In Scotland, like England, possession plays a part in landownership. In Scotland a non-owner may acquire a title to land by the operation of prescription;1 in England the title of an owner may be lost by limitation2 but an easement can be acquired by prescription,3 as can a servitude in Scotland.4 Because the acquisition of ownership in Scots law is by the operation of prescription, both a title and possession are necessary,5 whereas in England only possession is required. Although the theory behind and the purpose of adverse possession are different in each jurisdiction, as are the periods of possession, the result in many cases will be similar. The purpose of this article is to look at the similarities and the differences, and to consider recent cases on possession in each jurisdiction to show to what extent, if at all, one jurisdiction may learn from the other. The Prescription & Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973 codified the law and, although it shortened the period of prescription, cases decided under the previous law, notably those on the requisites of possession, are still relevant.

There is a question mark over the future of the nation-state in Europe. National monetary policy has been transferred to the European level in most European Union member States. Over the next ten years the EU will have a stronger role in defence and foreign policy, immigration and law enforcement. The very policies that supposedly define the concept of national sovereignty are no longer the exclusive domain of national governments.

The European Court's efforts to locate the outer limits of Article 30's control of national measures have been discussed before in these surveys of current developments in EC law.1 The Court was tempted to use Article 30 to catch a wide range of measures that affected trade even where the rules applied in an even-handed manner to all traders. The most notable example of this expansionist trend was found in the so-called Sunday trading cases, in which Article 30 was exploited to challenge rules restricting commercial activity in England and Wales even though the rules did not put cross-border strategies at any particular disadvantage. The Court pursued an erratic course before finally ruling the laws compatible with Article 30.2 Academic comment, though nuanced in its detailed appreciation of the Court's stance, was largely convinced that Article 30 had been extended beyond both its intent and necessary function in the process of market integration.3

As part of the conditions for WTO accession, China is committed to a number of additional obligations stipulated in the accession documents. This article will mainly focus on the contingent trade instruments in this context, which WTO Members are entitled to take against products of Chinese origin. In this regard, the WTO rules to be examined include the buffering mechanism under Sections 15 and 16 of the Accession Protocol and the textile-specific safeguard mechanism under paragraph 242 of the Working Party Report. The discriminatory and non-beneficial nature of the latter makes it the most unfair component in China's accession. In some cases, these China-only instruments also go against some fundamental WTO principles. For example, revivals of grey-area measures and the bilateral approach are fairly evident therein, which are no longer advocated and even prohibited under the WTO system.

The 1985 European Communities Directive on Product Liability1 aims to harmonise member State product liability rules and to improve the level of protection of victims by basing the liability of producers for physical injury and damage to personal goods on the proof that the victim's damage was caused by a defect in the product supplied. On 19 May 1998, ten years after the deadline for transposition, France finally enacted legislation incorporating the Directive into national law.2 The Directive was incorporated into English law by Part I of the Consumer Protection Act 1987.