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The aim of this paper is to reflect critically on the current health promotion initiatives targeting overweight individuals in Western countries. The paper’s methodological approach is to draw on analytical findings from my and other sociologists’ empirical work on how the problems of overweight people are being defined in various settings in Denmark, England, Australia and the US. I try to illustrate how health promotion targeting overweight individuals can not only be seen as a project aimed at securing longer lives and fewer illnesses for people carrying excess fat but also a moral project that, in a more general sense, aims to tell people how they ought to live their lives. I link this moral aspect of health promotion to a) the medicalization tendency in current Western society (e.g. a growing pharmaceutical industry and its economic interest in transforming the human condition of being overweight into a treatable disorder) and b) the strong focus on individual risk today. One of the main arguments in the paper is that health in relation to overweight is primarily defined from a biomedical perspective that praises certain physical measurements of the body, as well as dominant societal values such as  self-responsibility and self-control, and that a combination of biomedicine and these dominating values can lead to health promotion becoming a problematic moral endeavour. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

By the mid-1980s, the civil justice system in many common law jurisdictions was reportedly 'in crisis', crippled by excessive delay, cost and complexity in proceedings and out of reach of ordinary people. During the next two decades, law reform commissions and other agencies were charged with identifying problems with the civil justice system and with making recommendations for its improvement. Many agencies identified legal education as a factor contributing to the perceived crisis and made recommendations for change. The rules of professional conduct governing lawyers were also considered to be inadequate to the task of reorienting lawyers towards non-adversarial collaborative ways of professional practice. This paper canvasses reforms made in respect of the civil justice systems in Australia, England (and Wales) and to a lesser extent, the United States. The majority of reforms have been procedural in nature, brought about largely through legislative intervention and judicial activism (in the form of rules of court and practice directions). The paper examines the ways in which legal education has responded to the challenges presented by civil justice reform and also identifies amendments made to relevant professional practice standards. It is argued that, despite the recommendations for reform, changes to legal education have been piecemeal and fragmented and only minor changes have been made to professional standards of conduct. The paper goes on to discuss the various ways in which to regulate the behaviour of lawyers and the reasons why reform brought about by legislation, rules of court and practice directions is not sufficient to effectively change the conduct of members of the legal profession. It highlights the importance of education and codes of conduct for lawyers. In the final analysis, neither more rules, nor changes in legal education, provide a complete solution. The answer lies in a mixed approach-some modification to procedural rules of adversarial engagement, activism on the part of judges, some rules adjustment, and better education. It is argued here that more is required of both law schools and professional associations to support two decades of procedural reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the legal protection of the journalist–source relationship from both sides and the underlying interests involved. The paper begins by analysing why the relationship deserves protection. The position of journalists at common law is analysed with a discussion of the application of the principle established in Norwich Pharmacal v Customs and Excise to journalists. The development of immunity from contempt in s. 10 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 is examined to illustrate the ideological clash between the judiciary and journalists. The impact of the Human Rights Act and decisions of the European Court of Human Rights are analysed to assess whether this will lead to a change in attitudes in the UK. Finally, the potential threat to journalists posed by compelled evidentiary disclosure in criminal cases is reviewed, with a particular look at ‘special procedure' material. The US section begins with an analysis of the law at federal level, the decisions of the Supreme Court, including the leading decision of Branzburg v Hayes, as well as the role the legislature has played. The paper then analyses protections provided at state level, with a case study of the California shield law and a review of Californian jurisprudence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]