In R. (Pro-Life Alliance) v. British Broadcasting Corporation [2003] UKHL 23, [2003] 2 W.L.R. 1403, the House of Lords held that the broadcaster's decision to prohibit a Party Election Broadcast by an anti-abortion group was a lawful exercise of its general duty not to transmit offensive programmes. This duty applies to all terrestrial broadcasters and exhorts them to ensure that their transmissions “do not include anything which offends against good taste or decency or is likely to be offensive to public feeling” (para. 5(1)(d) of the Agreement between the BBC and the Secretary of State for National Heritage dated 25 January 1996 and section 6(1)(a) of the Broadcasting Act 1990).

There can be few minoritieswith the possible exception of those who are suspected of involvement in international terrorism, whose due process rights are currently suspended under Part IV of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001who suffer greater unpopularity than asylum-seekers. Yet these are the very groups for whom enforceable human rights are most essential, in order that they may protect themselves against the tyranny of the majorityand of its elected representatives. This proposition is vividly illustrated by the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, section 55(1) of which provides that the Secretary of State “may not provide or arrange for the provision of support such as food and shelter for asylum-seekers if he is “not satisfied that the claim was made as soon as reasonably practicable after the person's arrival in the United Kingdom”.

The decision of the International Court of Justice in LaGrand that its provisional measures under Article 41 of the ICJ Statute were binding (Judgment of 27 June 2001) resolved a question which had occupied international lawyers for many years. The question of the legal effect of provisional measures granted by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) recently arose in Mamatkulov and Abdurasulovic v. Turkey (Judgment of 6 February 2003). Like the International Court, the ECHR has the power to “indicate interim measures, but this power is not derived from a provision in its constitutive instrument, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, but rather from Rule 39 of the Rules of Court. On the basis of earlier jurisprudence (Cruz Varas v. Sweden, Judgment of 20 March 1991, Series A, No. 201; Conka v. Belgium, Decision of 13 March 2001), it had been thought that interim measures indicated by the ECHR were not mandatory, but in Mamatkulov, the ECHR effectively reversed this position and held that its interim measures had binding force.

In 1983 the Turkish community in Northern Cyprus declared the independence of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). Following UN Security Council Resolution 541 (1983) which declared the purported secession from Cyprus invalid, the TRNC has remained unrecognised by all States except Turkey, on which it is heavily dependent, militarily and economically. The TRNC and the Government of Cyprus-controlled area of Cyprus are separated by a buffer zone under a UN peacekeeping force. Authorities on both sides restrict movement through the buffer zone.

In November 2002, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) applied for permission to seek an advisory declaration (by judicial review) on whether it would be illegal for the British Government to take military action against Iraq. The Divisional Court (Simon Brown L.J., Kay and Richards L.JJ.) gave CND permission to apply for declaratory relief on the basis of the importance of the issues before the court and the skill and cogency of CND's arguments, and agreed that the application was not premature. But the court refused the declaratory relief sought, holding that the question was non-justiciable and, on the basis that it concerned a question of international law and not English law, was also outside the jurisdiction of the court: CND v. Prime Minister of the UK and others [2002] EWHC 2759 (QB).

According to section 2(1) of the Homicide Act 1957 the defence of diminished responsibility is available where the defendant is charged with murder and he was suffering from abnormality of mind which “substantially impaired his mental responsibility” for the killing. The question for the House of Lords to resolve in Dietschmann [2003] UKHL 10, [2003] 2 W.L.R. 613 was how this defence should operate where the defendant was suffering from a mental abnormality, in that case arising from a grief reaction following the death of his girlfriend (who also happened to be his aunt), but where he was also heavily intoxicated at the time. Over the years a two-stage test has been developed by the courts to deal with such cases: see Egan [1992] 4 All E.R. 470.

If the criminal justice system malfunctions and causes someone damage, when can the victim sue the person responsible?

To this question, the traditional answer is “almost never. If the malfunction consists of imprisoning someone who was innocent, or prosecuting them without due cause, there is no civil liability except for acts done in bad faith; liability for merely negligent behaviour is excluded, on grounds of public policy. Where the malfunction consists of failing to catch a criminal who celebrates his continued freedom by causing further damageor in releasing one with similar effectthe same is true a fortiori, because the case is further complicated by issues of causation and novus actus interveniens. Thus in Hill v. Chief Constable of West Yorkshire [1989] A.C. 53 the House of Lords ruled that the Yorkshire police, however negligent, were not liable for their failure to catch the Yorkshire Ripper.

