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By 1865 British Imperial governments had accepted that colonial courts had the authority to invalidate colonial statutes which contravened the relevant colony's constitution. This situation arose notwithstanding the lack of any express grant of such jurisdiction to colonial courts in Imperial or colonial legislation. This paper evaluates the first instance of a colonial court asserting that jurisdiction, during the Dog Act crisis in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) in the 1840s. Part one of the paper charts the background to, conduct of and judgment in the relevant litigation. The second part, which will appear in a future issue of this journal, explores the consequential attempts of the colony's Governor to remove the judges from office and to re-enact the invalidated colonial law. The suggestion made is that the Dog Act controversy provides considerable insight into how, despite the absence of any explicit statutory grant of such jurisdiction, the power of judicial review of colonial legislation by colonial courts became established as an orthodox element of British colonial constitutional law in the latter nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Treaties are concluded by States but often impose rights and obligations directly upon private parties. Can private parties contract out of a treaty including States' oppositions without explicit permissions granted by the treaty? The complexity between party autonomy and State sovereignty is reflected in recent cases and unsettled debates regarding the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extra Judicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters of November 15, 1965 ("HSC"). The HSC contains a large number of oppositions made by 65 Contracting States including China, Germany, India, and Singapore. Combining public and private international law, this paper aims to explore the correlative relationship between party autonomy and State sovereignty in applying the HSC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will first review the debate over the definition and recognition of Indigenous peoples with regard to the people of Ryukyu/ Okinawa, focusing on the colonial history, specifically regarding the case of the lawsuit calling for the return of the Ryukyuan ancestral remains. Then, after an overview of the history of the lawsuit calling for the return of the Ryukyuan ancestors, which was instigated in 2018, I will present what has been achieved so far, the challenges that remain, and the prospects for the future. There, the 'colonialism by academic knowledge' nurtured since the colonial period will be exposed, and the recognition by the state of the people of Ryukyu and Okinawa as Indigenous peoples, and the possibility of solidarity among civil society and domestic and international Indigenous and minority peoples will be analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terrorism research has gained much traction since the 9/11 attacks, but some sub genres of terrorism, such as right-wing terrorism, have remained under-studied areas. Unsurprisingly data sources to study these phenomena are scarce and frequently face unique data collection obstacles. This paper explores five major, social-scientific terrorism databases in regards to data on right-wing terrorist events. The paper also provides an in-depth examination of the utilization of criminal legal proceedings to research right-wing terrorist acts. Lastly, legal case databases are introduced and discussed to show the lack of available court information and case proceedings in regards to right-wing terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the role of a code of ethics for judges in connection to a contemporary definition of responsive 'T-shaped' judicial professionalism and the professional-ethical questions which can arise in judicial decision-making regarding politically and societally controversial issues. The paper's case study focuses on climate-change related litigation in Dutch courts. First, a theoretical framework which conceptualises practical and ethical elements of T-shaped judicial professionalism as 'virtuous judgecraft', building on the work of Kritzer and Van Domselaar, addresses the knowledge, skills, and ethical mindset that judges need for fulfilling their roles in relation to this notion of professionalism. Next, the paper analyses to what extent connections with guidelines of the Dutch Guide to Judicial Conduct (GJC), considered in light of the developed framework of virtuous judgecraft, can be recognised in the approaches of judges in the landmark Urgenda judgments. Based on this analysis, the paper presents conclusions regarding the value of the GJC for enhancing judicial performance and for explaining judgments, in particular those which involve complex societal issues, to parties and the general public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The CK Telecoms judgement shed the light on the difficulties to apprehend unilateral effects, aka insufficient individual rivalry, in the context of a merger. This paper examines the overall European competition law framework applicable to these effects. After underlining the difficulties related to their apprehension by the competition authorities, the adequacy of the solely ex ante-based European competition regime will be assessed as well as the use of the New Competition Tool as an option to solve the identified drawbacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the openness of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect policy as an exogenous shock, this paper examines how the stock market liberalization affects litigation risks of underlying stock firms and its influencing mechanisms. We use a difference-in-differences (DID) approach to analyse the sample of A-share firms listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, and find that the stock market liberalization can better curb litigation risk of the underlying stock firms (i.e. the firms listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange that can also be traded in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange) than that of the non-underlying stock firms. Further, we provide evidence that the corporate governance mechanism rather than information transmission is the main channel through which stock market liberalization reduces litigation risk of the underlying stock firms. This paper emphasizes the unique role and spillover effects of the stock market