Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By John Louth and Merel Alstein
What is a state? We think we know but when we compare things that are (e.g. Monaco, Andorra, Liechtenstein) to things that are not (e.g. Scotland, Kosovo, Palestine) our understanding unravels. This is a core question of international law and the troubling thing is that the best experts in the subject wouldn’t give a consistent explanation for the differences between these examples.
By Dr Rosie Harding & Dr Elizabeth Peel
According to official statistics, a significant minority of people living with dementia are prescribed antipsychotic drugs. The 2012 National Dementia and Antipsychotic Prescribing Audit suggests that there has been a fall in the prescription of these medications. However, less than half of GP practices in England participated and thousands of people with dementia are still prescribed antipsychotic drugs each year. What many perhaps don’t know is that only one antipsychotic (Risperidone) has actually been licensed for use in elderly people with dementia.
By Michael Birnhack
Copyright law provides a general legal framework intended to encourage creativity in literature and the arts. However, in some fields of cultural production, to borrow a term from Pierre Bourdieu, we observe that the players develop their own set of norms. These social norms de facto replace the formal law. The norms often develop in a bottom-up way, rather than the set of top-down rules. This intersection of formal copyright law and social norms in creative fields requires attention.
By Travis McDade
On a “60 Minutes” episode on Sunday 28 October, Bob Simon looked at the Barry Landau archives theft case. Aside from some official-sounding but unsupportable claims (“Barry Landau carried out the largest theft of these treasures in American history”) it was a pretty good show. Still, one part rankled. In the middle of the segment, Simon was shown several coats Landau had outfitted with special pockets in which he could secret documents before leaving victim institutions.
In March 2012 an online video campaigning for the arrest of Joseph Kony, alleged Commander-in-Chief of the Lord’s Resistance Army, was launched by Invisible Children Inc. Within six days the video had been watched by over 100 million people. If you hate Joseph Kony you are now joined by a host of celebrities including Rihanna, Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber.
Last week, stories emerged about irregularities in elections in Lithuania and Ukraine that took place over the weekend. In the case of Ukraine, ahead of the election Yanukovyc’s government had been blamed of engaging in unfair campaign advertising practices, persecution of opposition leaders, and the fashioning of fake opposition parties; and following the election, international observers from the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) noted a series of problems with the conduct the election.
By Jeremy Hardie
Everybody likes evidence based policy – who could favour a policy that is not confronted with the facts? – but after twenty or more years trying to make it work, we have ended up with some quite strange results, at least in the US and the UK.
By Kenneth S. Broun
This October 25th marks the fiftieth Anniversary of the beginning of Nelson Mandela’s twenty-seven years in South African prisons. He was initially sentenced in October, 1962 to five years imprisonment for inciting African workers to strike and for leaving the country without valid travel documents. Immediately after sentencing, he was sent to the Robben Island prison, lying off Cape Town harbor, where he was held in solitary confinement.
By Bill Boothby
During the ten years since an unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, was used to target Qaed Senyan al-Harthi in Yemen in 2002, attack of ground targets from unmanned platforms in the air has gone from a novelty to mainstream. The United States sees such technology as a vital element in its fight against international terrorism, and such military operations are routinely conducted from the airspace above Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere.
By Andrea Campbell and Nathaniel Persily
The Supreme Court’s decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius achieved a level of media coverage and public salience reached by very few Supreme Court decisions. It represented a political moment, if not a constitutional one. Although legal scholars might focus on the doctrinal importance of the decision for shaping the contours of congressional power, this unusually high profile case is also fascinating to study as an event that structured public opinion about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the Court itself.
By Louis Desipio
Popular concern about US immigration policy has increased dramatically over the past two decades. During this period, the resources and technologies for enforcement of immigration law have also increased considerably. The remainder of US immigration policy — particularly questions of how many immigrants the United States should admit, who should be eligible to immigrate, and what should be done about immigrants resident in the United States who reside in the country without legal status — see much less consensus.
We’re pleased to share the winning entries to Oxford University Press Australia and New Zealand’s annual film competition for law students. Now in its fifth year, the Connecting with Law Short Film Competition 2012 was open to all students currently enrolled in an Australian law school. To enter, students chose at least one definition from the Australian Law Dictionary and created a 2-5 minute film based around the definition/s to educate and help students connect with the law
By John Gardner
The law is often an ass. More often than ever. Modern governments, their hands tied by the robber-barons of global finance, often try to assert their power with their feet: by kicking out at another supposed social problem with another big policy initiative. Usually they come up with an accompanying raft of new laws. Legislative incontinence prevails.
The Internet has two faces. For every exercised freedom of speech and shared idea, there’s an act of fraud, counterfeiting, and copyright infringement. How is the law – in particular the English legal system – attempting to stem the tide of the last problem – online infringement – and take pirates down?
By Professor Ian Walden
Over the past two years there has been much furore over journalists accessing the voicemail of celebrities and other newsworthy people, particularly the scandal involving Milly Dowler. As a result of the subsequent police investigation, ‘Operation Weeting’, some 24 people have since been arrested and the first charges were brought by the Crown Prosecution Service in July 2012 against eight people, including Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson. The leading charge was one of conspiracy “to intercept communications in the course of their transmission, without lawful authority”. But what does ‘phone hacking’ mean and have the CPS got it right?
By Arlie Loughnan
One of the most high profile court cases concerning ‘madness’ and crime has concluded. In a unanimous decision, the Oslo District Court in Norway has convicted Anders Behring Breivik of the murder of 77 people in the streets of central Oslo and on the island of Utøya in July 2011. Breivik’s conviction was based on a finding that he was sane at the time of the killings. He has been sentenced to 21 years in prison but it is possible that he will be detained beyond that period, under a regime of preventative detention.