Sophie Turenne Elected Associate Member of the International Academy of Comparative Law

In addition to Dr Jens Scherpe, Dr Sophie Turenne has also been elected to an Associate Membership of l'Académie internationale de droit comparé.

The International Academy of Comparative Law was founded at The Hague on 13 September 1924. The date itself is significant because it coincides with the prodigious movement towards a renaissance of law which followed World War I. That the Academy was founded in The Hague is also notable because it had earlier been designated as the seat of the Permanent Court of International Justice and, in addition, was the place at which the Academy of International Law was founded.

The names of Roscoe Pound, Louis Milliot, Baron Frédericq, C.J. Hamson, Imre Szabo, John Hazard, Paul Crépeau, who have served as presidents of the organization, are indicative of the prestige that the Academy has always enjoyed. The International Academy of Comparative Law is a corps of scholars the principal aim of which is, according to article 2 of its By-laws, "the comparative study of legal systems".

Dr Turenne is a Fellow of Murray Edwards College and Associate Lecturer at the Faculty of Law. She lectures in Comparative law and writes in the field of judicial studies in particular. She recently published Judges on Trial: The Independence and Accountability of the English Judiciary (CUP 2013), co-authored with Professor Shimon Shetreet, with a foreword by the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales.

Dr Turenne is currently leading a comparative project involving more than twenty national experts on 'The independence of a meritorious elite: the government of judges and democracy'. She will present the findings of this comparative study at the XIXth International Congress of Comparative Law (Vienna, July 2014).

To find out more about the International Academy of Comparative Law, please refer to the Academy website.