liberalization, contributing to the literature on law and finance and the literature on the stock market liberalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy processes in contemporary South Africa draw attention to a phenomenon that is both common in policymaking and under-theorised in the anthropology of policy: the tendency for policy to be made both through legislative and administrative fora, and through litigation and the threat of litigation, often concurrently. Given South Africa's robust legal frameworks mandating public participation in policymaking, there is an unexpectedly productive dialectical relationship between administrative and legal processes, where failures of participation create openings for court challenges that may limit the scope for top-down policymaking. These legal actions likewise reflect responses to the country's apartheid history: they rely upon legal oppositional strategies developed to challenge the apartheid state, often by the same actors and organisations, and they rely upon legal institutions that have been deliberately structured to prevent past injustices from being repeated. This paper illustrates these points with two cases from South Africa: first, a local policy implementation process concerned with the issuing of permits for subsistence fishing in the Dwesa-Cwebe Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the Eastern Cape and, second, a national process concerned with the re-opening of claims under South Africa's land restitution programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Case salience data are prominent in the US judicial politics literature. By contrast, such data is not available for most other courts. With the continued judicialization of politics in the EU and the CJEU's growing importance, court decisions could increasingly receive public attention. Inspired by US case salience data this paper provides insight into new data on newspaper coverage of 4357 CJEU decisions in eight EU broadsheets. Asking under which conditions newspapers report on judicial decisions, the article links theoretical expectations about the public salience of court decisions with empirical data on CJEU case salience. Multi-level regression models show that the salience of CJEU decisions varies depending on the standing of courts in national political systems, case characteristics, inter-institutional conflict, and the Court's public relations activities. These findings have implications for the perception and communication of the CJEU and provide initial insights into media attention for hundreds of CJEU cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the unfolding of translocal legal dynamics of power and resistance, examining the case of Brazilian people's lawyering and its encounter with and appropriation of strategic litigation, highlighting what is gained and what is lost in the process. While strategic litigation has its historical roots in the Global North, as part of the movement of public interest litigation, it has increasingly become a translocal legal practice through its transnational diffusion, pushed by transnational actors such as universities, foundations, and international NGOs. As a translocal legal practice, strategic litigation is reshaped in its encounters with local scenarios, actors, and dynamics, and acquires new meanings and features as it is adapted to respond to local challenges. At the same time, the diffusion of the practice also transforms local legal styles of lawyering that adopt it, thus posing the question of how power and identity are negotiated in transnational legal encounters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keong[1] rationally explores the themes of "troublesome knowledge" and "mutual learning" which both the neurosurgeon and the patient are participating in and the paper is an interesting read. Neurosurgery, as a specialty is unique due to the variety and number of procedures a neurosurgeon learns and performs during their career. With the neurosurgeon as a partner in the decision-making process, the patient will not view their provider as an adversary in the event of a poor outcome, thus hopefully reducing the risk of litigation. [Extracted from the article]

Homo sapiens – 'man, who knows' is the name given to humankind due to the knowledge and intelligence that they possess. Science and technology have escalated aspects of this human intelligence to its computerized platform in the form of artificial intelligence (AI). In the past few decades, AI has explored the scope for various expert systems. It has made a vast impact on various fields, namely, engineering, law, science, medicine, and business among others, by performing complex assignments and making our daily lifestyle more convenient. To deliver prompt services to beneficiaries where logic and decision making are involved, AI-based concepts can be applied especially in service sectors overwhelmed with pending tasks. As a developing nation, India is overburdened with a bulk amount of pending legal cases mainly due to the insufficient number of judges, legal professionals, infrastructure, etc. Following this concept, AI can be applied over the legal field to assist the legal system in resolving these pending legal cases and deliver prompt justice to the victim. Several researchers are conducting research works in this field to explore new dimensions of interdisciplinary research work. The main contribution of this research is to study existing research works, and to find out its challenges and future scope over the multivariate applications of AI in the field of law, so that a significant contribution can be made to assist the Indian Legal System for the prompt delivery of justice to the beneficiary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conflicts of laws in cross-border defamation cases are politically and culturally sensitive and their resolution has always been difficult. But the ubiquity of the internet has increased their frequency, complexity, and intensity. Faced with the realities of the online environment—including the virtual disappearance of national borders—several countries have acted unilaterally to preserve their values and protect their interests. Some countries enacted laws favouring consumers or other potential plaintiffs, while other countries took steps to protect potential defendants, including publishers and internet service providers. As a result, these conflicts are now more contentious than ever before. We believe there is a better way—even-handed multilateral action