Monthly Archives: September, 2024
‘Mentioning the Unmentionable Parts of Tort Law: Responding to Silence with Discourse’
Anita Bernstein, ‘Renewing Products Liability with Semen’, 73 DePaul Law Review 211 (2024). Of the tens of thousands of reported civil cases in Westlaw’s torts database, would it surprise you that a mere 34 opinions in the set use the word ‘vulva’? Even then, the term is often mentioned only as a quote from a […]
Lorren Eldridge, ‘Whatever happened to tenure?’
ABSTRACT The Law of Property Act 1925 did not make a clean break with medieval concepts like tenure. This article explores how contemporary English law engages with tenure, and the extent to which post-1925 case law reinterpreted that concept in a new – ahistorical – way. € (Westlaw) Lorren Eldridge, ‘Whatever happened to tenure?’, Conveyancer […]
Victoria Evans, ‘Conversion and its future (reflecting on the Law Commission’s work on digital assets)’
ABSTRACT It is no great secret that conversion has always been a somewhat problematic and unpopular tort, and indeed it has often faced criticism and calls for reform. None more so than when questions arise about how conversion fits, or could adapt to fit, the modern world. This occurred in light of the OBG decision […]
Jiabin Lai, ‘Legal transfer of cryptoassets’
ABSTRACT This article explores the legal transfer of titles to cryptoassets. It argues that cryptoassets can be transferred through on-chain or off-chain transactions. An on-chain transaction is a thing-transferring event that involves the delivery of the same thing. Cryptoassets can be transferred off-chain by giving the transferee the private key, transferring a title to the […]
Farrington, Borg-Barthet and Ferguson, ‘Should Scotland SLAPP-back? A comment on the need for bespoke anti-SLAPP legislation in Scotland’
ABSTRACT Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) are abusive lawsuits or threats of legal action that have the purpose or effect of undermining public participation in matters of public interest. Currently, Scotland does not have a dedicated anti-SLAPP law in place. However, the Scottish government has committed to holding a consultation on SLAPPs in autumn […]
Jonathan Brown, ‘Damnum is where one starts from? Questions to be asked in determining liability for negligence in Scots law’
ABSTRACT Scots law does not possess either a ‘law of tort’ or a ‘tort of negligence’. Instead, drawing on its institutional connection to Civil law, Scotland possesses a law of delict which forms a part of a broader ‘law of obligations’. This has, or ought to have, consequences for any analysis of liability for civil […]
Carlo Bersani, ‘Persona, Homo, Res: Building a Boundary in Early Modern European Legal Thought’
ABSTRACT According to Roman law the same human being, the servus, can be understood as res mancipi or as persona, being part of the different kinds of persons described in Justinian’s Institutiones. But in the third decade of the 18th century, it would be written that ‘Certissimum ergo iuris axioma est: quicunque nullo statu gaudet, […]
‘Civil Rights meets Corporate Governance’
Gina-Gail S Fletcher and H Timothy Lovelace, Jr, ‘Corporate Racial Responsibility’, 124 Columbia Law Review 361 (2023). Are corporations responsible for addressing racial inequality? In a timely and compelling examination of corporate race relations during the civil rights movement and current corporate processes and decision-making on race, Gina-Gail S Fletcher and H Timothy Lovelace, Jr […]
‘Digital assets: the common law gets a third category of thing’
The Property (Digital Assets etc) Bill is very short. Its single substantive clause reads: ‘Objects of personal property rights: A thing (including a thing that is digital or electronic in nature) is not prevented from being the object of personal property rights merely because it is neither (a) a thing in possession, nor (b) a […]
Lisa Macklem, ‘Another Balancing Act: Is Artificial Intelligence a Creative Catastrophe or an Artistic Asset?’
ABSTRACT Artificial Intelligence continues to be a contentious and multi-faceted legal issue. Numerous authors and artists have launched cases against generative AI claiming infringement . On the other side of the issue, creators using AI have launched their own cases seeking copyright protection for their works. First, it is instructive to look at some of […]