Siberian Federal University

The topic of the first discussion was comparative legal aspects of death penalty. SibFU students gave talks in which summarised views on the subject and attitude to it from Russian governmental offices, researchers in law and society.

“The conference had been preceded by significant preparation work, an additional challenge was in the fact that all the presentations had to be made in English”, — the moderator of the video conference, SibFU Law School student Dasha Luto said. “The British colleagues listened to the presenters very attentively; from the questions they asked it was clear that they had prepared for the discussion very thoroughly and carefully”.

The next video conference is to be held in the autumn. The participants are planning to “switch their roles”: the British party will deliver their talks and Krasnoyarsk students will respond to them.

Dr Irina Mishina, the head of Comparative Law Department of SibFU Law School shared more detail: “We have forwarded a presentation of our methodological project on training lawyers to the colleagues from Coventry University and suggested they joined the third stage of the project. The two earlier stages have been already implemented together with researchers from University of Passau (Germany) and University of Arizona (USA). In response our British colleagues showed their interest in joining the project and offered a number of topics for discussion. Our further common plans also include arranging joint conferences, publications, supporting student and staff mobility. We have already agreed that Coventry University Law faculty staff members Drs Daniel Lowe and Aaron Cooper are coming to lecture during our Summer International Law School in August 2015. We are looking forward to their visit”.