“Developments and Updates to the International Rules on Imprisonment” Criminology Gender and the Penal System Conference, University of the Basque country, Bilbao, 18 May 2023   

 “European Court of Human Rights standards and case-law with regard to the imposition of, and release from life imprisonment”, Plenary address to Council of Europe Workshop on life imprisonment sentences for judges, prosecutors, lawyers and prison authorities from the Republic of Moldova, Chisinau, 23 February 2023.

 “Dignity Unlocked? The Nelson Mandela Rules as the key to the transnational legal ordering of imprisonment” American Society of Criminology, Atlanta, 18 November 2022

 “Extradition: the new frontier on limiting the use of whole life sentences worldwide?” European Society of Criminology, Malaga, 18 September 2022.

“Applying the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment to Prisoners” Nelson Mandela International Day Conference, Vienna 18 July 2022.

 “Prison discipline and procedural rights: an unqualified good?” (with Julia Anderson) Modern Law Review workshop, Birmingham, 25 March 2022. 

 “Informal Life Imprisonment: the Problem of Euphemism” Conference; The Best of the Worst and the Permanently Bad; Life Sentenced Prisoners Warsaw, 18 November 2021

Lecture (with Catherine Appleton) “Asian Life Imprisonment in Worldwide Perspective” to international conference on Life imprisonment in Asia, Hanoi (online) 5 October 2021

Lecture “International panorama on criminal policies and alternatives to imprisonment” to Brazilian National Forum on Alternatives to Imprisonment, Brasilia (online)  29 September 2021

Presentation “Does parole have a future?” to Sentencing and Penal Decision-Making working group European Society of Criminology (online) 9 September 2021

Presented paper “Alternative Measures to Detention” to Council of Europe conference.  Human Rights in Turkey, Ankara (online) 24 June 2021

Presentation “Controlling the Prison within a Prison: An international perspective to public seminar of the South African Judicial Inspectorate of Correctional Services on Excessive Use of Force in Correctional Centres, Pretoria (online) 27 May 2021

Presentation to the Japanese bar (with Catherine Appleton) “Challenges of Life Imprisonment under International Human Rights Standards: Alternative to Capital Punishment?” Tokyo, (online) 12 December 2020

Keynote Lecture, “The European Prison Rules and their recent revision” to conference on The European Prison Rules as a Standard Setter for European Prison Conditions, Academy of European Law, Trier, (online) 30 November - 1 December 2020.

Lecture on “Prison reform: International standards and national polices” to Webinar, Modern Trends in Corrections, University of South Africa, 19 November 2020.

Keynote Lecture “The Revised European Prison Rules” to the 25th Council of Europe Conference of Directors of Prison and Probation Services, Strasbourg, 9 November 2020.

Webinar “Life imprisonment in South Africa and the world” Dullah Omar Institute, University of the Western Cape, 23 July 2020.

Plenary lecture, “Life imprisonment in all but name? Imposing informal life sentences” (with Catherine Appleton) to 11th Gerald Gordon Seminar in Criminal Law, University of Glasgow, 11 June 2019.

Keynote lecture, “Life imprisonment in international perspective” at conference on “Life imprisonment in question: prospects for reform in Ukraine, European requirements and international experience” at the National Law University in Kharkiv, 25 April 2019.

Paper “International Prison Standards and Transnational Criminal Justice” to Symposium “The Transnational Ordering of Criminal Justice, UC Irvine, 21 September 2018.

Paper “Life Imprisonment and Citizenship” at the Annual Drapkin conference, School Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 30 April 2018.

Public lecture “Life imprisonment: an appropriate ultimate penalty in Scotland?” Howard League, Edinburgh, 13 March 2018.

Paper “Rehabilitation as a dominant idea in European prison law: problems and prospects” at a conference on Human Rights in Prison: Theory, Research and Practice, Institute of Sociology Bucharest, 7-8 September 2017.

Address “Life imprisonment in Europe and worldwide” to the „Tagung zur lebenslange Freiheitsstrafe der Arbeitskreis: Strafjustiz in Niedersachsen“ at the Evangelischen Akademie Loccum, Germany, 17 June 2017.

Hoffinger Criminal Justice Forum lecture “Testing the Limits of judicial Activism: The Life Imprisonment Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and Its Global Impact” New York University School of Law, 27 March 2017.

Public lecture on “Life imprisonment and human rights driven reform” at a conference on Risk and Vulnerability in Prison Populations. a Global Crisis at Birkbeck, London, 21 October 2016.

