The emergence of Neurolaw: Its potential and its limitations

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@ConvergenceScienceNetwork is pleased to be holding a livestream event on Monday, 22 August to explore the development of Neurolaw and its implications for jurisprudence.

Neurolaw is an interdisciplinary field that scrutinises the relationship between the brain and the law, endeavouring to understand better the effects of neuropsychiatric conditions and functions upon legal responsibility. This talk will identify a range of contexts in which understanding provided by neuropsychology and neuro-imaging sheds light upon the extent and nature of potentially compensable injuries, as well as upon criminal responsibility and blameworthiness. Conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, ADHD, Autism and Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder are instanced to explore how the neurosciences have the potential to enhance the understanding of courts and advocates in relation to the extent to which volition, capacity to appreciate consequences, impulsivity and moral culpability can be affected in ways which are counter-intuitive and need to be the subject of expert evidence.

The talk will be delivered by Professor Ian Freckleton AO QC. Ian Freckelton obtained his undergraduate degrees in Arts and Law from Sydney University, a PhD from Griffith University on Expert Evidence and his “higher doctorate”, an LLD from Melbourne University on Integrity and Accountability in Law and Medicine.

Ian was called to the Bar in 1988 and took silk in 2007. He practises full-time throughout Australia as a Queen’s Counsel and works at trial, appellate and advisory level in personal injury, criminal, commercial and administrative law.

Since 2017 Ian has also sat as a Judge of the Supreme Court of Nauru, running the Asylum Seeker List. He has been appointed as a member of nine statutory tribunals, including the Medical Practitioners Board of Victoria, the Mental Heath Tribunal of Victoria, of which he was Acting President, and the Social Security Tribunal. He has recently advised the Victorian government on the drafting of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2022 which will be introduced into Parliament in the next few weeks.

Ian is a Professor of Law and a Professorial Fellow in Psychiatry at the University of Melbourne, where he is a co-director of the postgraduate Medical Law program, an Adjunct Professor of Forensic Medicine at Monash University and an Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University in the United States. Ian is an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law, the Academy of Social Sciences Australia and the Australasian College of Legal Medicine, and was made a life member of the Australian Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law. He is the Editor of the Journal of Law and Medicine, which he created in 1993, and the Foundation Editor of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, which he created in 1994. Ian is the author of some 50 books and more than 700 peer reviewed articles and chapters of books. His most recent books are Pandemics, Public Health Emergencies and Government Powers (Federation Press, 2021) and COVID-19: Law and Human Rights (OUP, 2022). The 7th edition of his book on Expert Evidence, Law, Procedure and Advocacy (Thomson Reuters) in going into press. He has given over 700 scholarly talks in more than 30 countries.