One of the most contested issues in UK public law is how to calibrate the appropriate intensity of proportionality review in human rights adjudication. Here, the challenge lies in formulating a theory of intensity of review that can both comply with the constitutional framework introduced by the Human Rights Act 1998 (‘HRA’) and accommodate courts' varying levels of competence in different areas of litigation. This paper attempts to sketch such a theory in two steps. First, it argues that to fulfil the constitutional expectations brought about by the HRA, a minimum rigour of proportionality review should be observed. This baseline consists of requiring the government to demonstrate to the courts by means of cogent and sufficient evidence that a rights-limiting measure satisfies the distinct stages of the proportionality test. Secondly, this paper highlights the ways in which compliance with this baseline can nonetheless accommodate the courts' varying levels of competence in different adjudicative contexts. In particular, courts can vary the intensity of review once the baseline level of review is reached and adjust the nature of the evidence required from the government.

This paper examines the legal support available to incarcerated children when they leave custody. It argues that the current support provided to custody-leavers – which includes both ‘resettlement’ (provided by youth justice agencies) and duties owed to some custody-leavers under Pt III of the Children Act 1989 – may achieve criminal justice aims (such as preventing re-offending) but does not adequately protect the status and rights that all custody-leavers have qua child. When the child leaves custody her primary status is child, not offender, and therefore it is argued here that she should be entitled to the same legal rights as analogous groups of children; namely, care-leavers. It is suggested that the reason why care-leavers and custody-leavers are comparable groups to whom parity in legal rights should be accorded is because the four types of responsibility that underpin the state's obligations to care-leavers (reparatory, assumed, generational and equity-based) apply equally to custody-leavers.

This paper explores certain questions regarding whether the law concerning relief upon the dissolution of civil partnership and cohabitation should parallel that of marriage. It will be contended that while the principle of compensation does have an important role to play in the aftermath of de facto relationships, there remain reasons not to assimilate cohabitation fully with marriage – and in particular, not to apply the key principle of equal sharing that now informs divorce settlements in many jurisdictions, including England. On the other hand, an argument against assimilating marriage with civil partnership can be grounded in the fact that a civil partnership involves two parties of the same gender. This point generates room to argue that a presumption of equal sharing – to the extent that it rests upon compensatory rationales – may be less powerful in civil partnerships. Nonetheless, that claim can be circumnavigated by the argument for equal sharing as an independent principle – one applicable to civil partnership just as much as to marriage.

E W Hornung's character Raffles, first introduced to the public in 1898, not only aroused considerable interest at that time but created an enduring image of the suave, gentlemanly burglar far removed from the stereotype of the rough, professional thief more usually associated with the crime. This paper investigates both the creation of the character and the creation of the stereotype in the nineteenth century in an attempt to discover not only the secrets of the appeal of the Raffles, but also some of the characteristics of early criminological discourse, some of which may cast their shadows to the present day. It also highlights tensions between conceptions of ‘amateur’ and ‘professional’ status both in relation to the protagonist's lawful pastime, cricket, and his unlawful career of burglary.

England and Scotland have very different legal systems in relation to succession generally and intestacy in particular. Nevertheless, they have faced similar problems and tensions when attempting to reform the law of intestacy. This article considers the basic division of an intestate estate between spouses and children (and other issue). It is argued that prior to the twentieth century intestacy law in both jurisdictions was underpinned by a dynastic model in which the estate was preserved for successive generations. However, in the twentieth century the interests of the spouse became the primary focus of intestacy distribution. Recommendations (by law commissions in both jurisdictions) for further reform of the law are marked by a further intensification of the rights of the spouse (potentially leading to a further decline in the entitlement of children and issue). The Commissions have not only jettisoned dynastic intestacy, but also the earlier framing of intestacy rules based on the examination of wills and the ‘presumed intention’ of the intestate. Instead, the Commissions have preferred to formulate rules which are generally supported by empirical evidence such as public opinion surveys; and tempered by the aims of simplicity and administrative efficiency. This article contends that in order to create a division of assets reflecting acceptable standards, the aim of modern intestacy legislation ought to be the distribution of assets to those classes of family members who are likely to be the most economically vulnerable (such as aged spouses, minors and disabled adults). In any event, the ageing population and the needs of surviving aged spouses are likely to have a significant impact upon the framing of intestacy law in the future.

This paper seeks to develop a deeper understanding of the role of policy-based reasoning in the determination of duty of care questions. In order to do this, the first part explores the distinction between considerations of interpersonal justice and considerations of community welfare in the determination of duty questions. While imperfect, the distinction illuminates the nature of the factors taken into account by courts in determining duty of care questions and has practical as well as theoretical implications. The second part of the paper analyses the respective roles of interpersonal justice considerations and community welfare considerations in a sample of first instance and intermediate appellate cases from England and Canada. That study suggests that community welfare considerations play a far less significant role in determining duty cases at the first instance and intermediate appellate level than at the ultimate appellate level. Analysis of the cases also reveals significant differences between the English and Canadian courts in their approaches to the interpersonal justice and community welfare aspects of duty of care questions.

The business case for corporate environmental responsibility is the claim that behaving responsibly makes financial sense. It is impossible to exaggerate the contemporary significance of this claim, not least in legitimising environmental concerns in the corporate sphere. However, the business case is not without significant empirical and normative limitations, as is illustrated by the corporate environmental problem of supermarket waste. This paper evaluates enlightened shareholder value under s 172 of the Companies Act 2006 in light of such business case limitations. It suggests that s 172, by procedurally mandating the business case for corporate environmental responsibility, is a retrograde step which envisions not enlightened, but rather environmentally unenlightened, shareholders.

One of the concepts central to the ‘reconceiving’ of the ‘regulatory state’ during ‘the age of regulatory reform’ which we might trace back to the neoliberal revolution of the 1970s, has been that of the ‘hybrid’ form of economic organisation. Rejection of command-and-control regulation led, in the public sector, to the adoption of ‘marketmimicking’, a technique that claimed to replace the hierarchical direction of planning with the mobilisation of self-interest in ‘quasi-markets’, thereby merging ‘economic’ incentivisation with the ‘political’ stipulation of the markets' outcomes. In the private sector, institutions that had long been recognised to sit between contract and the company, of which the franchise had been the most thoroughly analysed within contract law, began to be regarded as ‘networks’.