SOAS School of Law

SOAS School of Law
Established 1947
Administrative staff
 45
Undergraduates 170
Postgraduates 250
Location Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London, United Kingdom
Website www.soas.ac.uk/law/

The SOAS School of Law is the law school of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. It is based in London, United Kingdom. The SOAS School of Law is one of Britain's leading law schools and the sole law school in the world dedicated to the study of law in Asia and Africa.

The School of Law has a student body comprising over 350 students, both undergraduates and postgraduates. It offers programmes at the LLB, LLM and MPhil/PhD level.

It publishes a number of journals, including the Journal of African Law, the Journal of Comparative Law and the Yearbook of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law. Along with the International Environmental Law Research Centre (IELRC), it produces the Law, Environment and Development Journal (LEAD Journal). An independent student law journal is also published by undergraduate and graduate students, the SOAS Law Journal, and includes unique scholarship from faculty, students and alumni.

Notable alumni of the Faculty include David Lammy MP, former President of Ghana John Atta Mills, supreme court justices from Nigeria and Sri Lanka, and Iranian civil rights activist Ghoncheh Ghavami.

History

The SOAS School of Law was established in 1947 with Professor Vesey-Fitzgerald as its first head, and as such is one of the 20 oldest law schools in England. Initially, the School of Law only hosted post-graduate students. In 1975, under the leadership of Antony Nicholas Allott, the school developed a uniquely comparative LLB Honours programme that continues to this day.

Academics

The SOAS School of Law Honours LLB programme is recognised as a Qualifying Law Degree by the Law Society of England and Wales and the Bar Council for the purposes of completing legal training. As such, the SOAS LLB satisfies all professional requirements for the Common Professional Examination. Many alumni go on to train as solicitors and barristers in England, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada and throughout the Commonwealth of Nations where local regulators of the legal profession view the SOAS LLB (Honours) as highly valuable.

Although many modules at SOAS embody a substantial element of English common law, all modules are taught as far as possible in a comparative or international manner with an emphasis in the way in which law functions in society. Thus, law studies at SOAS are broad and comparative in their orientation. All students study a significant amount of non-English law, start in the first year of the LLB course, where 'Legal Systems of Asia and Africa' is compulsory. Specialised modules in the laws and legal systems of particular countries and regions is also encouraged and faculty experts conduct modules in these subjects every year.

Several combination BA degrees also allow students to combine law courses with another faculty, including history and politics.

The SOAS School of Law also has an expanding and varied LLM programme which provides many advanced courses on comparative, international and transnational commercial law- all keenly focused on Asian and African legal issues.

The SOAS School of Law also offers a highly competitive PhD programme.

Research

The SOAS School of Law has an unrivaled concentration of expertise in the laws of Asian and African countries, human rights, transnationalIt commercial law, environmental law, and comparative law.

It is home to a thriving research community including the Centre for East Asian Laws (CEAL), the Centre for Law and Conflict, the Centre for Ethnic Minority Studies (CEMS), and the Centre for Islamic and Middle Eastern Law (CIMEL). Faculty members routinely contribute to journals and publish volumes of leading research annually. The school also has links with the internationally-renowned Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, which is also part of the federal University of London.

SOAS Law Journal Logo

Publications

The SOAS School of Law publishes the following journals: Journal of African Law, Journal of Comparative Law, Law Reports of the Commonwealth[1], Yearbook of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, Law, Environment and Development Journal (LEAD Journal), SOAS Law Journal (A student led and edited journal featuring submissions by students, alumni and faculty.)[2]

Rankings

The SOAS School of Law was ranked 15th out of all 110 British law schools by The Guardian League Table in 2016.[3] In 2015, The Guardian ranked the SOAS Law School as the 10th best law school in the United Kingdom.[4]

SOAS Law Society

The SOAS Law Society promotes opportunities to learn about the study of law and career options to student members at SOAS. The Law Society hosts meetings, intercollegiate exchanges, mooting tournaments and other educational events and also assists in the publication of the SOAS Law Journal. Past moot teams fielded by the SOAS Law Society have participated in the English Law Students Association Moot Competition and the prestigious London Universities Mooting Shield, which was founded by SOAS Law School alumnus and barrister Daniel Jackson.

Notable academic staff

The SOAS School of Law has more than 30 full-time academic staff, 20 professors, many visiting professors and distinguished judicial and other visiting academic staff. The current list of professors include:

Visiting Professors

Notable alumni

Antony Nicholas Allott- legendary comparative law theorist, Professor of Asian Laws at SOAS, University of London, and alumnus of the PhD programme.

Shirani Bandaranayake- former Chief Justice of Sri Lanka, noted Sri Lankan jurist.

Francis K. Butagira- Former Ugandan Ambassador to Germany.

Charles A. Adeogun-Phillips- former genocide and war crimes prosecutor.

Husna Ahmad- Bangladeshi environmental campaigner.

Muhammad Mohar Ali- Bangladeshi Islamic Law scholar.

Herbert Chitepo- First black barrister in Rhodesia, later known as Zimbabwe, and noted contemporary ally of Robert Mugabe.

Tufyal Choudhury- British human rights barrister.

John Duncan Martin Derrett - British barrister and scholar of Oriental laws.

Ghoncheh Ghavami- Iranian civil rights activist.

Sara Hossain Bangladeshi lawyer.

Nihal Jayawickrama- Sri Lankan statesmen.

Henry M. Joko-Smart- Supreme Court Justice of Sierra Leone.

Mohammad Hashim Kamali- leading expert on Islamic law, noted Afghan academic.

David Lammy- Labour Party MP.

Chibli Mallat- international lawyer, a law professor, and a former candidate for presidency in Lebanon.

John Atta Mills- former President of Ghana.

Asif Nazrul- Bangladeshi researcher, columnist and civil society activist. He is currently a professor of law at the University of Dhaka.

Mohamed Salih Omer- Sudanese statesman.

Sylvester Umaru Onu- Supreme Court Justice of Nigeria.

Aaron Mike Oquaye- Ghanain statesman.

Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam- Sri Lankan Tamil lawyer, politician and former Member of Parliament.

Salman Akram Raja - a Pakistani lawyer.

Shyamlal Rajapaksa- a Sri Lankan lawyer. He was a prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

See also

References

External links


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