By Myriam Hunter-Henin, University College London In one of the 2019 Reith Lectures, entitled Law and the Decline of Politics, Lord Sumption questioned the role of courts in adjudicating controversies over human rights: “In a secular democracy, what is it that makes rights legitimate if not the decision of representative bodies? What is the source, [...]
By Alex Powell, City, University of London In August 2016, the Home Office issued version 6 of their Asylum Policy Instruction: Sexual Orientation in the Asylum Claim (hereafter: 2016 API). The policy is designed to guide decision-makers in determining the qualification of sexuality based refugees. The policy has been heralded as a step towards analysing [...]
By Arletta Gorecka, University of Strathclyde Competition law faces the challenge of digitalisation. The multitude of EU competition law goals provide a framework for concerns of effects on growth, innovation, quality, choice and friction. The lack of standardised approaches to data collection and privacy assessment poses problems for competition law, since the digital economy offers [...]
By Mollie Gascoigne, University of Exeter Law School, @recogandreform It is perhaps tempting to assume that all people within a demographic think and behave in the same way. Indeed, the law in particular is an ally of uniformity. But what happens when this logic is applied to the trans community? This post reports the preliminary [...]
By Ethan Shattock, Department of Law, Maynooth University COVID-19 has raised numerous issues surrounding the ability of social media platforms to assuage concerns about whether self-regulation can effectively tackle false and harmful content online. This broader debate has often been steeped in questions surrounding the limitations of freedom of expression, a right that is [...]
By Arwen Joyce, University of Leicester Photo credit: Kim Juwon Temporary labour migration is occurring all over the world. Over 50 countries operate temporary migrant worker programmes that employ an estimated one-third of the world’s 110 million migrant workers. (Martin 2015, 718) Ruhs observes that temporary migrant worker programmes vary in design but tend to produce [...]
By Jill Dickinson, Sheffield Hallam University (@Jill_Dickinson1) The SLSA's Annual Conference is a key date in the calendar for many of us; providing opportunities for presenting research, developing collaborations, building contacts, and a welcome chance to catch up with colleagues after a busy year of teaching and research! After putting together another jam-packed session [...]
By Jed Meers (University of York), Mark Simpson (Ulster University), and Ciara Fitzpatrick (Ulster University) The ‘Social Rights, Citizenship and the Welfare State’ stream has been part of the fabric of the annual Socio-Legal Studies Association conference for the last three years (successfully graduating from a theme in 2016). It has gone from [...]
By Roger Cotterrell, School of Law, QMUL How does official regulation encourage responsible personal behaviour in the face of the pandemic threat to life and health? The Coronavirus Act 2020, which received Royal Assent on March 25th, provided, among much else, ultimately coercive powers for public officials, including police, to remove a person for screening [...]
By Juliet Brook, Portsmouth Law School, University of Portsmouth As we adjust to a life of Google Hangouts, Zoom meetings and Houseparties, it seems that very few physical encounters cannot be replicated remotely in some way or another. Making a will, however, is an exception. In England and Wales, in order to make a [...]