Plenary lecture “Using human rights to reform life imprisonment in the United Kingdom”, Howard League Conference, Justice and Penal Reform: Re-shaping the penal landscape, Keble College, Oxford, 17 March 2016.

Paper “Detention on a Global Scale: Punishment and Beyond” Arthur Liman Public Interest Colloquium; Yale Law School. 9 April 2015.

Paper “Life Imprisonment in a globalised world” American Society of Criminology Conference, San Francisco, 22 November 2014.

Annual Law Faculty lecture “Life Imprisonment in a Globalised World” University of Sheffield, 2 November 2014.

Keynote lecture “From pre-trial detention to life imprisonment: an overview of detention-related issues in Europe and the level of protection granted by the ECHR” Conference of the Academy of European Law on Protecting Human Rights in Detention in Strasbourg on 6 November 2014.

Paper “The Evolution of Sentencing Policy and Practice in South Africa 1995-2015’ (with Clare Ballard) at the Robina Institute of the University of Minneapolis meeting on sentencing worldwide at the University of Bologna, 15 October 2014.

Paper at the International Workshop on The Right to Life on “Alternative sentences for the most serious crimes: Life imprisonment in Europe” Organised by the Vietnamese Institute of Public Law and Policy in Hanoi on 22 September 2014

Paper “The individual and transnational criminal justice: the case of Jens Soering” European Society of Criminology Conference, Prague, 10 September 2014.

Paper “Prohibiting whole life imprisonment: The European Court of Human Rights and national sensibilities” University of Greifswald, Germany, 8 July 2014

Paper “Life imprisonment and the Impact of Soering case: Extradition, Non-refoulement, Extraterritorial Application of Human Rights Law” conference, Soering after Twenty-Five Years, organised jointly by the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn and Middlesex University School of Law, London, 20 June 2014.

Public lecture on “Whole Life Imprisonment” at the University of Keele, 5 February 2014.

Public lecture on “Teaching and Advising on Criminal Justice Reform” in I-Cells Third Lecture Series, Putrajaya, Malaysia, 18 November 2013.

Paper “‘One cannot legislate kindness’: the development of European legal instruments governing non-custodial sanctions” 13th Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology, Budapest, Hungary, 5 September 2013.

Paper “Alternatives to the death penalty and the question of the most serious punishments: European principles of penitentiary law” Madrid, 7 June 2013.

Presentation on “The European Probation Rules and the European Prison Rules in the context of the EU framework decisions” to the Final Conference of ISTEP – (Implementation Support for the Transfer of European Probation Sentences) in Vilnius, Lithuania, 15 May 2013.

Paper “American Exceptionalism in Parole Release and Supervision” (with Alessandro Corda) at Conference of the Robina Insitute on American Exceptionalism in Crime and Punishment, at the University of Minneapolis, 25 April 2013.

Paper, as a member of the board of the (Malaysian) International Centre for Law and Legal Studies (I-CeLLS) on “Criminal Justice Audit and tool for reform in Malaysia” conference on the Transformation of Security and Fundamental Rights legislation. Kuala Lumpur, 15 January 2013,

Paper on Punishment and the New Human Right of Hope at the American Society of Criminology (ASC) conference in Chicago, 17 November 2012.

Public lecture, Hoffinger Criminal Justice Forum series at New York University School of Law on “Life Imprisonment across Jurisdictions and Continents” , 24 September 2012.

Paper on “Legitimacy and the Development of International Standards for Punishment”, International Conference on Legitimacy and Criminal Justice, University of Cambridge, 9 May 2012.

Paper (with Sonja Snacken)“Legitimacy of Community Sanctions and Fines – A European Perspective” at the European Society of Criminology Conference, Vilnius 22 September 2011.

Paper on “New European recommendation on foreign prisoners” to the Oslo seminar on migration, punishment and citizenship, University of Oslo, 7 September 2011.

Paper (with Sonja Snacken) “Principles underlying the European dimension of Community Sanctions” and Measures at the meeting of European Working Group on Community Sanctions, Edinburgh, 11 May 2011.

Paper “Analysis of alternatives to death penalty in Central Asia countries based on the results of the questionnaires in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan” at a conference on Partial Abolition of the Death Penalty in Central Asia in Astana, Kazakhstan, 26 April 2011.

Paper on “Post-Apartheid Constitutional Developments in South Africa” to the South Asian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (SAILS), Dhaka, Bangladesh, 13 April 2011.

