Pre-charge concerns in relation to balancing the interests of all parties, while maintaining one of the core foundations underpinning the criminal justice system – the presumption of being ‘innocent until proven guilty’.

The issue of pre-charge identification has been the subject of debate in recent years following the publication of the identity of a number of celebrities who were arrested in relation to allegations of historic sexual abuse and were subsequently released without charge.

This chapter explores the alignment of the EU data protection and consumer protection policy agendas through a discussion of the reference to the Unfair Contract Terms Directive in Recital 42 of the General Data Protection Regulation. This non-binding provision refers to the need to assess the (un)fairness of pre-formulated declarations of data subject consent to personal data processing. Through this lens the introduction of the Directive on Contracts for the Supply of Digital Content and its relationship to the data protection and privacy framework is also explored. The protections provided by both the data protection and privacy and consumer protection frameworks aim to bolster the decision-making capacity of individuals. However, as this chapter outlines, there are potential conflicts when the respective frameworks are assessed together.

This article examines some of the limits of reporting schemes as a tool for addressing business-related human rights risks and for engaging business in a collaborative effort to improve human rights. Australia’s Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth) (MSA) is the latest example globally of a legislative scheme intended to foster corporate action on such risks within businesses’ operations and supply chains. Some such schemes require firms to implement human rights due diligence (HRDD) measures, as envisaged by the 2011 UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. However, the MSA’s model is best described as a disclosure or reporting regime. Such regimes do not require businesses to take HRDD measures; rather, they only require businesses to report on any such measures that they have taken during the relevant reporting period. In this article, we analyse some of the assumptions underlying the design of reporting-based schemes. We then consider one practice used by firms facing supply chain scrutiny: social auditing. We caution against an over-reliance on this practice, which is not synonymous with HRDD. It does not necessarily promote fulsome, non-cosmetic reporting compliance or foster corporate action on underlying human rights risks. We finally offer some alternative approaches that could improve the effectiveness of measures to address human rights risks in supply chains.

There is ongoing concern that Britain’s courts are places that are overwhelming, disorientating and confusing for court users. Asylum seekers are some of the most marginalised people in society and existing research highlights the difficulties they face in disclosing evidence throughout the legal process. Without an accessible process, appellants may be unable or unwilling to speak and participate in their appeal, and therefore important pieces of evidence may not be considered and justice may not be served. Although a lot of attention has been paid to asylum law by academics and policy makers alike, its day to day implementation often escapes critical academic scrutiny. This is arguably because relatively few non-legal scholars study the law, meaning that most analysis is focussed on substantive and doctrinal legal issues rather than questions of process, implementation and experience. It is also extremely time consuming to observe a sufficient number of hearings to be able to draw general conclusions about day to day issues.

Our project adopts an inter-disciplinary perspective on the day to day workings of asylum law within the UK’s asylum appeal hearings. In the following sections we report on a project which examined what happens during asylum appeals by closely observing them from the public areas of hearing rooms. Our observations ran from 2013 to 2019. We complement the perspective our observations offer with interview evidence from appellants as well as others involved in the process.

Co-authors: Nick Gill, Jennifer Allsopp, Andrew Burridge, Daniel Fisher, Melanie Griffiths, Jessica Hambly, Jo Hynes, Natalia Paszkiewicz, Rebecca Rotter and Amanda Schmid-Scott.

Investment treaties and investor-State arbitration have both been subject to sustained criticism and calls for reform in recent years. Critics have called, inter alia, for a ‘rebalancing’ of treaties to address perceived asymmetries between States and investors, and for a reconnection of investment law to other bodies of law. As reform discussions have matured, analysis of how to address these asymmetries and fragmentations in investment law have become increasingly nuanced. Contributing to this line of scholarship, Martin Jarrett‘s book tackles difficult questions associated with when an investor’s ‘faultworthy’ conduct should impact the analysis of a host State’s responsibility for internationally wrongful conduct under an investment treaty. Jarrett’s book introduces and examines three defences to investor-State arbitration claims, which are each based on an investor’s contribution to investment damage and/or an investor’s misconduct in connection with a protected investment. Jarrett’s analysis holds important implications for the apportionment of liability between States and investors for their contribution to the injury at issue in an investor-State arbitration claim.

The office of the ombudsman is much misunderstood. Is it better viewed as part of the executive or the judiciary? Is it a fragile institution, unprotected with security of tenure? Is it a ‘toothless tiger’? The one constant in the face of such inquiries is that ombudsmen don’t seem to care, or at least carry on with great effectiveness as though they don’t. I would argue in any case that such queries are beside the point and that the one thing that must be understood about the ombudsman is that it is an office with a particular purpose.

This article examines the potential impact of the populist challenge to International Law on the United Nations Security Council. The Security Council is often criticized as ineffective, unprincipled, and an anachronistic mechanism that reflects a power balance from the past, rather than the realities of today. The article argues that the rise of populism is likely to further erode the Security Council’s legitimacy and efficacy. At the same time, however, it emphasizes the need for greater nuance in the way that both the phenomenon of populism, as well as the relationship between national and international concerns, are understood and framed. Taking these complexities into account, the Article explores three scenarios that could result from an escalating crisis of Security Council legitimacy. The first involves reform and renewal. The second comprises retreat and realignment. The third encompasses reimagining the international peace and security architecture and creating something new.

This essay explores some of the parameters and merits of a putative argument that the announcement of June 19, 2018 that the United States would withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council might most properly be understood as but one manifestation of a wider political backlash within the US (and indeed other Western democracies) against the multilateral human rights system epitomized by the Council. There are two prongs to this argument. First, populist-nationalist political sentiment at home simultaneously fuels and is fanned by strident high-profile diplomatic critiques (or even rejections) of global bodies such as the Council. Second, the nature and force of this backlash constitutes a systemic threat to the future of the post-1945 rules-based international order, especially since it comes mostly from the superpower whose values-based rhetoric and leadership has perhaps done most to advance the global human rights agenda in the modern era.

The relationship between corporate law and corporate practice is complex. So too is the relationship between the different types of corporate law rules — from primary and delegated legislation, through listing rules and ASIC orders to corporate constitutions. Corporate lawyers tend to respond to this complexity and diversity by implicit understanding than by conceptual framework. This article offers one way of conceptualising the complexity of corporate law rules and their relationship to corporate practice. Drawing on Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ influential 1987 article ‘Law: A Map of Misreading. Toward a Postmodern Conception of Law’, the article looks to cartography as an unexpected source of ideas to assist in understanding the shape of modern corporate law rules.