rather than self-serving unilateral action. In this article, we advance two proposals for multilateral action. The first is a set of soft law principles in the form of a resolution adopted by the Institut de Droit International in 2019. The second is a proposed Model Defamation Convention. After presenting and comparing these two instruments, we apply them to two scenarios derived from two leading cases (the first and one of the latest of the internet era) decided by courts of last resort. The first scenario is based on Dow Jones & Company Inc v Gutnick, which was decided by the High Court of Australia in 2002. The second is based on Gtflix Tv v. DR, which was decided by the Court of Justice of the European Union at the end of 2021. We believe that these two instruments would produce more rational solutions to these and other cross-border defamation conflicts. But if we fail to persuade readers on the specifics, we hope to demonstrate that other multilateral solutions are feasible and desirable, and that they are vastly superior to a continuing unilateral "arms race." In any event, we hope that this article will spur the development of other proposals for multilateral action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A classic avenue that victims can take to hold a corporation to account and obtain redress for the harms they have suffered is civil litigation. In the past decades, such attempts have been pursued against corporations in the tobacco industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the asbestos industry or industries working with asbestos and, more recently, the extractive industries. However, it is notoriously difficult for victims whose rights have been violated by corporations to obtain effective redress in civil procedures. A rich body of burgeoning scholarly literature and policy documents has addressed the extent to which systematic and institutional factors are obstacles to victims seeking justice for corporate misconduct. In this article, we will not focus on these systemic and institutional factors but on the role of corporate defence lawyers as their functioning also impacts the capacity of victims of corporate wrongdoing to effectuate their rights. We will address the question of what can be expected from a legal-ethical point of view from corporate defence lawyers advising and representing their corporate clients in large-scale civil liability cases. As a partial answer, we will develop a critique of amoral lawyering as a working philosophy in this context. In addition, we will touch upon the feasibility of a possible alternative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the conflicting professional ethical demands imposed on judges to, on the one hand, faithfully apply the existing law of the land and, on the other hand, do justice in the face of urgent global challenges such as ensuring an equal access to life-saving medicines. After establishing the precise nature of the professional ethical duties of judges (as opposed to those of lawyers) and noting the tensions they face when the duty of applying the law prevents them from complying with the duty of delivering material justice in the domain of access to medicines, the article then analyses the way this issue plays out in Latin America, a región where judicially-mandated access to medicines has been common. The article concludes by arguing that the Latin American experience suggests that judges around the world should take seriously the need to find a balance between their duty of deference towards public health authorities in this domain (when this is mandated by legislation), and the duty to do justice to individuals who cannot afford live-saving medicines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate litigation presents specific challenges to judicial decision-making, related to uncertainties caused by the border-crossing nature of the applicable legal frameworks and the complexity of the climate system. Judiciaries around the world often turn to process-based review when dealing with such uncertainties. In process-based review, judges focus on ensuring that decision-making procedures are fair and inclusive of all relevant interests, instead of on substantive policy choices. However, in the case of climate litigation, it appears that where judges wish to use process-based review to avoid substantive judgments in the face of uncertainty, they cannot escape uncertainty about who to include and exclude from the processes. We argue that judges engaged in process-based review must develop an ethic of responsibility for those who are excluded from the democratic process by judicial decision. This ethic of responsibility focuses on the moment before and after the judicial decision, calling the judge's attention to her responsibility to become receptive to the 'face of the other' and to reflect on the 'moral remainders' caused by her decision. While the decision on exclusion remains based on uncertain grounds, this approach helps ensure it is taken responsibly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the Banking Union from an economic-constitutional perspective. It argues that the areas covered by the Banking Union fall substantively mainly under the internal market area of EU law, where the microeconomic efficiency-based rationales and objectives are essential in legal assessments. In contrast, the euro area macroeconomic and stability-oriented rationales guided the decision on the Banking Union and the allocation of banking supervision to the ECB. The article claims that these different constitutional rationales, and the constitutional locus of the Banking Union, could have implications for the broader constitutional architecture and even for the EU legal order. Indeed, the microeconomic part of the EU economic-constitutional model suits legal approach to integration, but the macroeconomic rationales have a more problematic relation with law and courts. This could call for a resurgence of the internal market perspective in Banking Union going forward to remedy some of the constitutional concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article informs that the decision in Esben Finance Ltd. v Wong Kian Soon Tony has significant implications for the law of unjust enrichment in Singapore. The case involved payment of sums of money over a decade ago and touched on issues like time bar, illegality, lack of consent and vindication of property rights. The development of unjust enrichment law in Singapore post-Esben Finance Ltd. is worth monitoring.

