The concept of authority is one which may be explicated in many ways—normatively, psychologically, sociologically, politically. That is to say, one may seek to show how it is used in the contexts of normative justifications or of assertions about psychological, sociological or political phenomena. As a normative concept, “authority” relates to situations in which there is given as a reason warranting that something should, must not, or may be done the fact that a particular individual or individuals has so laid it down.

There is a tendency in contemporary contract law for judges to “never say never” and permit an open-ended exception from the rule. This nebulous exception is designed to cater for the rare instance where application of the rule would be undesirable in the interests of justice. However, this kind of imprecise exception is deleterious in terms of the unpredictability it generates, as well as the attendant increases in time and costs that result. The “never say never” approach is to be discouraged in contract law where commercial predictability, while certainly not inviolable, nonetheless remains a weighty goal deserving of continued deference.

When the holders of endowed chairs give inaugural lectures it is common for the lecture to begin with a respectful tribute to the achievements of the distinguished scholars in whose shoes the incumbent now stands. In the case of a personal chair this is obviously not possible. It is appropriate, though, that I should none the less acknowledge here the intellectual debts that I owe to others. But those who might be mentioned are very numerous. And in order to avoid having to draw invidious distinctions and being bound to offend someone, by commission or omission, I will mention only two giants of scholarship who have both had a profound influence upon me. They are both no longer with us but they remain influential in the work of others including myself.

Christopher Staughton, a former Lord Justice of Appeal, writes of the four principal rules for the interpretation of written contracts. First, there is the exclusion of negotiations and subjective evidence of intention. Secondly he considers what material can qualify as background evidence, or as some would say matrix. Thirdly, there is the rule that a meaning which is less obvious =N but still consistent with the words used =N may be preferred. Fourthly, he deals with the very limited extent to which evidence of market practice is admissible.

The article contrasts recent observations of Lord Hoffmann in two cases in the House of Lords with other authority, both ancient and modern.

The relevance of public interests in private law is at the heart of some central divides in tort scholarship. This paper argues that public interests pervade private nuisance cases. The uncertain and contested nature of public interests, and the absence in both the case law and the scholarly literature of an abstract definition of what is to count as a public interest, do not prevent these matters from playing a significant role in tort. In these circumstances, it is important to reflect on how we might set about articulating the public interest. This paper argues that administrative decisions that are intended to serve the public interest can in some cases provide a defensible vision of public interest for the purposes of private law. An examination of the process by which regulatory decisions were reached can provide indicators to assist in identifying and evaluating the strength of claimed public interests.

In certain circumstances the fact that an agreement is made under pressure is sufficient reason to invalidate what would otherwise be a good contract. The rules providing for invalidation in such cases are found in the textbooks under the headings of duress and, to a less extent, undue influence and unconscionability. That the existence of pressure sometimes is and should be sufficient to invalidate a contract is not controversial. Few would argue that a contract entered at gunpoint ought to be enforced and the law is clear that such agreements are not enforceable. What is less clear are the principle(s) that underlie such decisions and the proper scope or reach of those principles. These questions are important for both the theory and practice of contract law. Theoretically, because any adequate account of contract law—a doctrine that in the orthodox understanding holds out the ideal of freedom as a core value—must explain that part of the lawin which individual freedom is most directly at issue. Practically, because the recognition in English courts over the last twenty-five years that the defence of duress may be invoked in situations other than threats to a person or even threats to a person's goods (in short, the acceptance of “economic duress”), together with the recent near-elimination of the rule that a promise to perform an existing duty is not good consideration, has meant that courts are regularly required to consider how far the scope of duress should extend.

The Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 allows third parties to sue for breach of contract even though they are not parties to the contract. The Act also allows third parties to take the benefit of other types of promise, notably the benefit of exclusion clauses. This article explains the common law background to this important legal development and the Law Commission’s preparation for this legislation (L.Com. No. 242). But the main discussion is devoted to the Act’s effects. In particular, the author examines in detail the test for ascribing to a third party a right under the 1999 Act and the rules determining when the third party’s rights cease to be revocable by the main contracting parties.

All government is a conspiracy. Each governmental conspiracy has a constitution as its alibi. The constitution describes the way in which the political power of the society is concentrated and places the source of that concentration somewhere other than in the mere fact of power. Because of that dislocation, the constitution is the source not only of political power but also of political duty. The subjection of the organs of government to the constitution runs parallel to the subjection of the people governed to the constitutional power of the organs of government. The constitution justifies constitutional power and constitutional duty by making both of them derivatives from one and the same source.

