IN the 2001 census, nine per cent of the population of England and Wales were not classified as white. Racial tensions undeniably exist and it is probable that amongst the individuals randomly selected from the electoral roll to serve as jurors there will be some with race-related prejudices. By this we mean the inclination to prejudge others using pejorative stereotypes based on perceptions of “race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin”.

IN any season, it would be an honour to speak as a Sir David Williams Lecturer. But no season could be better for me than this one. For my daughter, Jane Ginsburg, is here at Cambridge, thriving in her year in the Arthur Goodhart Visiting Chair, thoroughly enjoying her affiliation with the law faculty and Emmanuel College, Sir David’s College (and, from 1627 to 1631, John Harvard’s too).

IT is now well settled in English law, as well as in several other common law jurisdictions, that when their company is in some form of financial difficulty, directors cannot ignore the interests of their companies’ creditors, but rather they have a duty to their company to consider those interests. This is all well and good, but while this general principle has been stated on many occasions by various courts, the courts have been slow to define important aspects of this responsibility. There are two major issues that have not been clarified. The first is this: from what point is the duty to consider creditor interests imposed on directors? There has been no unanimous judicial pronouncement on this issue, and this has produced some uncertainty. We know with some certainty that the duty does not operate where a company is clearly solvent. At the other extreme, we have certainty in that courts have said that the duty does apply where a company is insolvent.

IN a previous article it was contended that for the purpose of the conflict of laws the structure of immaterial property law (which term is used here to include patents and the like) is exceptional. Due to its privileged character accorded by the sovereign local authority it is territorial in the dual sense that such laws are strictly confined in their operation to their country of origin and that within that territory the application of foreign immaterial property law is excluded by its inherent limitation. In English and Commonwealth law this insight was concealed until recently by the assertion that the courts could only exercise jurisdiction in respect of claims based on their own national intellectual property law. Jurisdiction was thus functionally linked to the exclusive sphere of the applicable law.