Nuisances come in many and varied forms: factories and playgrounds, boats and roots, bells and smells, to name but a few. By contrast, remedies for nuisance come in basically two forms; the injunction and damages. Despite this a person complaining of nuisance is far better off than a plaintiff in many other tort actions. This is because what is frequently complained of in nuisance actions is a continuing activity rather than a bygone act and therefore in addition to an award of damages there is the option of a remedy by way of an injunction forbidding continuance of the nuisance. In the past, judges have seized upon the injunction as the most effective way of protecting the plaintiff's property rights. However, in recent years there have been suggestions that the injunction may not always be the best remedy, when looked at from other than exclusively the plaintiff's perspective. Much of the criticism has come from American academics and has been founded largely upon economic analysis of the efficiency of the alternative remedies. There has been relatively little discussion of the problem by economists and lawyers in this country, with the notable exceptions of the excellent article by Ogus and Richardson, “Economics and the environment-a study of private nuisance ”

The origin and growth in continental law of the doctrine of unjustified enrichment is not merely an object lesson of the greatest importance to comparative lawyers. It is also of peculiar interest to English lawyers because it affords an admirable illustration of the working of the system of precedent in the continental countries. Moreover, it furnishes abundant proof—if any be needed—of the fact that an elaborate system of rules based on judicial precedent can, and does, exist side by side with the provisions of codes which in their inception were designed to prevent case law from coming into existence.

Four hundred years ago this April, Edward Coke of Trinity College, Cambridge, was admitted to the Inner Temple, an event momentous not merely in the history of the Inn but also in the history of the common law. For it was in 1572 that young Coke began to attend the courts and to observe the decisions there, to listen to Bendlowes and Plowden and Dyer as they opened for him the secrets of jurisprudence. He was to continue his attendance at Westminster Hall for forty-four years, and from 1579 to record all the important cases which came to his notice, It is, therefore, an auspicious moment to remember Coke's achievement as a reporter of cases, a matter of particular interest in “that famous University of Cambridge, alma mea mater,” to whose legal offspring Coke's literary works were especially addressed.

Most modern writers in restitution assume that that the theory of “implied contract” has somehow been disproved or discredited. Yet the justification for this is weak, and begs important questions about the nature and methodology of “genuine” contract law.This article argues for the continued usefulness of “implied contract”, and applies it as the basis of significant portions of the modern law of restitution.

EU ‘general clauses’ on fairness offer significant potential for improved consumer protection. However, the Supreme Court has interpreted the unfair terms general clause and a related provision by reference to an underlying ethic of self interest and self reliance'; and the same approach is possible under the unfair practices general clauses. This is a significant threat to consumer protection. A more protective ethic may be intended at EU level; and a particular line of argument may be needed to persuade the Supreme Court of this.

A revolution in a country is complete in law as soon as its courts hold the new regime to be lawful. If such recognition is delayed, those in power may wax impatient but they know only too well the advantage which the seal of legality carries. In this way is the stage set for a game of manoeuvre between the courts and the rebels, as happened in Rhodesia.

[1] Section 174(1)(b)(i) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 requires a court passing sentence to explain to an offender in ordinary language the effect of the sentence.

Recent decisions in the courts have encouraged discussion of the extent to which the common law does or should place a high or higher value on political expression. Some scholars argue for a more explicit recognition of the high value of political speech, and would seek, for example, to “constitutionalise” defamation laws. Others have adopted a more sceptical attitude to the desirability of importing American approaches to freedom of expression generally or to the privileging of political speech as a category.

The sharp contrast between the vast number of detailed statutory provisions defining particular offences and the small handful of widely phrased provisions concerned with the general principles of criminal liability is, perhaps, the most striking feature of English criminal law, and, like the continued co-existence of both common law and statutory offences, one of the unhappy consequences of England's failure to enact a penal code. Among the few statutory provisions laying down general principles of liability or excuse there is none which comprehends a defence of necessity, and so commentators have inevitably looked to the case law for an answer to the question: Is there in English criminal law a defence of necessity? by which they have meant: Is there a defence of necessity in the sense in which there is a defence of, for instance, insanity, or infancy, or duress or prevention of crime? To the question understood in that sense, the answer returned must, it is thought, be a plain No. To ask and to answer the question in that sense may, however, be misleading: it may be more revealing (as this paper suggests) to ask, How does English law handle the plea of necessity when it arises? What, in other words, is the juristic technique employed?

