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Thérèse Callus

Thérèse Callus
  • Member of School Management Committee
  • Member of School Research Committee
  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
  • Invited professor, Centre de droit médical et biomédical, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium

Areas of interest

Thérèse works predominantly in the areas of family and biomedical law, focusing on the private law aspects of both familial structures and the doctor-patient relationship. She has specialist expertise in the regulation of assisted conception, and in particular in its implications for parental status and the institution of parenthood. She also works on the principles underlying medical decision-making and the role of the patient’s family in decisions.

As the UK Representative in the International Academic Network on Bioethics, Thérèse has co-edited a number of comparative law collections in biomedical law and ethics.

Teaching

  • LLB Family Law (Module Convenor)
  • LLB Medical Law
  • LLB Legal Research Writing Credit
  • LLB Child Law
  • LLM Comparative Law

Background

A former graduate of the dual Law and French Law LLB degree from the University of Reading, Thérèse Callus pursued a postgraduate degree (Diplôme d'Etudes Approfondies (D.E.A.)) in private law at the Université de Paris-X, Nanterre. Inspired by a comparative approach, she returned to the Université de Paris-X to prepare a doctoral thesis which she completed in December 2001. The thesis compares the construction of a legal framework for the regulation of assisted conception in France and England. During the preparation of her thesis at Paris-X, she lectured on the dual French and Anglo-American law degree.

Thérèse continues to be associated with the comparative and European law research group at Paris-X, the Centre d'Etudes Juridiques Européennes et Comparées: Cejec.

Recent conference papers

  • 2020 Invited speaker at an interdisciplinary, international conference organised by the Université de Lille, France on the regulation of genomic medicine, 6th October 2020. Her paper has been published in a special issue of the Revue Générale de Droit Medical.
  • 2019 Enduring inequalities: the story of financial inequality upon relationship breakdown at the ‘100 Years of Women Symposium’ at the University of Reading, November 15th 2019.
  • 2019 L’autonomie, l’altruisme ou autre? Typologie des actes médicaux dans l’intérêt d’autrui in Les actes médicaux dans l’intérêt d’autrui, International Workshop of the International Academic Network on Bioethics under the auspices of The British University in Egypt, Research Centre on Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Cairo 4th-6th November 2019.
  • 2019 La vulnérabilité en droit anglais : quelle(s) réalité(s) ? in La Vulnérabilité en droit international, européen et comparé, Invited paper, International Conference on Vulnerability in International, European and Comparative Law, Université de Paris-X, France 11th October 2019.
  • 2016 La libre disposition du corps: un principe qui survit dans l'au-délà ? Presentation for International Workshop of the International Academic Network on Bioethics, University of Shiga, Japan, December 2016.
  • 2015 Sharing Fruits and Labours: financial provision on divorce, Society of Legal Scholars Annual Conference, University of York, September 2015.
  • 2015 Le principe de la non-patrimonialité du corps humain - International Workshop of the International Academic Network on Bioethics, Istanbul, Turkey, November 2015 (participation in round table via skype and written paper)
  • 2014 La realité du principe de la dignité humaine, presentation for the International Workshop of the International Academic Network on Bioethics, Université de Monaco, France, December 2014
  • 2012 Changing perceptions of parenthood, paper presented at the Workshop of the International Academic Network on Bioethics, University of Rio Grande, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil October 2012.
  • Invited paper: 'Rflexions sur l'autonomie, la libert et la responsabilit en droit anglais' (The Female Body and Biomedicine : Reflections on Autonomy, Liberty and Responsibility in English law) at the fourth international workshop of the International Academic Network on Bioethics on the Female Body and Bioethics in Tozeur, Tunisia, December 2011.
  • Invited paper: 'La conservation du sang de cordon au Royaume-Uni'.(Storage of umbilical cord blood in the UK) at an international multi-disciplinary conference on the anthropological, ethical, legal, and political implications of the use of human blood, Le sang : enjeux anthropologiques, thiques, juridiques et politiques, University of Marseille, France, 12th-14th October 2011
  • Public lecture : La procration mdicalement assiste et l'anonymat du don, Les midis du Centre de droit mdical et biomdical, Universit Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, 11th May 2011.
  • Les proches et fin de vie mdicalise en droit anglais, invited paper at the International Workshop of the International Academic Bioethics Network, Universit de Rennes I, France, 27th -28th May 2010
  • Lesbian co-parents: a pilot study, paper presented at the SLSA Annual Conference 2009, De Montford University, Leicester, 7th April 2009.
  • L'adolescent et l'acte mdical: l'approche du droit anglais, Invited paper at the Second International Workshop of the Rseau Universitaire Internationale de Biothique, University of Kyoto, Japan, 5th-6th January 2009 (presented by video).
  • 'Parents' in same-sex families: status or role? Paper presented at the Gender, Family Responsibility and Legal Change, an international, interdisciplinary conference, University of Sussex, 10-12th July 2008.

Publications