Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
2015 may be a watershed year for one part of the UK economy—the market for legal services. Much is made of London’s status as the world’s legal capital. This has nothing to do with the legal issues that most people encounter, involving crime, or wills, or houses, or divorce.
2014 was an eventful year in commercial law, but what were the top most significant cases? Read our run-down of the biggest cases from the past 12 months. For example, in December 2014, Apple won a long-running class action that was brought against them in 2005.
To speak of sovereign equality today is to invite disdain, even outright dismissal. In an age that has become accustomed to compiling “indicators“ of “state failure”, revalorizing nineteenth-century rhetoric about “great powers”, and circumventing established models of statehood with a nebulous “responsibility to protect”, sovereign equality seems little more than a throwback to a simpler, less complicated era.
Signal crimes change how we think, feel, and act — altering perceptions of the distribution of risks and threats in the world. Sometimes, as with the recent assassinations and mass shootings in France, sending a message is the intention of the criminal act.
The University of Basel, the Swiss Association for International Law (SVIR/SSDI) and UNCITRAL are hosting a special conference which will mark 35 years of the Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG), from 29th-30th January 2015. In this conference, special focus will be given to open issues in regard to the CISG’s application and any possible further harmonization and unification of contract law.
Amidst the images of burning vehicles and riots in Ferguson, Missouri, the US President, Barack Obama, has responded to growing concerns about policing by pledging to spend $75 million to equip his nation’s police with 50,000 Body Worn Videos. His initiative will give added impetus to an international movement to make street policing more transparent and accountable. But is this just another example of a political and technical quick fix or a sign of a different relationship between the police and science?
‘Never waste a good crisis’, or so Rahm Emanuel (President Obama’s former Chief of Staff and now Mayor of Chicago) is reputed to have said. Well, whether Prince Andrew allegedly had sex with an underage girl at some time in the distant past looks like a crisis for the Royal Household. May be it’s an opportunity not to be wasted.
It’s important to preface any examination of a ‘typical day’ as a Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) with the reminder that the role responsibilities are remarkably varied. The role is interpreted, empowered, and utilised in different ways across each individual constabulary, which is reflected in a number of ways, from the different powers invested with PCSOs by a Chief Constable, to the uniforms that they wear during the course of duty.
Little has been written on the subject of pension trusts, and the ways in which pension laws and trust laws interact. As academic subjects, the issues of the purpose of a pension trust, employer duties, and the duties of directors of trustee companies have long been under-represented. However, pension trust law is a technical area that requires more attention, and is also considered to be an exciting area of law that has been ignored in academia for too long.
The “lame duck” session of the 113th Congress managed to avoid a shutdown of the federal government, but did not accomplish much else. Among the unfinished business left for the new, 114th Congress assembling this month is the Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA). The MFA would permit states to require out-of-state Internet and mail order sellers […]
A patent like other property rights is a right to exclude others and not a right or an obligation to make the patented invention. Yet today there is a growing campaign by certain industry sectors and the government against patent holders that do not make any products but enforce their patent rights for licensing revenues, often pejoratively called patent “trolls.”
International law has faced profound challenges in 2014 and the coming year promises further complex changes. For better or worse, it’s an exciting time to be working in international law at Oxford University Press. Before 2014 comes to a close, we thought we’d take a moment to reflect on the highlights of another year gone by.
\What is a parody? Does a parody have to be actually funny or is it sufficient that its author intended it to be funny? Are there any limits to one’s own right to parody? These are all questions that will have most surely crossed your mind at some point, perhaps while watching something like the Chatroulette version of Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball” video.
Prometheus, a Titan god, was exiled from Mount Olympus by Zeus because he stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind. He was condemned, punished and chained to a rock while eagles ate at his liver. His name, in ancient Greek, means “forethinker “and literary history lauds him as a prophetic hero who rebels against his society to help man progress.
Each year when the nights start growing longer, everyone’s favourite rotund old man emerges from his wintry hideaway in the fastness of the North Pole and dashes around the globe in a red and white blur, delivering presents and generally spreading goodwill to the people of the world.
At long last – despite the attempts at sabotage by, and over the protests of the CIA, and notwithstanding the dilatory efforts of the State Department – the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has finally issued the executive summary of its 6,300-page report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program. We should celebrate its publication as a genuine victory for opponents of torture.