The Human Rights Act enables applicants in judicial review and other legal proceedings to complain that a public authority has violated a Convention right, but only if they are “victims” of that violation. The victim standing test was adopted from the Strasbourg institutions without any consideration being given in Parliament to the appropriateness of such a test in the domestic context. It is argued that the suitability of a particular standing rule for a given jurisdiction cannot properly be evaluated until a theory explaining the juristic function of standing rules has been identified and articulated. Two theoretical aspects of standing rules in public law cases are suggested here, in order to provide a framework in which to assess the appropriateness of the victim test for judicial review cases raising Human Rights Act arguments.

Slade's Case is of such significance in the history of the common law that it has, quite properly, been the subject of more scrutiny and discussion in recent years than any other case of the same age. The foundation of all this discussion has been Coke's report, which is the only full report in print. The accuracy and completeness of Coke's version have hardly been challenged, and the discussions have assumed that it contains almost all there is to know about the case. This assumption must be discarded if we are to understand the contemporary significance of the case.

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.

The history in the eighteenth century of attorneys and solicitors—those who “practiced the forms or ‘mechanics’ of the law”—was first investigated in depth in Robert Robson's monograph of 1959. More recently, and following upon Geoffrey Holmes's suggestive survey of the lawyers in Augustan England, articles by M. Miles and A. Aylett have enlarged our knowledge of the social origins and geographical distribution of attorneys over the century as a whole and offered detailed analyses of attorneys' business in the West Riding and Cheshire during the latter half of the century.

IT is highly unlikely that those persons declared habitually vexatious litigants pursuant to statute would know to curse Alexander Chaffer for their predicament. Nevertheless, it was principally the litigation mania of Mr. Chaffers that stirred the British Parliament to enact the Vexatious Actions Act 1896. This piece of legislation empowers the law officers to apply to the High Court to have a person declared a habitually vexatious litigant, with the consequence, if an order is made by the judge, that the person cannot initiate any legal proceedings whatsoever without prior leave of the Court.

Computerisation facilitates instantaneous and direct links between all of us in our work and social lives. At the same time, and counter-intuitively so, securities are increasingly held indirectly through chains of custodians that operate between issuers and investors. This disconnects investors from issuers and can significantly reduce the value of assets. The regulatory framework does not prevent this effect. UK-regulated holders of client securities should be required to hold these directly in the name of the investor. At an international level, it is worth asking whether the technology underlying bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can be used to create an un-intermediated securities ledger connecting investors and issuers directly.

In an imperfect world, imperfect men have never lived in harmony; the consequences have been inevitable, regrettable and, often, productive of legal history. Even the neatest householder, the most peaceable citizen, is sometimes a bad neighbour. He chooses to fiddle when I choose to nap; he permits his dog to howl at midnight; he kindles his back-yard fire where its smoke will choke my back-yard guests. More serious, and more relevant in terms of legal consequences, he manufactures strange and noxious odours which he allows to escape from his premises or he throws waste material into the stream which wanders across his property on its way to my own land. Disregard for the convenience, well-being and property rights of others is not unique to the twentieth century; the under-lying problem of the bad neighbour was well enough known to the twelfth. Then, and long thereafter, one man's mill needed more water to grind efficiently and so he diverted the millstream with only passing regret, if that, for what the diversion might mean to his neighbour's mill downstream. His sheep escaped from pasture and so he raised a hedge across an entry, thereby forcing his neighbour's flock to find a new and less convenient path.

Response could always be immediate and forceful; self-help has the virtues of speed, simplicity and cheapness. But unless the creator of the offending mill or hedge was willing to accept his neighbour's response, what was originally an attempt at unilateral solution of a problem could well escalate into a quarrel culminating in violence out of proportion to the issue.