DOES EU law entitle a woman who had her genetic child through surrogacy to paid leave of absence from employment equivalent to maternity leave or adoption leave? That is, in essence, the issue the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) was faced with in Z, C-363/12, EU:C:2014:159 (“Z”), a reference for a preliminary ruling from the Equality Tribunal (Ireland), and in C.D., C-167/12, EU:C:2014:169 (“C.D.”), a reference from the Employment Tribunal, Newcastle upon Tyne (UK). The Opinions in the two cases (by A.G. Wahl, EU:C:2013:604 and A.G. Kokott, EU:C:2013:600, respectively), while reaching opposite conclusions, were both delivered on 26 September 2013, giving the Court the benefit of two well-reasoned analyses on which it could base its deliberations. The judgments of the Grand Chamber, which essentially followed the Opinion of A.G. Wahl, were delivered on 18 March 2014. This note focuses on Z, while referring to C.D. when appropriate.

This paper argues that the problems commonly associated with the joint enterprise doctrine might be alleviated by supplementing the cognitive mens rea standard of foresight with a volitional element that looks to how the defendant related to the foreseen risk. A re-examination of the case law suggests that a mens rea conception of foresight plus endorsement might be within interpretative reach. The paper considers possible objections to such a development but ultimately rejects them. It concludes that it is not necessary to wait for Parliament to put in place reforms: joint enterprise is a creature of the common law, and the common law is able to tame it unaided.

Computerisation facilitates instantaneous and direct links between all of us in our work and social lives. At the same time, and counter-intuitively so, securities are increasingly held indirectly through chains of custodians that operate between issuers and investors. This disconnects investors from issuers and can significantly reduce the value of assets. The regulatory framework does not prevent this effect. UK-regulated holders of client securities should be required to hold these directly in the name of the investor. At an international level, it is worth asking whether the technology underlying bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can be used to create an un-intermediated securities ledger connecting investors and issuers directly.

I argue that process and substance are two aspects of the public law form and that the form conditions the content of the law. The reduction of a political programme to the explicit terms of a statute involves a conversion of policy into public standards, which produces a kind of legal surplus value. It brings into being a particular type of public standard – one that permits the operation of the principles identified by Lon L. Fuller as the desiderata of the inner morality of law, and which enables individual claims of right based on legal principle to be adjudicated.

This article investigates an apparent, convergent shift in common law jurisdictions away from the traditional principle of joint and several liability towards proportionate liability in cases involving multiple wrongdoers, and argues that this is best seen as an unprincipled drift. The shift is often presented by defendants and legislators as a logical extension of the ethics of comparative (contributory) negligence doctrine. Here we deny any ethical connection between the two doctrines. We also suggest that there is no good, generalisable ethical or pragmatic argument in favour of proportionate liability in its own right and caution jurisdictions currently considering reform of the joint and several liability rule against leaping to any such assumption.

This article is concerned with the availability of “proprietary restitution” in cases of mistaken payments. It is argued that the mistake of the claimant is an insufficient justification for proprietary restitution, but a close analysis of the case law demonstrates that the presence of additional factors can justify the availability of proprietary restitution in specific circumstances. The basis of proprietary restitution is to be found in the breach of a duty which arises separately from the claim for unjust enrichment. The significant contribution of this article is the analysis that knowledge merely creates a duty to maintain the fund until restitution is made, and that knowledge cannot establish the breach of this duty. Importantly, breach of this duty is established by a second condition which is demonstrated by the wilful misconduct of the recipient. It is this conduct which justifies the imposition of the constructive trust. By adopting this analysis, the proprietary claim in the context of mistaken transfers can be classified as forming part of the law of wrongs, rather than the law of unjust enrichment.

How should a civil court use a relevant conviction? Some have argued that a civil claim contesting the factual basis of a conviction should be struck out as an abuse of process unless new evidence is presented which “entirely changes the aspect of the case”. Such a high evidential requirement is wrong in principle, inconsistent with section 11 of the Civil Evidence Act 1968, and unjust in practice. The law should recognise that there are two distinct types of cases. The first is concerned with truly abusive claims, where the later civil suit is brought for an improper purpose or otherwise similarly abusive; there a high level of new evidence should be required. The second deals with challenges to convictions which are in principle permissible; there, if on the facts they have no real prospect of success, an application for summary judgment by the other party is the solution.

In October 2010, the UK Parliament brought into effect law that replaced the partial defence to murder of provocation with a new partial defence of “loss of control”, applicable to England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Although it retained some key features of its controversial predecessor, the new partial defence was in part designed better to address the gendered contexts within which a large number of homicides are committed. In examining the impact of the reforms, we will focus on long-held concerns about the treatment of sexual infidelity as a trigger for loss of control in murder cases. The article undertakes an analysis of English case law to evaluate the way in which sexual infidelity-related evidence has influenced perceptions of a homicide defendant's culpability, for the purposes of sentencing, both before and after the implementation of reform. The analysis reveals that, in sentencing offenders post reform, the higher courts have failed to follow the spirit of the reforms respecting the substantive law by effecting a corresponding change in sentencing practice.

The relevance of public interests in private law is at the heart of some central divides in tort scholarship. This paper argues that public interests pervade private nuisance cases. The uncertain and contested nature of public interests, and the absence in both the case law and the scholarly literature of an abstract definition of what is to count as a public interest, do not prevent these matters from playing a significant role in tort. In these circumstances, it is important to reflect on how we might set about articulating the public interest. This paper argues that administrative decisions that are intended to serve the public interest can in some cases provide a defensible vision of public interest for the purposes of private law. An examination of the process by which regulatory decisions were reached can provide indicators to assist in identifying and evaluating the strength of claimed public interests.

Liability for independent contractors generally poses few difficulties in the law of contract, whereas in tort it is a vexed question. The difficulties are only compounded by the governing concept: the so-called “non-delegable duty”. This article explains the differences and argues that no easy parallels can be drawn from the contractual position to answer the riddles in tort. Neither does “assumption of responsibility” help. There is undoubtedly a case for recognising vicarious liability for independent contractors when businesses and public bodies alike now outsource so many of their functions. This issue needs to be confronted squarely, not through unconvincing contractual analogies.

This article explores Philip Pettit's recent attempts to extend his republican theory of justice and legitimacy to the international sphere in accordance with his ideal of “globalised sovereignty”, with a specific focus on his treatment of international law and institutions. It uses the practice of international law and institutions, with examples largely drawn from international economic law, to test the assumptions built into Pettit's theory. It then considers whether and how some of those assumptions might need to be revised in light of the legal, institutional, and practical constraints of the international domain.

The common law regarding the formation of contracts made through an agent on behalf of a principal suffering from latent mental incapacity is still undeveloped. This article argues that, in general, such a principal can confer actual authority to contract on an agent so long as the agent (reasonably) is, and remains, unaware of the incapacity. On the same basis, an incapax principal can manifest to a third party that such an appointment has been made, thereby creating apparent authority in the agent.

This article explains the rule that leases have a certain term from the outset by placing the lease within the wider context of the system of estates in land. There are no perpetual estates in land. However, some uncertain terms risk creating genuinely perpetual estates, conflicting with the nemo dat principle. All leases for uncertain terms cause considerable difficulties if a superior estate comes to an end. The article shows that the common law addressed this difficulty, not entirely consistently, before 1925, but there are still real difficulties in the operation of escheat were uncertain terms to be permitted.