One of the more vexed questions for tort lawyers in recent times has been whether recovery in negligence lies for the what has been described as the ‘loss of a chance’. The exact definition of ‘loss of chance’ is unclear, but it is generally accepted that it refers to the loss of an opportunity to obtain or receive a desired outcome; for example, recovery from a personal injury. Accordingly, where a patient receives negligent medical treatment in circumstances where, even if the treatment was properly carried out, that patient might not have been cured it is said that the patient has lost the chance of being cured as a result of the treatment.

Of the four Consultation Papers produced by the Department for Constitutional Affairs over the summer of 2003, in many ways the most interesting was Constitutional Reform: A Supreme Court for the United Kingdom, not just for what it did say, but also for what it did not. For example, respondents were not asked whether the Government should replace the House of Lords with a Supreme Court or not. That was taken as a given. Yet the omission was all the more curious in the light of the fact, as subsequently became clear, that at least half of the current Law Lords do not favour the introduction of a Supreme Court.

The law of negligence has long been concerned not to countenance liability ‘in an indeterminate amount for an indeterminate time to an indeterminate class’. Nowhere, except perhaps in relation to pure economic loss, has this reluctance been more pronounced than in the context of negligently inflicted psychiatric harm. Without aiming to advocate a system of law that would create an increase in the workload of personal injury practitioners, this article attempts a thoroughgoing reappraisal of the bases of liability for psychiatric harm. More particularly, its primary aim is to accommodate liability for such harm within the current, tripartite framework governing the duty of care: that harm to the plaintiff be foreseeable, that there be a relationship of proximity between the plaintiff and the defendant and, that it be just and reasonable to impose a duty. Such an endeavour is both timely and necessary in view of the House of Lords’ recent insistence that in all cases-even those involving physical harm-all three limbs of the duty formula must explicitly be demonstrated.

A host of activities jeopardise the safety of an excised organ: an organ transported across local, regional, state or national boundaries could be damaged or lost in transit. A thief might snatch the organ from the possession of the transplant team; a transplant surgeon could use the organ for the treatment of their relative or patient, a celebrity or an influential political figure, instead of transplanting the organ into the properly selected and designated recipient. Also, the organ could be damaged maliciously by a third party. Furthermore, a live donor might change their mind after the organ had been retrieved, or the intended recipient might die before a scheduled transplant, after the organ had been retrieved from a live donor. In the above cases, the organ is in a state of limbo, prompting an enquiry into the appropriate remedial responses of the law for a claimant. Non-proprietary remedies might be helpful in the above scenarios, but fail to provide the necessary continuing control. Accordingly, the first section of this paper considers whether positive law recognises the existence of proprietary interests in excised organs; absent such protection, this paper suggests that the law should recognise proprietary interests in excised organs.

It is conventionally argued that because an artificially-intelligent (AI) system acts autonomously, its makers cannot easily be held liable should the system's actions harm. Since the system cannot be liable on its own account either, existing laws expose victims to accountability gaps and need to be reformed. Recent legal instruments have nonetheless established obligations against AI developers and providers. Drawing on attribution theory, this paper examines how these seemingly opposing positions are shaped by the ways in which AI systems are conceptualised. Specifically, folk dispositionism underpins conventional legal discourse on AI liability, personality, publications, and inventions and leads us towards problematic legal outcomes. Examining the technology and terminology driving contemporary AI systems, the paper contends that AI systems are better conceptualised instead as situational characters whose actions remain constrained by their programming. Properly viewing AI systems as such illuminates how existing legal doctrines could be sensibly applied to AI and reinforces emerging calls for placing greater scrutiny on the broader AI ecosystem.

Throughout the world, the corporate group structure has long proved troublesome to the creditors, and particularly the tort creditors, of undercapitalised subsidiary companies. In the wake of Australia's James Hardie asbestos compensation inquiry, Senior Counsel assisting the Jackson Special Commission, Mr John Sheahan QC, called for the Commission to ‘recommend reform of the Corporations Act so as to restrict the application of the limited liability principle as regards liability for damages for personal injury or death caused by a company that is part of a corporate group...’. Following this call, in May 2008 the Corporations and Markets Advisory Committee released a report on long-tail liabilities, making various recommendations for reform. Separately, legislation was passed making pooling available for insolvent group companies in Australia. This paper examines the long-tail liability suggestions and the 2007 pooling amendments. It will be argued that neither of these is adequate for the proper protection of tort creditors of insolvent subsidiaries. It then considers international alternatives which might satisfy Mr Sheahan's appeal for reform.

