Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
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.
In September 2013, during a visit to Central and Southeast Asia, Chinese President Xi Jinping first proposed the initiative of jointly building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road. Consequently, the Collaborative Innovation Centre of Silk Road Economic Belt Studies has been established in Xi’an, China, which was the eastern starting point of the ancient road.
The last few years have seen enormous public debate over the collection of metadata through mass surveillance. We now know that intelligence authorities globally have been casting a wide dragnet to capture communications metadata, which they then retain and mine for information.
Some of the controversies in contemporary Equity are of both theoretical and practical significance. This is particularly true of the controversy concerning so-called “backward tracing”. If a defendant misappropriates trust money in order to buy a car, then the beneficiary can trace the value of his equitable proprietary interest in the money into the car.
The security of individual nations and the wider world is protected through many means, force or diplomacy, culture or environment. Law is increasingly deployed as an alternative to military force, although its use dates back as far as international law itself. Even private sector and other non-governmental attorneys play a leading role in lawfare.
The Freedom of Information Act is here to stay. At any rate for the time being. That is the good news implicit in the statement on 1st March 2016 by Matt Hancock, the Cabinet Office Minister, that “this government is committed to making government more transparent”.
The 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement has long been regarded as a watershed – a pivotal episode in the history of the Middle East with far-reaching implications for international law and politics. A product of intense diplomacy between Britain and France at the height of the First World War, this secret agreement was intended to pave the way for the final dissolution of Ottoman power in the region.
Annual US expenditures on business entertainment likely exceed $40 billion. Such “wining and dining” is often viewed with suspicion, as a way for one entity to influence another’s decision makers improperly. Indeed, such concerns often lead governments and other organizations to limit what kinds of meals and other gifts employees can receive.
At the end of March–more than two decades after their crimes–the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) found Radovan Karadžić, chief political leader of the Bosnian Serb nationalists during the wars and genocide of 1992-1995, guilty of war crimes and sentenced him to 40 years. It could be said that justice was delayed and deferred, if not outright denied.
Once an activist, always an activist. This maxim seems to prevail even when one enters the world of research and academia, marked by its ostensible “objectivity” and “neutrality”. I started as an activist and ended up – for now at least – in academia.
As the debates regarding the UK’s referendum on membership of the European Union heat up, attention has turned to the possible consequences of Brexit. There are even consequences from a World Trade Organization (WTO) perspective, flagging up implications for UK sovereignty. The point made here is simple: contrary to the prevailing view, remaining in the WTO post-Brexit could entail a greater threat to UK sovereignty than is currently the case.
Information now moves at a much greater speed than migrants. In earlier eras, the arrival of refugees in flight was often the first indication that grave human rights abuses were underway in distant parts of the world.
In June 2015, EU Regulation 2015/848 of 20 May 2015 on insolvency proceedings entered into force. This Regulation reformed – or, to be more precise, recast – EC Regulation 1346/2000, in order to tackle in a much more modern way cross-border insolvency cases involving at least one Member State of the EU (except Denmark).
The precarious humanitarian situation at Europe’s borders is creating what seems to be an irresolvable tension between the interests of European states to seal off their borders and the respect for fundamental human rights. Frontex, EU’s External Border Control Agency, in particular has been since its inception in 2004 embroiled in a fair amount of public controversy.
Discussion on company law and corporate governance tends to focus on the role of the board of directors, the shareholders, the creditors, and the auditor, but surprisingly little attention is paid to company secretaries. Indeed, outside of the corporate sector, it is likely that many people would never have heard of the office of company secretary.
On 20 April 2016, after hearing harrowing testimony coming from victims, the UK House of Commons unanimously adopted a resolution declaring “That this House believes that Christians, Yazidis, and other ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq and Syria are suffering genocide at the hands of Daesh; and calls on the Government to make an immediate referral to the UN Security Council [SC] with a view to conferring jurisdiction upon the International Criminal Court [ICC] so that perpetrators can be brought to justice” (HC Hansard 20 April 2016 columns 957-1000).