UCL CLP: Non-Consent, Coercion and Exploitation in Contemporary Legal Responses to Sexual Violence (Munro)

CURRENT LEGAL PROBLEMS LECTURE SERIES 2009-10:

An Unholy Trinity? Non-Consent, Coercion and
Exploitation in Contemporary Legal Responses
to Sexual Violence 
Prof. Vanessa Munro
University of Nottingham

on 14 January 2010, from 6-7pm

Venue:
UCL Law Faculty
Bentham House, Endsleigh Gardens
London WC1H 0EG

About the speaker:
Vanessa Munro studied for both her LLB and PhD at the University of Glasgow, and was named 'Young Alumnus of the Year' by that institution in 2007.

She is author of Law and Politics at the Perimeter: Re-Evaluating Key Debates in Feminist Theory (Hart, 2007), and co-editor of both Sexuality and the Law: Feminist Engagements (with C. Stychin - Cavendish, 2007) and Demanding Sex: Critical Reflections on the Regulation of Prostitution (with M. Della Giusta - Ashgate, 2008). In addition, she is currently working on a new monograph on Consent and Female Agency (under contract with Hart), and is co-editing (with C. McGlynn) a new collection entitled 'Rethinking Rape Law: International and Comparative Perspectives' (under contract with Routledge-Cavendish).

With funding from the Nuffield Foundation, she has conducted a comparative study of legal responses to sex trafficking; and in 2006, she was appointed as a Special Advisor to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights Inquiry into Human Trafficking. She has also co-convened an inter-disciplinary expert group on supply / demand dynamics in prostitution (funded by the British Academy and ESRC).

With funding from the ESRC, she has conducted two studies exploring juror deliberation in rape cases - the first (with E. Finch) focussed on the influence of complainant intoxication on assessments of consent, while the second (with L. Ellison) examined the impact of expert evidence on evaluations of complainant credibility.

In addition, she has recently secured funding from the Nuffield Foundation to conduct a study (with S. Cowan and H. Baillot) exploring adjudicators' assessments of credibility in asylum cases that involve an allegation of rape.

She has been a visiting speaker at various UK and International institutions, including the Australian National University, University of Auckland, Victoria University of Wellington, University of North Carolina and the New Zealand Ministry of Justice. She has presented at training sessions organised by, amonst others, Rape Crisis, the Metropolitan Police, the Judicial Studies Board and the Royal College of Psychiatrists. She was also invited to give evidence to the Commission on Women and the Criminal Justice System, headed by Baroness Corston, in 2009. She is currently a member of an Expert Group (headed by the Solicitor General) that is investigating future sexual offences reform in England and Wales, and is a founding member of the Sexual Offences Research Initiative (funded by the British Psychological Society).

She is an Associate Editor of the New Criminal Law Review and a member of the Socio-Legal Studies Association Executive Committee. She also sits on the Steering Group of the Legal Empirical Research Support Network (LERSNet).