The role of creativity in law
BILETA Conference 2022 warmly invites individuals to attend and participate in its critical and topical discussions on the future of law, technology and legal education. Papers are welcome from academics, researchers, practitioners, postgraduate students, those in business or practice, activists and anyone else with an interest in technology in the law (broadly construed) and legal education. Participants are welcome from any country to enjoy the scholarly, social and cultural experience of BILETA. In 2022, we will be meeting concurrently online and on the picturesque campus of the University of Exeter. It will be a fully hybrid conference. The theme is a consideration of the importance of creativity in law:
“It’s the same everywhere; everything can start you on a discussion of the world. And then you come to the question of ‘direction’, of the impetus, the motivation. Here you can see that there’s a particular juncture, at the root, where things go wrong. And this juncture is our concept of work. This is connected with the concept of art, but it’s no longer imbued with the concept of art, no longer imbued with concepts of creativity, no longer imbued with self –responsibility – this is impossible in the kind of system we live in.”[1]
Creativity is everywhere, yet we might argue that our laws do not fully realise the extent to which it has been critical for the development of society. Creativity has been of central importance to the development of the modern state, and yet creativity is something that has become increasingly side-lined. Concepts such as property can increasingly look outdated in the era of modern digital technologies. This has been particularly apparent with the development of new machinic technologies, such as 3D printing, as it has often been in the past with other technological developments. It is therefore only logical that a central theme of this conference should be to assess the importance of creativity in society, its role in legal regulation, and whether or not we should consider it more directly within law.
We will have a number of parallel sessions, which will include:
- Privacy, data protection and surveillance
- Legal education, regulation, and technology-enhanced learning
- Intellectual property law and technology
- Digital cultures
- Cybercrime and cyber security
- Digital, cloud and internet regulation and governance
- E-commerce, m-commerce and e-governance
- Communications law and regulation
- Future technologies and law
- Human rights and technology
- Sustainability, energy, technologies and law
- Development and rural challenges
Registration for the conference is open – to register, please go to https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/events/2676/registrations/new.
Prices
In person attendance- BILETA member £200 (now closed)
In person attendance – BILETA non-member £240 (now closed)
In person attendance – Postgraduate rate £150 (now closed)
Virtual attendance – online only BILETA member – £100 (still open)
Virtual attendance – BILETA non-member £120 (still open)
Virtual attendance – Postgraduate rate £70 (still open)
Current institutional memberships can be found here
In person attendance includes the annual conference meal on the evening of the 13th in Reed Hall. Menu choices available when you book. A code for booking on campus (en suite) accommodation is available once you register, and a link to an Exeter University website booking system. Accommodation both on and off campus requires additional payment and is not included in the above tickets. Details of other accommodation off-campus is below.
Transport
The closest train station is Exeter St Davids, which is on the GWR mainline. The next best station to use is Exeter Central, which can be preferable if travelling from South England.
Exeter also has an international airport, and it is possible to take a bus from there to Exeter St Davids.
Exeter St Davids and Exeter Central have numerous taxis available to take you to the on campus accommodation.
Accommodation
If you wish to consider hotel accommodation near the campus rather than on-campus accommodation, be aware it involves walking up a steep hill (unless you take a taxi- the hotels listed here are near taxi ranks). Choices include ‘The Great Western’ or ‘Premier Inn’ on Bonhay Road beside Exeter St Davids train station. In the city centre, there are numerous choices but you should consider ‘Mecure Exeter Rougemont’ (by Exeter Central train station).
The conference will be held at the University of Exeter at The Forum and in Reed Hall. For a map see here. Please direct any queries to the Conference Chair, Dr James GH Griffin (j.g.h.griffin@exeter.ac.uk )
Presentation information
We are aiming for presentations to be around 15 minutes long, with time for questions afterwards. There is no fixed format. Online presenters will be able to share screens for their presentations.
Prizes
Conference delegates will have the opportunity to enter into competition for the following prizes. Please indicate which prize/s you are applying to. Whilst multiple submissions are allowed, the same paper cannot be considered for two prizes (except for the BILETA Poster Prize, where submission is allowed in one other category).
The Paul Maharg Legal Education prize
A prize of £250 will be awarded for the best piece of legal education writing. To be considered for this, please submit a full paper (maximum -14,000 words, including footnotes) to bileta2022@bileta.ac.uk by 23 March 2022. The winning paper will be submitted to the conference special issue of the European Journal of Law and Technology.
BILETA-EJLT prize
All conference participants are welcome to enter for the BILETA-EJLT prize of £250. The winning paper will be submitted to the conference special issue of the European Journal of Law and Technology. Please submit a full paper (maximum 14,000 words, including footnotes) to bileta2022@bileta.ac.uk by 23 March 2022. There will be a presentation Q&A session (day 1) at the conference for the top 3 papers.
Taylor and Francis Prize
All conference participants are welcome to enter for Taylor and Francis prize of £250 (on behalf of the International Review of Law, Computers and Technology). Please submit a full paper (6-10,000 words, including footnotes) to bileta2022@bileta.ac.uk by 23 March 2022.
The Jon Bing BILETA postgraduate prize
A poster prize of £250 will be available for the best postgraduate paper.
Publication Opportunities.
There will be publication opportunities with the International Review of Law, Computers and Technology, and the European Journal of Law and Technology, after the conference.
[1] J Beuys, What Is Art?, Clairview(trans. Barton & Sacks, 2004) at 26.
