Clinicians should be aware of the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court in providing a ‘safety net’ to protect ‘vulnerable’ adults who are not within the scope of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) or the Mental Health Act (MHA) 1983. Many situations in which the inherent jurisdiction has been deployed have been to safeguard vulnerable adults where there is abuse, coercion or undue influence, but the person does not lack decision-making capacity under the MCA. We explain the nature of the inherent jurisdiction, including descriptions of concepts surrounding ‘vulnerability’; as an intervention of last resort, we consider what statutory alternatives may exist, including safeguarding law under the Care Act 2014; we discuss decision-making capacity in relation to contact with others and, using real cases, the types of order that may be made under the court's inherent jurisdiction. It is important to be mindful that although there may be a legal remedy to safeguard this ‘vulnerable but capacitous’ group, there is a delicate and challenging balance between protecting those at risk and respecting their autonomy.

Who should have the ultimate say over a child's medical treatment? A series of high-profile withdrawal of care cases have highlighted the full extent of the courts’ authority to make decisions on behalf of children in the medical context. In both the Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans litigation, the courts have made clear that they have the power to make medical decisions for children at the point that child's welfare is engaged. All courts involved in both cases affirmed the orthodox position that the threshold for judicial intervention in disputes about medical care of children is the welfare of the child, often referred to as the “best interests” approach (referring to both the threshold and the test applied to determine what should be done). While no new point of law has been decided in these cases, they are important in that they confirm just how expansive the inherent jurisdiction of the courts in such cases is, extending as far as to prevent parents from removing their child to another jurisdiction to pursue alternative treatment. In this paper, we argue that the current threshold for intervention is too low. We argue that prima facie decision-making authority about a child's medical care should rest with the child's parents, affording them the ability to choose between the range of medical options available. This authority should yield only where the parents’ decision carries a “serious risk of significant harm” to the child, at which point the court then has the authority to intervene. When it does so, the court should then apply the best interests approach.

This article considers the enforceability of arbitration clauses which are included in trust documentation. It focuses on two main questions. The first is whether internal trust disputes are capable of being settled by arbitration. The article offers arguments in favour of the arbitrability of such disputes. It then addresses the question of whether parties to an internal trust dispute can be forced to arbitrate, rather than litigate, where the trust documentation contains an arbitration clause. It is argued that there are real difficulties in the argument that such clauses can be enforced as arbitration agreements, under the ordinary arbitration statutes, but that the court could potentially enforce such a clause under its inherent jurisdiction to control its proceedings.

The ICJ in its judgments on the preliminary objections in the Legality of Use of Force cases held that it had no jurisdiction to hear the claims. Despite the unanimous concurrence in that result, it is clear that there were deep divisions within the Court as to the ground on which that decision should have been reached; only a bare majority subscribed to the reasoning that the Court was required to rule on the question of its jurisdiction ratione personae in relation to Serbia and Montenegro's uncertain status within the United Nations prior to 2000. The minority judges were highly critical of the choice of that basis of decision, in particular given its apparent implications for other cases pending before the Court.