Preliminary programme
*****MONDAY 7 JULY*****
9.30 – Opening Speech by the Research Line 'Distinction between person and thing'
10.00 – Keynote 1: Britta van Beers (VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands) – Humanhood. The humanising functions of legal personhood in a posthuman age
11.00 – Coffee Break
11.30 – 12.30 Parallel Session 1
Panel 1.1 – Rethinking Persons and Things | Panel 1.2 – Technology-Enabled Personhood | Panel 1.3 Personhood and Human Body Parts |
Johan Hermansson (Lund University, Sweden) – Human and non-human individuals as objects, direct subjects or indirect subjects of legal norms – reconceptualizing the person/thing distinction | Talya Deibel (University College Cork, Ireland) – Persona-Res Dichotomy, The Inner Self, and its Open Future | Tomislav Nedic (University of Osijek, Croatia) – Person As A Thing: Body Parts, Personhood and Property Theory |
Jonathan Brown (University of Strathclyde, Scotland) – Larva Legis Personarum Detracta Institutionibus? A ‘Post-Institutional’ View of the ‘Law of Persons’ | Franziska Bächler (University of Basel, Switzerland) – From digital representation to legal entity: The legal future of digital twins | Marie-Sophie de Clippele (UCLouvain Saint-Louis Bruxelles, Belgium) – A Continuum Approach to Legal Classifications of Persons and Things |
Rodrigo Miguez Nuñez (University of Eastern Piedmont, Italy) – Inanimate Agents and Property Law: Foundational Premises for a Theory on "Legal Relations" with Things | Kelly Amal Dhru (University of Hamburg, Germany) – ‘Neurotechnology-mediated Actions’ and Legal Capacity as Defeasible Presumptions | Kristof van Assche (University of Antwerp, Belgium) – Keep Your Head Up: Who is the “Person” Resulting from Head Transplantation? |
12.30 – 13.30 – Lunch Break
13.30 – 14.30 – Keynote 2: Prof. David Gunkel (Northern Illinois University, USA) – Person, Thing, Robot
14.30 – 15.00 – Coffee Break
15.00 – 16.00 Parallel Session 2
Panel 2.1 – AI and Legal Personhood | Panel 2.2 – Nature and Legal Personhood | Panel 2.3 – Legal Persons: Representation, Embodiment or Performance? |
Diana Mocanu (University of Helsinki, Finland) – Gradient legal status for AI systems | Maurits Ertsen (Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands) – When the Well runs Dry: Water, Infrastructure, and Responsibility | Pauline Westerman (University of Groningen) |
Aybike Tunc (Ankara Haci Bayram Veli University, Turkey) – Can AI Have Legal Personhood? A Search for an Answer from an Arendtian Perspective | Lidija Knorr (University of Zagreb, Croatia) – What can we learn from indigenous peoples? The Whanganui River and the protection of European rivers | Luuk de Boer (University of Groningen, The Netherlands) |
Dino Gliha (Attorney at Law, Croatia) – Questioning the Need for AI Legal Personhood: A View from Different Perspectives | Eva Albers (KU Leuven, Belgium) – A pragmatic approach to Rights of Nature | Lukas van den Berge (Utrecht University, the Netherlands) |
16.00 – 16.30 – Coffee Break
16.30 – 17.30 Parallel Session 3
Panel 3.1 – Agency and Personhood | Panel 3.2 – Animals’ Legal Status | Panel 3.3 – The Legal Status of the Embryo |
Visa Kurki (University of Helsinki, Finland) – Persons, Things – and Agents | Felix Aiwanger (Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, Germany) – A Post-categorial View of Animals in the Law: Do we need the categories “person”/”thing” or can they be abandoned?
| Charlotte Termonia De Mulder (University of Antwerp, Belgium) – Personification, Visibility and Speakability of Unborn Human Life |
Joshua Jowitt (Newcastle University, UK) – I act, therefore I am | Małgorzata Lubelska-Sazanów (University of Silesia, Poland) – The Animal Guardianship Model in European Law – Seeking the Key that Opens the Gate to Changing the Legal Status of Animals | Jolien Smets (University of Antwerp, Belgium) – The Legal Status of the Embryo in Europe |
Daniel Dodds (University of Helsinki, Finland) – On the Art of Personification in Law | Udit Raj Sharma (UPES School of Law, India) – Exploring the Potential of Desmond’s Law to Bridge the ‘Person-Thing Dichotomy’ and Making ‘Animal Victims’ Heard in the Courtrooms: A Study of American and Indian Jurisdiction | Noa Vreven (University of Antwerp, Belgium) – Rethinking Reproductive Autonomy and Fetal Interests in the European Court of Human Rights’ Abortion Case Law |
19:00 – Conference Dinner
*****TUESDAY 8 JULY*****
9.00 Welcome & Opening
9.15 – 10.15 Keynote 3: Prof. Tomasz Pietrzykowski (University of Silesia, Poland) – Persons, Things and Other Entities: Legal Ontology at the Threshold of the Post-Humanist Age
10.30 – 11.30 Parallel Session 4
Panel 4.1 – Property, Contracts and Commodification | Panel 4.2 – Responsibility and Liability | Panel 4.3 – Gender, Identity and Property |
Renate Barbaix, Esohe Weyden, Damiaan Leire (University of Antwerp, Belgium) – The fate and status of assets with a (predominantly) emotional value in inheritance law | Rebecca Bosch (Erasmus School of Law, The Netherlands) – Identifying the Boundaries of Damage in Tort Law - Lessons from Genetic Misconduct | Ariël Decoster (University of Antwerp, Belgium) – Conceptualizing masculinity as a socio-legal resource: rethinking identity with the help of property |
