Law

University of Manchester crowned champions of the OUP and BPP Mooting Competition 2016

At this year’s OUP and BB National Mooting Competition, one of the UK’s most prestigious mooting competitions, the team of the University of Manchester was victorious. The original moot problem, written by barrister Ros Earis for the final, focused on whether or not a landlord was liable for an injury caused to his tenant by a broken paving stone close to the front door of the property, despite not being informed of the defect.

What should be done with Justice Scalia’s Supreme Court seat?

By Edward A. Zelinsky

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has publicly stated that the US Supreme Court does not function well with eight members. I disagree. Under present circumstances, it would be best for the country and the Court to abolish the vacant Supreme Court seat held by Justice Scalia and to proceed permanently with an eight member court.

Slavery and the limits of international criminal justice

By Dr James Cockayne and Nick Grono

By the best available estimates, between one in 162 and one in 400 people currently alive is trapped in a situation of slavery or forced labour. Mauritanians are born into hereditary or ‘chattel’ slavery. Indian families suffer in debt bondage in brick kilns. Migrants from Myanmar are forced to work on Thai fishing boats.

What does assisted suicide have to do with gay marriage?

By Susan Stefan

When Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, finding a constitutional right to gay marriage, advocates of physician-assisted suicide had almost as much reason to celebrate as gay citizens who had been longing to marry. Physician-assisted suicide, or aid in dying, is the option currently available in five states for competent terminally ill people with less than six months to live

Europe’s real refugee crisis: unaccompanied minors

By Khalid Koser

The surge in asylum seekers and refugees arriving in Europe over the last two years is regularly described as a crisis. Certainly the numbers are significant: in 2015 there were about 1.2 million asylum applications in Europe, double the number in 2014 which was already a record year. The human suffering should also not be underestimated; almost 4,000 people are believed to have drowned in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe in 2015.

The Brandeis confirmation a century later

By Paul Finkelman and Lance J. Sussman

June 2016 marks the 100th anniversary of the confirmation of Louis D. Brandeis to the U.S. Supreme Court. The first Jew to serve on the court and one of the most respected and revered justices in our history, his opinions on free speech, due process, and fundamental liberty are still widely quoted and cited. Before going […]

“Soft” affirmative action in the National Football League

By Cynthia DuBois

Current statistics show a startling lack of diversity in corporate boardrooms. In February 2014, Fortune reported that just over 4% of Fortune 500 CEOs were minorities, a classification including African Americans, Asians, and Latin Americans. This is particularly disturbing given that these classifications of minorities comprised 36% of the United States population, and that many top business schools boast that ethnic or racial minorities comprise 25% or more of their student bodies.

Why we need the European Union

By Stephen Weatherill

The slogan ‘Take back control’ has played a vivid part in the debate about the UK’s future: it suggests an enfeebled Britain that should break free of ‘Brussels’. It is a pernicious misrepresentation of the role of the EU.

Worker protection – does it come from the UK or the EU?

By Astra Emir

There have been a number of contradictory claims made by politicians and in the media as to where our employment laws and worker protection come from, and whether they are European or home grown. Which is correct?

Banks, politics, and the financial crisis: a demand for culture change (Part 2)

By Richard Samuel

The retail side of banks’ business culture is of particular political significance; public disapproval of wholesale and shadow banking behaviour flow less readily into voter intentions. It is through the prism of experience of retail banking that politicians and the public believe themselves to be afforded insight into banks’ failure in these more remote areas

What does Brexit have to do with human rights?

By Tobias Lock

The economy and sovereignty are the two main themes dominating the political campaign preceding the EU Referendum that is taking place on 23 June. The sovereignty argument revolves around the notion of “taking back control from Brussels” and human rights are amongst the examples of control lost to the EU cited by leave campaigners.

Filling the void: the Brexit effect on employment law

By David Cabrelli

Having been cast as unnecessary “red tape”, a burden on business, inflexible, uncompetitive and inefficient, it is widely assumed that a sizeable number of domestic employment laws derived from European Law will be in the firing line in the event of a Brexit.

Why Congress should pass the Multi-State Worker Tax Fairness Act

By Edward A. Zelinsky

On 17th May, a massive fire caused Metro-North Railroad to reduce its commuter train service to and from Grand Central terminal. In light of this service disruption, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates Metro-North, “encouraged” commuters “to consider working from home.”

Why Sykes-Picot is (still) important

By Umut Özsu

The centenary of the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement has been marked by what can only be described as a deluge of writing. Opinions have been numerous, sometimes tiresomely so, and have ranged exceedingly widely.

Banks, politics, and the financial crisis: a demand for culture change (Part 1)

By Richard Samuel

After the fall of the Berlin wall and before the collapse of Lehman, the political mood was such that banks were able to persuade the world that high levels of profit and remuneration were justified: the banks told the world that their industry had a key role in wealth-creation.

Protecting prisoners’ rights: the case of Anders Breivik

By Susan Easton and Christine Piper

In April 2016, Anders Breivik, the Norwegian mass murderer, successfully challenged the conditions of his confinement on human rights grounds. In 2011 Breivik killed eight people with a car bomb in the centre of Oslo and then shot sixty nine political activists at a summer camp on the island of Utoya. He was sentenced to twenty one years imprisonment.