risk reduction measures in disasters. The UN General Assembly Sixth (Legal) Committee will continue its deliberations on whether to progress the Draft Articles to an international diplomatic conference for the creation of a new international treaty on the subject in October 2024. For more information on the UCC Disaster Research Cluster, see: www.ucc.ie/en/ccjhr/researchclusters/disasterlaw/