The United States opioid epidemic continues to bring suffering to individuals and families as well as a crushing economic toll to communities. Stakeholders require resources to combat the epidemic. Firms that manufacture, distribute, and market opioids are the primary defendants of lawsuits, which play out in public view. This study investigates the public statements made by firms and media coverage in opioid lawsuits through the lens of their word choices. We use text analysis to uncover the similarities and differences in the language used to discuss the opioid crisis. The results provide guidance for marketing, public relations, and communications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Council of the North was regularly reinstituted under the early Tudor kings to keep the peace in a region that they saw as unsettled and susceptible to sedition. Yet this was not simply an imposition of governmental supervision from on high. The Council also served to meet popular demand for more accessible royal justice in the northern counties. Analysis of this provincial judicial activity and its potential benefits are limited by the lack of any central surviving archive for the Council today. This short article examines a series of judgments that it made between 1540 and 1543 in a suit between two Yorkshiremen, newly discovered among miscellaneous and uncatalogued legal materials at The National Archives. It provides a transcription of four orders made in this case, seemingly copied out of original order books, and contextualises them within the re-development of the Council under the Bishop of Llandaff in the late 1530s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In both tort and contract, the addition of a public body as a party to proceedings typically superimposes complex, policy-based considerations onto a given claim. This premise remains true in the context of a claim concerning restitution for unjust enrichment. The recent case of SurreyCountyCouncil v NHS Lincolnshire [2020] EWHC 3550 (QB) concerned a successful unjust enrichment claim by one public body against another to recover costs of specialist care for an autistic man which, although statutorily required, were not provided. The facts of the case and its decision provide fertile ground to explore the complexities that arise in an unjust enrichment claim where a public body is party to the proceedings. In particular, the reasoning of Thornton J encourages analysis of the policy-based reasons for restitution and the utility of the change of position defence in the context of an unjust enrichment claim against public bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, conservative legal advocates in the U.S. (and increasingly abroad) have engaged in large-scale—and often successful—efforts to gain religious exemptions from laws advancing reproductive and LGBTQ rights. But conservatives do not hold a monopoly on religion or religious liberty litigation. Religious minorities, progressive Christians, and other faith practitioners have brought a diverse range of religious liberty claims. This article surveys ten such lawsuits and analyzes their key differences with claims brought by social conservatives. It argues that advocates of religious pluralism in America and abroad should devote more resources and attention to progressive religious liberty claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a critical assessment of how blockchain technology is disrupting the monetisation of litigation claims through tokenization – and consequently further shaking up a revolutionary area in litigation financing. The significance in litigation financing is chiefly because tokenization presents securities to the general public in a far more accessible way than was previously the case – and even might enable non-accredited investors to participate in certain litigation financing investments for the first time (or with reduced barriers to entry). The assessment also considers the implications of a litigation pool that was already growing towards USD 20 billion, potentially now getting even larger. We further consider the regulatory challenges and the new moral hazards created in this fast-moving space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using 2003–2018 data from China, this study analyzes the effect of absence of controlling shareholders on litigation risk. The results show that companies without controlling owners face higher litigation risk, an association that exists mainly in respondent companies. Upon further analysis, we find that this negative effect is more pronounced when the ownership is highly dispersed, and less pronounced for companies with greater analyst followings. This study enriches litigation risk literature from the perspective of absence of controlling shareholders, and enlightens other related studies that focus on emerging economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the past fifty years, scholars have identified the following four ways that criminal defendants in the United States have used gay and trans panic defenses in murder cases involving victims who were gay men and transgender women: (1) insanity, (2) diminished capacity, (3) provocation, and (4) self-defense. While scholars have studied the first three defenses for gay men, little scholarship exists about the gay panic cases involving claims of self-defense. Additionally, there is a paucity of research regarding the trans panic defense. To address these empirical gaps, this research note uses open-source methods to study similarities between 99 homicide cases that occurred in the United States where criminal defendants made a gay or trans panic argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Holistic defense, a client-centered model that relies on team-based operations, has emerged in recent years as an alternative to traditional public defense practices. There is some evidence that holistic defense improves client outcomes, yet no research to date has evaluated client perspectives of holistic defense among adult clients. In this study, we hypothesize a relationship between holistic defense and increased client trust, perceptions of procedural