FREEDOM of contract is a fundamental principle of English law, but it is of course qualified by numerous protective regimes, some common law, most statutory nowadays, which protect vulnerable parties from untrammelled, unequal free bargaining. It is, quite rightly, exceptional for an experienced commercial party, negotiating at arm's length and with the benefit of specialist professional advice, to succeed in invoking such a regime to escape being bound by what he freely agreed. Yet, in Cavendish Square Holdings BV v Makdessi [2013] EWCA Civ 1539, this was precisely the controversial result.

This article argues certainty in trusts is better understood by recognising a fourth certainty: “distributional certainty”. Distributional certainty is required in private trusts that involve dividing the property between beneficiaries: their shares must be clear. Distributional uncertainty is not, as usually understood, merely an instance of uncertainty of property: it has differing consequences, special resolution techniques, and may explain “administrative unworkability” in discretionary trusts. Distributional certainty is not required in charitable trusts. But this is not, as usually understood, merely an instance of the rule that charitable trusts do not need certainty of objects: it is an independent proposition.

ON 16 May 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered its Opinion 2/15 concerning the competence of the EU to conclude the Free Trade Agreement with Singapore (EUSFTA) (ECLI:EU:C:2017:376). The Opinion was requested by the Commission which argued, with the support of the European Parliament (EP), that the EU had exclusive competence to conclude the EUSFTA. The Council and 25 of the Member States countered that the EUSFTA should be concluded as a mixed agreement – that is, by the EU and each of its members – because some of its provisions fell under the shared competence of the organisation or the competence of the Member States alone.

At this juncture it is convenient in connection with the older authorities concerned with obtaining money or chattels by false pretences to mention a point of some importance in relation to the Theft Act 1968. That is an Act designed to simplify the law—it uses words in their natural meaning and is to be construed thus to produce sensible results; when that Act is under examination, this Court deprecates attempts to bring into too close consideration the finer distinctions in the civil law as to the precise moment when contractual communications take effect or when property passes.

This introductory essay reviews the history of the Journal, divided into two stages: the period from 1921 to 1953; and that from 1954 to today. It examines the changing institutional arrangements, personnel, as well as some of the highlights in the content of the Journal. If there is a theme, it is that the Journal was established by and developed its reputation because of the efforts of many of the outstanding scholars at Cambridge who over the decades offered the outputs of their talents to the Journal; and that the Journal has used that reputation more and more to attract the scholars outside Cambridge – indeed from all over the world. Whatever the aims of those who established the Cambridge Law Journal in 1921, and without much self-consciousness, the Journal incrementally acquired the status and practices of a learned journal. Finally, the essay reflects on the future, in particular the challenges of digitisation, open access and inclusivity.

If Hohfeld's analysis of fundamental legal conceptions is valid it promises to afford a very simple means of confirming or refuting Maine's thesis that social progress has hitherto been from status to contract. Anthropology may elucidate the issues of human development thereby put at stake. Legal theory may corroborate or contradict the outcome of testing Maine with Hohfeld. Beyond that, however, the process of verification depends neither on empirical data nor speculative thought. Instead of social science or legal philosophy, it is the outcome of abstract logic. On this account Maine's thesis that status has hitherto given way to contract among the progressive societies is at risk of being dismissed as a logical fallacy.

The New Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines heresy as an opinion or doctrine contrary to the accepted doctrine of any subject. In Pye v. Graham [2002] 3 W.L.R. 221 the House of Lords robustly confirmed the orthodoxy relating to adverse possession and discounted discordant voices as heretical. There is probably general relief that no fireworks have disturbed the established law in its twilight years, but for this writer there is some regret over a wasted opportunity. Yet again in an adverse possession case, a result has been reached that caused some of the judges misgivings about the fairness of the outcome, but there was no serious attempt to try to address this by subjecting the whole area to a fresh scrutiny and considering whether there was any merit in heretical views.