Dr Sophie Turenne
Degrees and honours
- MA (Cantab)
- PhD (Paris II)
Research interests
Dr Turenne has written extensively on the topic of judicial independence and she has interests in comparative law (with a current focus on comparative constitutional law and civil liberties); European Union law and the European judicial systems; legal theory.
In her first monograph, Le juge face à la désobéissance civile. Etude en droits américain et français comparés (2007), Dr Turenne compared the judicial discourse of the French judiciary facing claims of civil disobedience (abortion or anti-abortion disobedience mainly) with the judicial discourse of American judges. Dr Turenne recently published, with Professor Shimon Shetreet (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), the second edition of Shetreet’s Judges on Trial: a Study of the Appointment and the Accountability of the English Judiciary (2013), with a Foreword from the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales. The book was described as ‘a fascinating book’ by Lord Dyson MR (Baillii Lecture, November 2014). Building on her work as General Reporter for the 19th International Congress of Comparative Law in Vienna (2014), Dr Turenne has now edited a collection of essays, ‘Fair reflection of society in judicial systems. A comparative study’ (Springer, forthcoming).
Biography
Dr Turenne completed her Law studies at the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas following one year in Philosophy (literary preparatory class). In the course of her studies, she was an Erasmus student then a research scholar at Oxford University under various awards schemes (Entente Cordiale, Lavoisier-Oxford, Allocation Mobilite Internationale CNRS). Dr Turenne taught in numerous places (Paris XIII, University College London, Birmingham) at both undergraduate and graduate levels before coming to Cambridge in 2003. She was Neil Allam/Clifford Chance Lecturer in Law at the Faculty until October 2010 and co-ordinated the Erasmus and the Double Maitrise programmes within the Law Faculty in this capacity. She is currently Assistant Professor in Comparative Law in the Faculty and a Fellow at King's College, and was elected as Fellow Emerita in June 2024.