The prior question of whence the constitution itself derives its authority is, for all everyday practical purposes, answered by the mere fact of the constitution. The constitution is self-proving in practice because it is used as the source of maxims affecting the behaviour of those who exercise physical force with actual impunity, or who control its exercise. To preach or to act against the constitution may or may not be permitted by the legal rules of the given society (themselves derived ultimately from the constitution), but it will in any event be ineffective whenever it comes into collision with power exercised, to the point of physical force, under authority derived from the constitution. A revolution occurs when the exercise of constitutional power, to the piont of physical force, ceases or is overridden by the exercise of unconstitutional power, if necessary by the application of greater physical force.

The legal régime of the sea has been a persistently important theme of the law of nations from the beginning; but it has probably never been more dominant than it is at the present time, touching as it does so many of the most vital interests of nations, such as the supply of food and of energy; politically sensitive questions like defence and immigration; and some of the most pressing aspects of pollution and conservation problems. With this renewed importance of the law of the sea have come also new doubts about its content and meaning, and even about the underlying legal principles. Half a century ago, the law of the sea was relatively simple, certain and stable, at any rate in time of peace. The classical dispute between the closed sea and open sea doctrines seemed at last to have been finally resolved on the basis of a kind of dualism by which the coastal state was to have sovereignty over a belt of territorial waters, subject to the general right of innocent passage, and the high seas outside that maritime belt were to be res communis, not subject to acquisition by title of sovereignty, but subject to an international régime which was spelt out in terms of the so-called “freedoms” to be enjoyed by the flags of all nations, the most important being the freedom of navigation and the freedom of fishing.

If a baby is born alive only to die some time afterwards from pre-natal injury, for what crime is the perpetrator liable? Coke considered that if the injury was caused after quickening by an attempted abortion or by a violent assault upon a pregnant woman, the answer to this question was murder, even if the defendant did not intend or foresee death or serious injury to a fully-born child. The purpose of this article is to evaluate Coke's rule together with the authority in support of it and to consider whether, if it still exists today, it ought to be incorporated in the proposed Criminal Code.

Hart and Honoré's book is a thorough and scholarly study of the concept of causation in Anglo-American law. Closely reasoned, with full reference to the literature and a considerable treatment of Continental theories, it represents a serious attempt to restate the law in tort, contract and crime in an intelligible way. In future, any serious student of the subject will have to take note of it. Unfortunately for the authors they have backed a loser in supporting Re Polemis and criticising the foreseeability test; and since much of their argument depends upon their opinion on this question, their book must now be accounted largely out of date, if the decision of the Judicial Committee in The Wagon Mound receives the acceptance that seems probable. In respect of the general theory of causation, however, the discussion retains its intellectual interest; and the chapters on contract and crime, though relatively short, are largely unaffected by The Wagon Mound.

This article considers prescription as a customary standard of legal validity which enables judges to identify certain customs as law even though the status of those customs as law cannot be ascribed to a law-making authority. Although claims as to customs having prescribed are often bound up with claims as to the quality (as opposed to the validity) of custom as law, prescribed custom is properly conceived to be a feature of the rule of recognition – a criterion by which a court can identify, and declare, a custom as already existing law as distinct from both custom without the force of law and custom turned into positive law.

BARRY Beavis fought the law of contract and the law won. To the disappointment of motorists nationwide, he failed to show that an £85 shopping centre parking fine was an unenforceable penalty at common law (or under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999). Ironically, he lends his name notwithstanding to a leading case which confirmed the existence of the penalty doctrine (a joined commercial challenge also failed on the facts): ParkingEye Ltd. v Beavis; Cavendish Square Holding v El Makdessi [2015] UKSC 67; [2015] 3 W.L.R. 1373.

The preliminary ruling by the European Court of Justice in the Seymour-Smith and Perez case about the scope and meaning of indirect discrimination has done little to clarify this perplexing concept. The ruling does not tell the thousands of short-service employees whose claims were stayed pending the litigation whether the qualifying period of two years’ continuous service for the right not to be unfairly dismissed is contrary to Community law. Nor does it provide clear standards by which disparate impact is to be tested, nor the relevant time for assessing the legality of an allegedly discriminatory measure, nor the conditions for establishing objective justification. More generally, these proceedings under Article 177 (now Article 234) of the EC Treaty reveal a failure by the Court to perform its function of facilitating the national court in interpreting and applying Community equality law in a way which would be consistent and uniform throughout the Union.

To entitle an article “the future of information technology law” may appear unduly adventurous to those who would argue that the subject has yet to establish a present. The purpose of this contribution is therefore to give some information about the current reach of the subject as well as the directions in which it is likely to grow.