The first International Graduate Legal Research Conference (IGLRC) took place in April 2007 and the Conference has built a steady reputation since. The first of its kind amongst the top universities, its past organisers have included:

• 2007: Cian Murphy, Marton Horanyi & Jin Liu
• 2008: Cian Murphy & Marton Horanyi
• 2009: Egle Dagilyte, Cian Murphy, Marta Iljadica & Thomas MacManus
• 2010: Marta Iljadica & Thomas MacManus
• 2011: Thomas Goldup
• 2012: Esin Kucuk & Sabrina Gilani
• 2013: Nasia Hadjigeorgiou & Stefan Mandelbaum
• 2014: Adrienne Yong & Mathilde Groppo
• 2015: José Tomás Llanos & Niccolò Ridi

The keynote speech is a regular feature of the IGLRC, with past keynotes including:

• Dr Jonathan Garton of King’s College London focusing on the difficult journey towards completion of the doctoral thesis (2007)
• Richard Hart on the plight of legal publishing in the digital age (2008)
• Dr Paul Mitchell on the troublesome task of turning a doctoral thesis into a book (2009)
• Professor Jeremy Horder , giving an interesting and insightful look into ensuring your PhD research has the maximum impact both within and beyond academia (2010)
• Lord Raymond Plant on “Freedom, Coercion, Necessary Goods and the Rule of Law” (2011)
• Professor David Kennedy , from Harvard University. Professor Kennedy’s talk was titled “Political Economy and Centre-Periphery Dynamics in International Law” (2012)
• Professor David Caron , due to take over as Dean of King’s Law School just a few weeks after the conference, spoke on scholarship and the difficult PhD journey (2013)
• Professor David Nelken on “Going the extra mile. On not accepting conventional wisdom” (2014)
• Prof. Patricio Grané Labat (Volterra Fietta) discussed the role of Public International Law in Non-International Armed Conflict in the case of Syria (2014 and 2015)
• Dr. Nicola Palmer spoke about her work on Courts in Conflict: Empirical research and the role of theory in the study of Rwanda’s post-genocide courts (2015)

Various innovations have also been seen throughout the years of the Conference.

• 

  IGLRC 2013 saw entertainment from talented individuals at King’s College London

  In 2008, the accepted papers were published by Hart Publishing as ‘ Law and Outsiders ‘ in 2010 and sponsor representatives from Matrix Chambers chaired two sessions.

• In 2010, despite best attempts by the Icelandic volcano to scupper the IGLRC’s attendance, it still went ahead to welcome its attendees in April.

• By 2011, when the IGLRC received over 400 abstracts and 150 participants, there was little doubt that the Conference had acquired quite a reputation amongst not only European research students, but those from abroad as well with PhD researchers from Canada, Australia, China, and India. The King’s Law Review also offered to publish selected papers from the 2011 conference.

• 2012 saw the very first professional development panel geared towards publishing and career-development, with presentations by Richard Hart of Hart Publishing as well as King’s alumni Dr. Diego Acosta, who held an informative session on life in academia after the PhD.

• In 2013, an extremely high number of abstracts received for the European Union Law, Commercial Law and Public International Law panels led to two panels for each subjects. Photos can be seen by clicking on the following link .

• In 2014, the high volume of abstracts in International Law, EU Law, Human Rights and Competition Law continued. Our keynote speakers gave impressive speeches: Prof. David Nelken (King’s) talked about ‘Going the extra mile’ and Prof. Patricio Grané Labat (Volterra Fietta) discussed the role of Public International Law in Non-International Armed Conflict in the case of Syria.

Most importantly, the IGLRC would not happen without the kind support from several sponsors. Past sponsors have included:

• Simmons & Simmons (2007)
• Herbert Smith Freehills (2007, 2015)
• LexisNexis Legal Publishing (2008)
• King’s Graduate School (2007, 2008, 2012)
• Dechert LLP (2015)

However, the IGLRC are most thankful for continued support of King’s College London School of Law (2007-date), Hart Publishing (2007-date), Matrix Chambers (2008 – 2011, 2014) and Volterra Fietta (2014, 2015) for their commitment to the academic development of young career researchers. Without this sponsorship, the IGLRC would not be where it is today.