Keynote Lecture “Strategies for improving prisoners’ rights and prison conditions in Europe” at conference on Improving Detention Conditions through Effective Monitoring and Standard-Setting organised by the Council of Europe and the Government of Turkey in Antalya, 17 March 2011.

Paper “A European approach to community sanctions?” at the annual conference of the American Society of Criminology, San Francisco 18 November 2010.

Keynote lecture with Sonja Snacken “Distinctive features of European penology and penal policy-making?” at conference on European penology at the International Institute for the Sociology Law in Onati Spain 22-23 July 2010.

First SASO Memorial Lecture in memory of Lord Philip Caplan QC (1929-2008), SASO Honorary President and Life Patron “European Penal Policy and National Penal Practices - Lessons for Scotland?” 40th SASO Anniversary Conference, Peebles 14 November 2009.

Paper “The politics of legal and penal reform under ‘new’ governance strategies” at a research seminar on “Confinement and Human Rights in an Age of ‘War On’ Discourses” at the RCT, Copenhagen, 30 April 2009.

Paper “Alternatives to Imprisonment” to a joint conference on juvenile imprisonment of the Institut für Strafrecht und Kriminologie der Rechtswissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Wien, the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS) and the Verein Soziale Gerichtshilfe Wien, Vienna 22 October 2008.

Paper “Hearing the European message: English responses to European pronouncements on whole life sentences” European Society of Criminology Conference Edinburgh, 2 September 2008.

Paper “Shaping penal policy from above? The role of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights” at the World University Network colloquium on International and Comparative Criminal Justice and Urban Governance: Policy Convergence, Divergence and New Justice Paradigms, University of Leads 26 June 2008

Keynote lecture “Long-term imprisonment at home and abroad” to the conference “De Jaren Tellen” of the Raad voor Srafrechtstoepassing en Jeugdbeskerming in Zeeland, the Netherlands, 6 March 2008.

Keynote lecture “Taking stock of the 2006 European Prison Rules” to the conference "Human Rights and Prisons" of the European Institute of Public Administration in Luxembourg, 28 February 2008.

Keynote lecture 14th Conference of European Directors of Prison Administrations, Vienna 19 November 2007.

Paper “History and Theory”, WISER symposium on Punishment and Incarceration, University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg, 28 August 2008.

Presented paper “European principles and the place of imprisonment in European penal systems” Law and Society conference, Berlin, 28 July 2007.

Public lecture “Principles of European Prison Law”, public lecture series Institute of Criminology University of Cambridge, 8 February 2007.

Paper “A new sentencing framework for South Africa” to the OSF conference on Sentencing in South Africa Cape Town, 25 October 2006.

Plenary lecture “The 2006 European Prison Rules” at the International Penitentiary Congress: The social function of Penitentiary Policy, Barcelona 30 March 2006.

Plenary paper “Indeterminate sentencing and human rights” annual conference, Forensic Psychiatry Faculty, Royal College of Psychiatrists, Newcastle, 3 February 2006.

Paper “Humanising Imprisonment: A European project?” at the European Society of Criminology Conference Krakow, Poland, 2 September 2005.

Plenary lecture “International Human Rights and Best Practice as Factors in Prison Reform” at the 14th World Congress on Criminology, Philadelphia, USA, 11 August 2005.

Plenary lecture "Aspects of Life Imprisonment in National and International Law” at Conference on Managing Effective Alternatives to Capital Punishment at the Centre for Capital Punishment Studies, University of Westminster, London 24 June 2005.

Paper “Redrafting the European Prison Rules” to symposium on imprisonment in Europe, Faculty of Law, University of Maastricht, 14 June 2005.

Paper “European imprisonment and human rights”, Department Criminology, Autonomous University Barcelona, 10 June 2005.

Keynote lecture “Introducing the new European Prison Rules” Conference of European Prison Directors in Rome, 25 November 2004.

Paper “Responding to offences against international criminal law” Conference of the European Society of Criminology, Amsterdam 26 August 2004.

Comments on prison labour problems in Africa at the seminar of the International Labour Organisation on “Forced labour and Prison Labour Contemporary Challenges” Geneva 19 July 2004.

Paper “Sentencing Law in England and Wales” international seminar on Criminal Law-Making Policy in The Western World, University of Malaga, 19-22 February 2004.

Paper “Punishment by international criminal tribunals: Example for national criminal justice, or parody of a penal process?” annual conference of the American Society of Criminology, 19 November 2003.

