CSEL boosting the development of Emotion & Law studies

Last week Jane went to a groundbreaking European meeting of emotion and law scholars at Queens University, Belfast, shaped by the thinking of Terry Maroney of Vanderbilt University, Kathy Abrams of University of California, Berkeley and organised by John Stannard and Heather Conway of QUB. Emotion and law studies have been developing for some years in the US, and now the growth of the field is gathering pace on this side of the Atlantic too – and we’re excited that CSEL is playing a part in this.

The meeting heard a wide variety of presentations about the intersections of law and emotion, including emotion in recourse to law (e.g. the immigrant justice movement in the US, or the settlement of wills and estate between siblings); emotion in the processes of law (e.g. the role of Judges’ anger in judicial decision making) and emotion in the outcome of legal processes (e.g. the effects of custodial remand, victims’ rights). We also had some excellent framing presentations on the history of thought about emotion and approaches to the study of emotion and law.
Now those of us involved in the meeting are looking at how we can take our work together forward, starting with exchanges of ideas and methodology from our different disciplines.

Some of the group have also contributed to a special edition of the Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, due out soon. We’ll post a summary and link here as soon as it’s out.
For further developments, watch this space – keep an eye on the CSEL website as we pull together resources and materials to further the study of emotion and law.