In Dennis v. Ministry of Defence [2003] EWHC 793, Buckley J. dealt with three points of principle relating to the law of nuisance. First, are some activities so vital to the interests of the State that their public benefit can act as a defence to a claim in nuisance no matter how intolerable they might be to neighbours, providing reasonable efforts are made to keep local annoyance to a minimum? Second, if a nuisance is established, can the public interest outweigh individual rights to the extent that a court can decline to make a declaration under section 21 of the Crown Proceedings Act 1947 even if the nuisance is something that no one should be called upon to endure in any location? Third, what is the significance, if any, of the Human Rights Act 1998 in relation to nuisance?

Where the Animals Act 1971 applies, keepers of animals are strictly liable for damage caused by their animals. Where it does not apply, liability is negligence-based. As a matter of fairness, one might expect strict liability when keepers are in a much better position to control the relevant risks than potential victimswhen, for example, the animals concerned are exotic creatures about which the general public can be expected to know little. As an economic matter, one might expect strict liability when the degree of harm flowing from the relevant accidents is more sensitive to the number of animals kept than to the level of activity of whatever the victim was doing. The Act, however, is only distantly built on these principles.

Actionstrength Ltd. v. International Glass Engineering In.Gl.En. SpA and others [2003] UKHL 17, [2003] 2 W.L.R. 1060 raised two issues of law: the nature of a guarantee caught by section 4 of the Statute of Frauds 1677, and the question whether one may be estopped from claiming that such a guarantee is unenforceable for want of formalities.

The first defendant (“Inglen) and the claimant (“Actionstrength) were contractor and sub-contractor, respectively, in the construction of a factory for the second defendant, Saint-Gobain Glass UK Ltd. (“St-Gobain”). In February 2000 Inglen owed Actionstrength 197,000, so that Actionstrength was contractually entitled to withdraw its labour. St-Gobain's representative promised (or so Actionstrength alleged) that if Actionstrength would continue to supply labour to Inglen, St-Gobain would do its best to ensure that Inglen paid Actionstrength and, if Inglen did not do so, that St-Gobain would itself pay Actionstrength, if necessary using monies due from St-Gobain to Inglen.

One could be forgiven for not predicting that a soldier from the army's elite SAS regiment, trained to withstand brutal torture and appalling interrogation techniques, would crop up in the law reports seeking relief from a contract on the grounds of duress and undue influence, but such was the unlikely basis of R v. Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales [2003] UKPC 22 (17 March 2003). During the 1991 Gulf War, R was a member of the famous SAS Bravo Two Zero patrol, dropped behind enemy lines but captured by Iraqi forces. After the war, former patrol members published books about the mission, which were also made into films. These publications were regarded by the regiment as inaccurate, distasteful and contrary to the SAS's traditional ethos of secrecy. The regiment (backed, in a poll, by over 96% of its members, including R) urged the MOD to adopt binding confidentiality contracts, to prevent any future disclosures, and it agreed to do so.

Students of the law of contract know that, because insurance contracts are contracts of “utmost good faith”, applicants for insurance must disclose “material facts” to the insurer concerned. Students may not know what the law says is material and might be surprised if they did. General contract law distinguishes a misrepresentation of fact from one of opinion. If facts are untrue, the contract may be rescinded, but unfounded opinions have no such effect. The prudent contractor must ignore mere gossip but not so, it seems, when contracting insurance.

Clearly, a medical opinion that an applicant for life or health insurance has cancer has to be disclosed: British Equitable Ins. Co. v. Great Western Ry. (1869) 20 L.T. 422. The opinion of Aunt Jane that the applicant looks peaky does not. Again, if the applicant has been charged with a criminal offence, he remains “innocent until proved guilty.

When the Queen visited Cambridge to open the new Law Faculty building in 1996, an exhibition concerning the law relating to horses was devised for Her Majesty's entertainment. A revised edition of the exhibition might cover two contributions made by horses to the development of the law in 2003: Mirvahedy v. Henley [2003] UKHL 16, [2003] 2 W.L.R. 882 on liability under section 2(2) of the Animals Act 1971 (noted above) and Habton Farms Ltd. v. Nimmo [2003] EWCA Civ 68, [2003] 3 W.L.R. 633 on the measure of damages for breach of warranty of authority by an agent.

