The UK Regulatory Framework Post Brexit: ‘Law Unbound’?

This book launch brings together several authors that have contributed to an edited volume, The UK Regulatory Framework Post‑Brexit: ‘Law Unbound’ (Oxford University Press 2026).

The book offers a comprehensive analysis of the UK’s post-Brexit regulatory framework in a wide range of constitutional and policy areas, economic and social. It assesses that regulatory framework through the conceptual lens of ‘Law Unbound’, which encapsulates the idea that UK law is no longer constrained by EU law, echoing the Brexit campaign’s promise to ‘take back control’.

The panel will examine how ‘unbound’ has worked in law and practice in relation to the position of the UK Parliament, the executive and devolved governments, and across substantive policy areas, including the provision of services, digital and data regulation, and migration and refugee law. The panel will assess where discretion has been used, identifying the ways in which the UK has exercised newly-found regulatory freedom; where discretion has been curtailed domestically, mapping choices that deliberately limit divergence; where constraints have been re‑introduced, assessing the effects of new bilateral commitments with the EU (and other partners); and what the consequences are, documenting the emerging benefits as well as the costs of Brexit.

Dr Catherine Briddick is the Director of the Refugee Studies Centre, the Andrew W. Mellon Associate Professor of International Human Rights and Refugee Law, and a fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford. Catherine has a range of research interests in human rights and refugee law, including the relationships between discrimination, persecution, and protection. Catherine’s monograph, was published by OUP in 2025. Her work has been cited by the CJEU, the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons and other international bodies. She holds an LLM from the LSE and a DPhil from Oxford and is also a barrister.

Paul Craig is Emeritus Professor of English Law at Oxford. His research covers Constitutional law, Administrative law, EU law, and Comparative Administrative Law. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1998 and appointed an Honorary Queen’s Counsel and an Honorary Bencher of Gray’s Inn in 2000. Throughout his career, he has published over 250 articles and more than 20 books.

Jeff King is a Professor of Law at UCL Laws, specialising in UK and comparative public law and constitutional theory. He was also Deputy Director of the Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism between 2024 and 2026. His works include Judging Social Rights (CUP 2012), which won the Peter Birks Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship, and co-edited works such as The Cambridge Handbook of Deliberative Constitutionalism (CUP 2018), Foundations and Future of Public Law (OUP 2020), The Cambridge Handbook of Constitutional Theory (CUP 2025) and Comparing Covid Laws: A Critical Global Survey (OUP 2025). King was the recipient of the Philip Leverhulme Prize in 2018, and served as Legal Adviser to the House of Lords Constitution Committee and Research Director of the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law. His key area of interest at the moment is the theory and practice of the rule of law, with a special interest in emergencies in comparative public law.

Professor Orla Lynskey is Chair of Law and Technology at UCL Laws, a Global Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Notre Dame and a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges. Her teaching and research expertise lies in EU digital regulation, with a particular focus on digital rights and data governance.

Gavin Phillipson is Professor of Law at the University of Bristol. He has published widely in in leading journals in the UK, US, Canada and Australia on a range of issues in constitutional law and European and comparative human rights law; his most recent book, with Prof Tom Hickman KC, is (forthcoming BUP, 2027). His work has been cited in judgments by the High Court, Court of Appeal House of Lords and Supreme Court in the UK, and by the Australian High Court, New Zealand Court of Appeal and the Canadian Supreme Court. He has given oral and written evidence to multiple committees of the UK Parliament, was an Academic Parliamentary Fellow working in the House of Commons Library, and has participated in working groups for both the Ministry of Justice and Home Office on reform of the law relating to freedom of speech.

Gavin Barrett is Professor of European Union Constitutional and Economic Law and Jean Monnet Professor in the Sutherland Law School, University College Dublin. He is the author or editor of several books and journal special editions, most recently co-editing European Sovereignty – The Legal Dimension (Springer, 2025) and has written extensively on various current themes of EU law. He has also published articles in EU Law Live, the Common Market Law Review, the European Law Review, the Yearbook of European Law, the Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies, the European Law Journal, the Journal of European Integration, the Journal of Legislative Studies, the European Constitutional Law Review, the Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law, the Industrial Law Journal, Verfassungsblog, Europarecht, the Jahrbuch für direkte Demokratie, the Irish Jurist and the Dublin University Law Journal.

Dr Vėlyvytė is a Lecturer in EU Law at King’s College London, previously having held posts at Oxford, Reading, and NYU. Vilija holds a DPhil, MPhil and MJur in Law from Oxford. Her award-winning monograph, Judicial Authority in EU Internal Market Law (Hart Publishing, 2022), has been recognised for its outstanding contribution to legal scholarship and European studies. Vilija is also co-editor of The UK Regulatory Framework Post-Brexit: ‘Law Unbound’ (Oxford University Press, 2026) and contributes actively to debates on post-Brexit governance.

This free lecture is hosted by the Centre of European Law and forms part of the UK–EU ‘RESET’ programme of events taking place beforehand.

If you would also like to attend the UK–EU ‘RESET’ event, please register here.

A drinks reception will follow the lecture.

Please note that if you wish to attend both events, you will need to register for each event separately.

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King's College London, Strand, London, United Kingdom

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