'Repugnant Transactions and Taboo Trades': Baron de Lancey Lecture 2025

The Centre for Law, Medicine and Life Sciences is delighted to announce that the 2025 Baron de Lancey Lecture will take place at 17:00 on Thursday 20 March 2025. The event will take in-person at the Law Faculty, University of Cambridge, with the option of joining virtually. Online-only attendees can watch via a live broadcast.

Event Overview:

Each year, the Baron de Lancey Lecture brings a leading mind to Cambridge to dissect a contentious and cutting-edge topic in medical law and ethics. This year, Professor Kimberly D. Krawiec from the University of Virginia Law School will discuss “repugnant transactions and taboo trades” - exploring markets that push moral boundaries and even face prohibition, such as sex work, commercial surrogacy, and the sale of organs, eggs and sperm. She will challenge us to think critically about society’s decisions on what can be bought and sold.

This lecture will discuss:

• The ethical dilemmas of payments for: surrogacy; human organs, eggs and sperm; and prostitution.
• The societal implications of prohibiting certain trades.
• Diverse legal regulations and cultural norms for these markets.

Expect an eye-opening discussion that evaluates the consequences of various regulatory approaches and envisions potential paths forward.

About the Speaker:

Professor Kimberly D. Krawiec holds the Charles O. Gregory Professorship of Law at the University of Virginia. Her current research analyses “taboo trades” — exchanges that are contested by society and, in some cases, forbidden altogether. She has written on commercial surrogacy, egg and sperm markets, and sex work. At the moment, much of her work is on incentives for organ donation. Another area of her research centres on the regulation of financial markets and business organizations. Prof. Krawiec has extensively examined the administrative process surrounding the Volcker Rule, a complex and highly contested provision of the Dodd-Frank Act. She has also researched corporate boards of directors. Through an ethnographic method, this work analyses directors’ views on the workings of the corporate boardroom and board relations with management, with a special emphasis on directors’ views on race and gender diversity in the boardroom.

With a wealth of experience in commodity and derivatives law, she has also been a commentator for the Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (CEELI) of the American Bar Association and has taught at top institutions including Duke, North Carolina, Harvard, and Northwestern, where she won the Robert Childres Award for Teaching Excellence.

Join us for a thought-provoking evening, and be part of conversations shaping the future of medical law and ethics.

For further information, please visit the LML website, or contact [email protected].

The Baron de Lancey Lecture series is kindly supported by the Ver Heyden de Lancey Fund.

Info: LG19, Faculty of Law

Info: Lower Ground Atrium, Faculty of Law

Host or Publisher Centre for Law, Medicine and Life Sciences