This article rejects the position that individual responsibility and collective responsibility are opposing and incompatible points of view about how to deal with misfortune. It proposes that we should distinguish between two forms of individual responsibility. One form of individual responsibility, the “social view”, is not just compatible with collective responsibility, it also cannot be attacked without simultaneously attacking collective responsibility. The other view of individual responsibility, the “asocial view”, is indeed incompatible with collective responsibility, but it is equally incompatible with the social view of individual responsibility. The distinction allows us to understand collective responsibility as lifting the burden of individual responsibility to compensate others we have harmed, rather than as lifting the burden of looking after oneself, and thus better illuminates the relationship between the welfare state and tort law than the conventional view.

This article considers how third parties may be held personally liable for harm inflicted by, and upon, the intoxicated. It charts the development of ‘alcohol liability’ in Canada and Australia and then goes on to demonstrate how this novel category of liability for the acts of others is beginning to work its way into the English law of tort.

This paper argues that the pari passu principle of insolvency law does not fulfil any of the functions often attributed to it. It does not constitute an accurate description of how the assets of insolvent companies are in fact distributed. It has no role to play in ensuring an orderly winding up of such companies. Nor does it underlie, explain, or justify distinctive features of the formal insolvency regime, notably, its collectivity. The case-law said to support the pari passu principle serves actually to undermine its importance. And the principle has nothing to do with fairness in liquidation. The substantive argument in the paper concludes by examining the actual role of the principle. The arguments made here have important implications for almost every debate about insolvency law, from the status of secured and preferential creditors to the appropriate role of corporate “rescue” procedures.

The article examines the different roles played by private and public intergenerational support obligations in England and France, assesses their impact on elderly people and their carers and suggests possible ways in which the law might be used to alleviate some of the difficulties.

Recent decisions relating to commercial transactions have raised issues about the limits of the courts’ jurisdiction to interfere with contractual terms, even where the terms seem to yield unjust results on breach. The author argues for a reconceptualisation of the ancient equitable doctrine of relief against forfeiture, as one which ensures that rights taken by way of security should never allow a secured creditor to recover more than his secured debt. Building on roots in the law of mortgages, this requires the court to characterise the substance of the parties’ bargain. It can, in common with the law of penalties, be understood as implementing a mandatory policy which allows the parties full freedom in crafting their primary obligations, but denies them full freedom in deciding what shall be the consequences of a breach of a primary obligation. The author argues that the restatement fits the contours of the existing law, and the requirements of corrective justice.