Nimmo, a bloodstock agent, sometimes helped Williamson, a racehorse owner, to find horses, but he had no authority to buy on Williamson's behalf. On 12 October 1998 he agreed to buy a racehorse, High Spirits, from Habton Farms for 70,000, making it clear that he was acting as an agent.

In Rowe v. Vale of White Horse District Council [2003] EWHC 388 (Admin), [2003] 1 Lloyd's Rep. 418 Lightman J. held that the defendant Council could not succeed in a claim for restitution in respect of unpaid sewage services provided to Mr. Rowe, a successor in title to a former tenant of the Council. The former tenant had bought the house from the Council in 1982 and Mr. Rowe had bought the house in 1988. When the Council claimed payment for the services, Mr. Rowe brought proceedings for judicial review of the Council's decision. The Council's defence was based on a claim to restitution for services rendered. From 1982 to March 2001, the Council gave no intimation that it was entitled to charge for the sewage services and Mr. Rowe had no reason to believe that his payments to the Council and to the Thames Water Authority were anything other than all that was demanded of him.

Thirty years ago the Australian High Court described the law as “marching with medicine but in the rear and limping a little” (Mount Isa Mines v. Pusey (1970) 125 C.L.R. 383). Today this maybe an apt description of the lag between law and recent advances in genetic technology. In R. (Quintavalle) v. Secretary of State for Health [2003] UKHL 13, [2003] 2 W.L.R. 692 the applicants asked the court to declare whether embryos created by cell nuclear replacement (“CNR”) (a form of human cloning involving an enucleated human egg and a cell from a donor's body) were regulated under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, which was passed in an era when embryos were only ever created by fertilisation of an egg by a sperm.

How legally significant is the presence or absence of the genetic connection between a man and a child in the determination of paternity? The common law regarded it as all important and it is still the case that the status of legal father will generally follow proof, or in the case of marriage to the mother the presumption, of this genetic connection. This is the normal rule which will apply unless there is something to displace it (see, for example Bracewell J. in Re B (Parentage) [1996] 2 F.L.R. 15). Where assisted reproduction takes place, however, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 openly treats as legal parents some of those who may lack this genetic connection and denies legal parentage, in the case of licensed sperm donation, to those donating sperm despite their obvious genetic link with the child.

After White v. White [2001] 1 A.C. 596, to divide assets fairly between divorced spouses the court must consider all the relevant factors set out in section 25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 and then check the tentative award against the “yardstick of equality, providing good reasons for any inequality (p. 605). The decision of the Court of Appeal in Foster v. Foster [2003] EWCA Civ 565 is the latest instance in which the court has examined the proper application of the “yardstick.

A recent decision of the French Cour de cassation (Cass. Civ. 1re, 19 nov 2002, Banque Worms c. Epoux Brachot, J.C.P. 2002.II,10 201, concl. Sainte-Rose, note Chaillé de Néré, D.2003.797, note Khairallah) provides an interesting contribution to the recurrent debate, fuelled by the House of Lords request for a preliminary ruling from the European Court of Justice in Turner v. Grovit [2001] UKHL 65, [2002] 1 W.L.R. 107, over the availability of extraterritorial injunctive relief within the scope of the Brussels I Regulationwhether in the form of anti-suit injunctions in cases of parallel proceedings, or indeed of freezing orders under Article 31 in relation to assets situated in another Member State.

Many judgment debtors have assets in England and the English courts have wide powers to enforce both domestic and foreign judgments. In the past the courts have considered that garnishee orders (now called third party debt orders) could be made over assets abroad. However, the House of Lords has recently refused to grant such orders over bank accounts held with branches overseas. In Socit Eram Shipping Co. Ltd. v. Cie. Internationale de Navigation [2003] UKHL 30, [2003] 3 W.L.R. 14, Soc. Eram sought to enforce a French judgment, requesting a final third party debt order over various accounts held by the judgment debtors with HSBC in Hong Kong. The bank had a branch in London at which it could be served with the order. It argued that it was at risk of double jeopardy as the Hong Kong courts would not recognise the English third party debt order as discharging its liability.

Disciplinary investigations into professional misconduct allegations almost inevitably involve examination of documents held by the person under investigation. Where such documents attract legal professional privilege, belonging either to the professional's client or to the professional himself, the question arises whether the investigator can demand their production. That question becomes particularly acute where the investigation concerns the professional conduct of a barrister or solicitor, as in the recent New Zealand case, B v. Auckland District Law Society [2003] UKPC 38.