Laura Vialon

Overview

Laura is a German qualified lawyer with an additional degree in French Law. She completed her LL.M in International Human Rights and Environmental Law from SOAS. Her academic interests have been situated in international law before – especially Business and Human Rights, international economic and environmental law. Now, Laura wants to focus on national enterprise law (the corporation and alternative forms of business enterprises), very much inspired and informed however by the international and comparative perspective she has gained in her previous studies. She has been the Lecturer for German civil and constitutional law at University College London for two consecutive years and is the external examiner for the German Law modules at King's College London.

Laura's research – which is supported by a full scholarship by City St George's – is interdisciplinary combining Psychology/Sociology and Law. The project is about establishing a more complexity embracing - social sciences driven – theory of the firm tapping into institutional and organisational theories for the benefit of finding a concrete policy solution in company law to integrate human rights organically into the very fabric of the entity.

How do we make the coroporation a place where human rights can thrive? The hypothesis is that before we try to regulate its external human rights impact, we have to take a close look inside, at the very structures, dynamics, workings of the real life entity which the corporate form supports and not stop at the board of directors. Human rights can be enabled if we reconceptualise them as protecting important human interests connected to a form of well-being. Understood like that they become positive and through the insights of positive and social psychology we learn how this form of well-being can be helped along or hampered. 

Laura's research is supervised by Nina Boeger and Hamiisi Nsubuga.

Qualifications

• LL.M Human Rights, Conflicts & Justice, School of Oriental and African Studies, United Kingdom, 2020 - September 2021
• 2nd German State Examination in Law, Ministry of Justice, Northrhine-Westphalia, Germany, July 2020
• Certified Mediator, University of Cologne - INeKo Institute, Germany, March 2018
• 1st German State Examination in Law, University of Cologne, Germany, October 2010 - November 2016
• LL.B German-French Law, University of Cologne/Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France, 2010 - October 2014
• DULA common law, Pantheon-Sorbonne University, France, July 2014

Employment

• Graduate Teaching Assistant, City St George's University of London, United Kingdom, September 2024 - present
• External Examiner, King's College London, United Kingdom, April 2024 - present
• Lecturer (Teaching), University College London, United Kingdom, September 2022 - September 2024
• German qualified Lawyer, ZIMMERs Solicitors & Rechtsanwälte, United Kingdom, January 2020 - September 2022
• Graduate Research Assistant, Luther Rechtsanwälte, Germany, February - November 2017
• Student Research Assistant, University of Cologne, Germany, October 2014 - February 2017

Award

• City St George's University of London (2024). City University of London Centrally Funded Scholarship
  Award from City St George's University of London of a 3-year full scholarship towards the completion of a PhD in Law

Languages

English (can read, write, speak, understand spoken, peer review), French (can read, write, speak, understand spoken, peer review) and German (can read, write, speak, understand spoken, peer review)

Title of thesis: Embedding human rights in corporate structures & processes through application of institutional & organisation theory and social & positive psychology

September 2024 - May 2028

Summary of research

The research wants to combine insights from Psychology & Sociology with human rights standards to inform internal structures of business organisations with a specific focus on voice.

Research students

1^stsupervisor

• Professor Nina Boeger, Professor of Law

2^ndsupervisor

• Dr Hamiisi Nsubuga, Senior Lecturer (Education and Research)

Publications by category