Pavel Koukal (Masaryk University, Czech Republic) – Between Dignity and Commodification: The Economic Exploitation of Personality Rights in German, Austrian, Swiss, and Czech Law | Elina Nerantzi (European University Institute, Italy) – Beyond (Blame) & Between (Persons and Things): Rethinking Criminal Responsibility for AI | Anastasia Ivanova (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain) – Rethinking Legal Subjectivity: The Transformative Potential of Transgender Studies and Legislation |
Britt Weyts, Nicolas Carette, Johan Van de Voorde, Thibaut Verhofstede (University of Antwerp, Belgium) – Objectifying and subjectifying in contract law: the meandering objects and subjects of contracts | Julie Van Vaerenbergh (University of Antwerp, Belgium) – The Legal Distinction Between Contractual Liability for Own Conduct and Contractual Liability for Things: A Runaway Evolution in Modern Society? | Elsbeth Dekker (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands) – On the Edge of Being Person or Thing: The Complexities of Rectifying Historic Injustices within Cultural Property Law |
11.30 – 12.00 – Break
12.00 – 13.00 Parallel Session 5
Panel 5.1 – From Person to Thing and Back | Panel 5.2 – Nature and Property Rights | Panel 5.3 – AI, Taxation, and Copyrights | Panel 5.4 – Personhood & Biomedical Research |
Jonathan Ainslie (University of Aberdeen, UK) – Corpus and Res in Scotland: The Limits of the Roman Categories in an Uncodified Mixed Jurisdiction | Sabrina Praduroux (University of Torino, Italy) – The Unattainable Legal Status of Nature: Some Insights for a Conceptual Renewal of Private Law Categories | Kimberly van de Sande (University of Antwerp, Belgium) – When Should ‘Things’ Become Taxpayers? | Hongjie Man, Xuxin Yao (East China University of Political Science and Law/University of Antwerp) – 12 Years after the Golden Rice Case: Protection of Vulnerable Groups in Clinical Trials in China |
Euan West (University of Aberdeen, UK) – Things and Persons: A Defensible Distinction? | Ezgi Fulya Akkus (Afyon Kocatepe University, Turkey) – Towards a Sustainable and Progressive Right to Property | Daksha Sharma (South Asian University, India) – Implications of Granting Legal Status to AI with Special Reference to Copyright Law: A Critical Analysis | Tomáš Doležal, Radomil Kočí - The Boundaries of Humanity - The Blurred Distinction Between Persons and Things from Czech legal perspective
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Patricia Živković (University of Aberdeen, UK) – Biometric Afterlife: When You Are Neither Person nor Thing | Daniele Bañuelos Hinojos (Charles II University of Madrid, Spain) – Counterbalancing Perspectives on the Classical Notion of the Right to Private Property | Marina Cabada (University of Strassbourg, France) – The Consideration of Legal Sensibilities for Authorship and AI-generative Work Debates | To be confirmed |
13.00 – 14.00 – Lunch Break
14.00 – 15.00 Parallel Session 6
Panel 6.1 – AI, Agency and Autonomy | Panel 6.2 – The Impact of the Rights of Nature on Private Law | Panel 6.3 – Animals, Personhood and Property | Panel 6.4 – The Corpse and Postmortem Personhood |
Béatrice Schütte (University of Lapland, Finland) – Do We Need to Rethink Human Autonomy in the Digital Age? | Cezary Błaszczyk, Bohdan Widła (University of Warsaw/Jagiellonian University, Poland) – What Copyright Does to the Rights of Nature | Gary Comstock (NC State University, USA) – Far-persons: A Defense of the Concept of Partial Personhood and its Implications for Cognitively Disabled Humans and Nonhuman Animals | Xuxin Yao (University of Antwerp, Belgium) – Protection and Utilization of Post-Mortem Health Data |
Didem Polad (University of Helsinki, Finland) – Human Autonomy in the AI Liability Framework | Laura Burgers (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) – What the Rights of Nature Do to Corrective Justice | Jada Bruccoleri (Lawyer, Belgium) – Animals as Non-Personal Subjects of Law: Breaking the Wall Between “Legal Objects” and “Legal Subjects” | Hanne Dielis (University of Antwerp, Belgium) – Rethinking the Legal Status of the Corpse: Balancing Dignity and Scientific Use |
Sebastian Benthall, Christoph Salge (NYU School of Law, USA/University of Hertfordshire, UK) – Autonomy Enables Accountability: An Enactive Approach to Legal Responsibility | Paweł Banaś, Antoni Cypryjański (University of Warsaw, Poland) – What to Do About Nature Owning Property? | Marcia Condoy Truyenque (University of Helsinki, Finland) – Animal Legal Agency: Recognizing Animals as Active Legal Subjects | Annika Diemke (Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, Germany) – Postmortem Fate of the Body: Challenging the (German) Subject-Object Dichotomy |
15.00 – 15.30 – Coffee Break
15.30 – 16.30 – Closing Session (led by Prof. Goossens & Prof. Swennen)
16.30 Closing Reception