justice, and legal and extra-legal outcomes. We examine public defense from the client perspective through in-depth interviews (N = 36) coded deductively, comparing the experiences of clients of holistic defense (n = 20) with those of traditional public defense (n = 16). We find that distrust and cynicism are pervasive in both client samples, but the holistic defense model provides tangible ways to build trust with clients, bolster perceptions of procedural justice, enhance legal and extra-legal client outcomes, and increase client satisfaction. Prior research has demonstrated the importance of procedural justice in terms of client satisfaction, compliance with court decisions, and acceptance of legal authority. However, the public tends to distrust court actors, which erodes procedural justice. We demonstrate that, in addition to both legal and extra-legal client benefits, holistic defense has the capacity to build client trust and bolster perceptions of procedural justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, mining industries in post-conflict environments led to the development of an abundance of literature on Canadian imperialism and its negative impact on human rights, especially in Guatemala. However, little knowledge exists on Canada's support of strategic human rights litigation (SHRL) projects for the most vulnerable groups affected by the Guatemalan armed conflict and extractive activities. This article explores this contradictory commitment to SHRL through a case-study of Canada's support of the rule of law in post-conflict Guatemala. This article argues that Canada's participation in Guatemala's securitisation processes demonstrates Canadian economic and security objectives in the extractive sector as well as self-affirmation goals among donors. Based on field interviews and Access to Information requests, this article provides theoretical and empirical insights on SHRL projects in post-conflict countries with extractive resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In March 2020, stringent social distancing measures were introduced across England and Wales to reduce the spread of Covid-19. These measures have presented significant challenges for the family justice system. This article sets out the findings of interviews conducted with professionals in the North East of England who have represented or otherwise supported litigants in private and public children proceedings since social distancing measures were introduced. The findings reveal that whilst practitioners are broadly positive about their experiences of shorter non-contested hearings, they nonetheless have concerns about the effectiveness of remote/hybrid hearings in ensuring a fair and just process in lengthy and complex cases. In particular, the findings indicate that the move to remote hearings has exacerbated pre-existing barriers to justice for unrepresented and vulnerable litigants. The aims of this article are not to 'name and shame' any particular court but to highlight evidence of good practice in the North East of England and provide scope for improving practitioners' and litigants' experiences within current restrictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the relationship between the law of director liability reduction (DLR) and the level of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Using unique Korean institutional data, we show that firms that do not employ liability reduction coverage engage more heavily in CSR-related activities. This is primarily to control the litigation risk. Firms that have not adopted the DLR are vulnerable to litigation risks, and therefore, they strategically use CSR to hedge such risks. We also employ the propensity score matching approach and show that endogeneity does not drive the result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the development of human rights discourse in Korea by focusing on some overturned cases by the Constitutional Court of Korea that declares new types of rights and offers new interpretations on existing human rights. While creating new human rights through court decisions have been criticised by those concerned about 'rights inflation' for devaluing the currency of human rights, this article argues that it is a natural process evolved along various aspects of a constantly changing society and increasing social demands. Moreover, the author argues that it is a desirable process in a democratic society because it enables us to empower many citizens, including the previously marginalised, to seek a less discriminatory society by distributing authority to speak out about unfairness and injustice. Introducing some empirical cases where the judicial decision considered constant changes in social situation and reflected on them in overturning precedents, the author stresses the need to look at the background and social circumstances wherein new rights emerged from a social and cultural perspective of law to better understand the human rights discourse, as well as elevate the level of human rights protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Joseph Beauharnais's story illustrates the dilemma created in cases of hate speech. The government and courts of Illinois decided that in Beauharnais's case, it should not be protected. In a legal proceeding that has been cited more than three hundred times, just more than half of the US Supreme Court justices agreed with this verdict. After reviewing the societal and legal environments in which this story occurred, this article examines Beauharnais's White Circle League literature, the means Chicago's press and other organizations used to counter it, the legal ramifications of Beauharnais's rhetoric, and the aftermath of the Supreme Court's ruling. The authors supplemented resources from a substantial FBI file with additional government documents, newspaper articles, and court cases. This research reveals that many in Illinois—and some Supreme Court justices—considered the racist nature of Beauharnais's expression intolerable. Furthermore, the study demonstrates the role of Chicago's alternative press in shutting down the White Circle League. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]