This paper attempts to analyse the extent to which elements of the criminal law admit uniform definition across offences, and the implications of that question. That debate contributes to recent scholarship on the scope, purpose and content of the general part. I argue that there are elements which can be defined uniformly, elements which cannot be defined uniformly and elements which, although they are subject to variation depending on offence context, ought to be considered in general by the courts. The considerations that are important in thinking about uniformity are outlined in each of these cases. This has implications for the way in which we think about the general part. Generality is a question of both degree and kind. Consequently, the scope, purpose and content of the general part are more complex than has previously been thought. In the final section I sketch some of the implications that this analysis of the general part might have for methodology generally and, in particular, for social theory.

The relationship between trade unions and the courts has always been a sensitive one, and no less so when the issue is how to deal with a union’s refusal to obey court orders. During most of this century enforcement has not been a serious problem because the nature of trade dispute law has meant that the courts have rarely had to establish their authority over trade unions; but during the era of the Industrial Relations Act 1971 and also since 1980 the situation has been rather different. This is because statute has drastically curtailed the ambit of lawful industrial action, and has also rendered unions directly liable, thus making conflict between unions and the courts inevitable.

As Sir Richard Eggleston has justly observed, ‘The whole subject of character evidence in criminal cases is complex and difficult and much has been written about it. Although this rings true for section l(f) of the Criminal Evidence Act 1898, the remoter areas of that provision still remain comparatively unexplored. This paper will concentrate upon the abnormal operation of sub-provisos (ii) and (iii).

Section 1 (f) provides that, if he elects to give evidence, an accused shall neither beasked nor required to answer ‘any question tending to show that he has committed or been convicted of or been charged with any offence other than that wherewith he is then charged, or is of bad character.’ The effect of this general prohibition is, in Cardozo CJ’s words, that ‘in a very real sense a defendant starts his life afresh when he stands before a jury.

Any project to draft a criminal code has to compromise between the desirable and the politically possible. It may be that the draft now produced by the Law Commission, or something like it, is the best that can safely be backed, though the contrast between it and the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code (which also had to take account of political realities, and yet has been adopted in many States) is a painful reflection on our stodginess. It is hard to avoid the impression that the Law Commission have been too cautious in their approach, leaning too much in favour of bare restatement of the existing law and against modifications that experience or reflection show to be necessary.

The use of proprietary estoppel to make or support claims to property is now common. Case-law tells us that the concept of unconscionability is central to a successful claim, but little guidance is provided as to what ‘unconscionability’ means or how it is to be established. It is often assumed rather than explained. This paper argues that unconscionability in fact has a reasonably clear meaning within the law of proprietary estoppel and that it can be used to define and confine proprietary estoppel within reasonably clear boundaries. It seeks to explain that proprietary estoppel is at heart an antidote to a lack of required formality in the creation or transfer of property rights and, consequently, that the proper meaning of unconscionability is linked to these formality requirements. Unconscionability is therefore not a cover for unregulated judicial discretion, nor a loose term to describe a general sense of unfairness, but a concept which can be used to discriminate objectively between valid and invalid estoppel claims.

Why does the mens rea of attempt require intention even though some lesser state of mind will suffice for the completed offence? What is the meaning of ‘intention’ in this context? Is intention required for all elements of the crime attempted or only for some? Can one draw a distinction between circumstances and consequences in this connection? Can crimes of negligence or of strict liability be attempted? Why do ‘impossiblc’ attempts cause such difficulty? Is there any meaningful distinction to be drawn between Anderton v Ryan and Shivpuri, or was Shivpuri the last word on the matter? It would be presumptuous to suggest that this article was the answer to all these questions: nevertheless it is suggested that light can be thrown on them by standing back and looking at the nature of a criminal attempt. The key to these and other puzzles, it is suggested, can be found in two concepts, the analysis of attempt as a crime with a missing element, and the notion ofintention as distinct from knowledge or foresight of consequences as stressed in Moloney and more recently by the House of Lords in Hancock and Shankland.

It is difficult to capture, even metaphorically, the nature of law as practised in the criminal appellate courts when considering the fundamentals of the subject -the basic principles of mens rea. If law is treated metaphorically as a science, allowing, as Lord Denning suggested, its principles to be revised by the demands of justice, in the way that scientific principles are revised by the demands of experimental data, then there should at least be a coherent development of the subject where identifiable principles of law are matched to a more sophisticated grasp of the requirements of justice.

Of course, such a formal image is less fashionable today than it once was, and a more ‘critical’ perspective of legal materials may be taken. But here, too, we lack a suitable image to convey the current state of the law.