Deadline for Proposals for Obligations XII Is Approaching

Obligations XII

The Twelfth Biennial Conference on the Law of Obligations will be held at King’s College London from 13–16 July 2027. The Conference will be jointly organised by James Lee of King’s College London and Andrew Robertson of the University of Melbourne. The theme of the conference will be ‘Reforming the Law of Obligations’.

This theme is focused on reform but this is designed to be open to a range of interpretations. Without being prescriptive, we indicate some suggestions that authors could offer, in the context either of the general law of obligations, or a particular area of the law of obligations:

• a specific proposal by the author for reform, and how it should be effected 
• an analysis of a specific law reform proposal by, for example, a law reform agency
• a critical evaluation of a particular reform, 
• a wider reflection on the evolution of the law over a period of time
• a theoretical account of legal change 
• an historical study of (a) legal change
• a comparative assessment of reform
• an examination of taxonomical distinctions in the law 
• a critique of the role of particular institutions in legal change
• an interrogation of factors affecting legal change, such as technological, commercial, societal or political developments

We welcome submissions of proposals for new papers to be presented at the conference from all colleagues working in the field of obligations, whatever their methodology or career stage. Papers will be selected on the basis of criteria including fit with the theme, originality, significance, rigour and a balanced representativeness of jurisdictions and career stage.

We also welcome co-authored papers, especially by colleagues from different jurisdictions or disciplinary perspectives.

Proposals must be for new papers, in that they should not have already been published, accepted for publication or under consideration for publication at an outlet by the time of the Conference. 

Abstracts for proposals addressing the theme should be submitted to ObligationsTwelve@gmail.com, and should be no more than 500 words (excluding footnotes, if used, provided that the footnotes are not discursive). The deadline for submissions is 11:59pm UK time on Tuesday 1^st September 2026. Any late submissions will only be considered after those submitted by the deadline. We shall aim to communicate the outcome of decisions by 1^st November 2026. A waiting list may be established of reserve papers, and places would be offered instead to such papers if any initially accepted authors cannot attend.