Paper “Victims and sentencing in international criminal justice” at the 11th International Symposium on Victimology in Stellenbosch, South Africa, 15 July 2003.

Paper Death Penalty in Africa at the conference of the Society of Teachers of Law of Southern Africa at the University of Namibia in Windhoek, 5 July 2003.

Paper on international imprisonment trends and statistics at expert meeting on the World Crime and Justice Report 2004-2005 at the CRT Foundation in Turin Italy, 28 June 2003.

Plenary lecture “The International Prison” British Society of Criminology Conference University of Wales in Bangor, 25 June 2003.

Paper "Aspects of Punishment in International Criminal Justice” at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law, Freiburg im Breisgau, 9 May 2003.

Paper “The impact of United Nations crime prevention and criminal justice standards on domestic legislation and criminal justice operations” at an expert group meeting of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime at the Peace Centre, Stadtschlaining, Austria, 1 February 2003.

Paper "Civil Disabilities of Former Prisoners in a Constitutional Democracy – building on the South African experience” at ‘Locked Up, then Locked Out’: Workshop on Prisoners’ Civil Disabilities. The Baldy Center for Law & Social Policy, University at Buffalo Law School, Buffalo, New York, October 2002.

Paper “Protection of the Rights of Detainees by Regulation” at the Pan-African Conference on Penal and Prison Reform in Africa, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso 18 September 2002.

Paper "Fresh limits on life imprisonment." Sentencing and Society: Second International Conference. Scotland: Glasgow, 28 June 2002.

Paper on proportionality in sentencing. Centre for Penal Theory and Penal Ethics at the University of Cambridge, Human Rights and Criminal Law Colloquium in October 2001.

Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, 18 May 2001, Public lecture on life imprisonment.

Paper on Human Rights and Sentencing Guidelines at the International Society for the Reform of the Criminal Law Conference, Sandton, South Africa, 3-7 December 2000.

Paper “The Place of Criminal Law in Contemporary Crime Control Strategies” at the the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law Colloquium in Honour of Dr Barbara Huber: “Are Common Law and Civil Law moving Closer Together?” Freiburg im Breisgau, 1 December 2000.

Plenary lecture "Ist das Strafrecht ein geeignetes Instrument, um die heutige Kriminalitätsentwicklung zu beeinflussen?" to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Conference on The Crisis in Criminal Law and the Criminal Sciences. Bamberg, Germany, 3 October 2000.

Paper on prison legislation in comparative perspective to the International Corrections and Prisons Association conference, Cape Town, 26 August 2000

Paper on criminal justice reform and social transition to the European Union Tempus Programme: Criminal Justice Colloquium, University of St Petersburg, 19-22 July 1999.

Paper “Tough Justice South African Style”, British Society of Criminology Conference Liverpool 12-16 July 1999.

Paper “Mandatory Sentences: a conundrum for a new South Africa?” Sentencing and Society conference, Glasgow 25 June 1999.

Paper “The National Prosecuting Service in South Africa” International Commission of Jurists seminar to advise the Criminal Justice Review Committee, part of the Northern Ireland peace process. Queens University, Belfast. June 1999.

Papers on prison law in South Africa and a South African perspective on restorative justice for juveniles to the American Society of Criminology Conference in Washington, 11-14 November 1998.

Paper on new Correctional Service Legislation in South Africa. Second International Conference on Modern Trends in Corrections, Technikon SA, Roodepoort, 17 September 1998.

Paper on life imprisonment in international law to the American Society of Criminology Conference, San Diego, 19 November 1997.

Plenary lecture “Criminological ideas and the South African transition” British Society of Criminology Conference, Belfast, 17 July 1997.

Paper on life imprisonment and human rights at the Seventh Annual Fulbright Symposium on International Legal Problems, Golden Gate University, San Francisco, 24 March 1997.

General Rapporteur for Conference on Prison Conditions in Africa, Kampala, Uganda, 19-21 September 1996.

Paper on Equality in Criminal Law to the First World Law Conference: Law in Motion, Brussels, 10 September 1996.

Paper on constitutional proportionality in sentencing to the Society of Public Teachers of Law, Cardiff, September 1995.

Paper "The Contribution of the United Nations, its Agencies and Organs to the Maintenance of World Peace and Economic Development through the Setting of Criminal Justice Standards” 7th Annual Conference of the African Society of International and Comparative Law, Rustenburg, August 1995.

Papers on extradition and life imprisonment, presented as member of official South African government delegation to the Ninth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, Cairo, April 1995.