‘therapy’ is a legal concept of considerable import, traditionally juxtaposed with, but separate from, research and also, to some degree, marking the boundaries of legitimate medical intervention. the recent case of simms highlighted these issues, in addition to which novel clinical interventions were the subject of specific recommendations in the bristol royal infirmary inquiry report. this article subjects the notion of therapy to analytical scrutiny and considers the extent of proper clinician discretion to innovate and, albeit much more superficially, how medicine should itself evolve. it advocates a new, more (patient) protective model which should generate confidence in the ethical character of contemporary innovatory practices.

the world bank has in place a set of guidelines for assessing the impact of bank-funded projects on indigenous peoples and requires investors to produce detailed reports and ensure for the provision of adequate compensation. the tendency is to preserve sub-saharan indigenous social structures without inquiring whether a particular indigenous group finds itself oppressed within such structures and wants to escape from them. the bank’s compensation policy should strive to remedy social imbalances if that is the wish of indigenous societies.

understanding law-making requires coming to grips with cognitive schemas, practical wisdom of agents involved in the production of law, as agents may interpret or apply the law according to socially accepted mental schemas developed as a result of socialisation in families, schools, universities and other social settings or in the course of exchange in professional settings. a case study on the conduct of officials of the european commission seeks to illustrate this point. this looks at tacit understandings regulating the conduct of officials of the european commission, engaging in the production of a legal proposal or in the implementation of a legal measure. such interaction may be successful, or less successful, depending on how contentious a legal file is, but is underlined by certain understandings, particular norms of conduct, as to how things are get done. in uncovering shared understandings, the article looks at modes of co-operation in working parties and shared files, promotion procedures, mobility, and how reputation is valued and acquired. the thesis advanced is of important cognitive schema, anthropological category of praxis, regulating the law-making process inside the european commission is compromise.

modern life presents us with new, as well as perennial perspectives upon death. this essay explores how we might articulate an apposite conception of rights in relation to death, in a time of a declared respect for individual autonomy and waning adherence to religious belief, and considers these questions with particular reference to the challenges to law and state made by dianne pretty in the months leading up to her death. to such an applicant, with a ‘lay’ experience and apprehension of the role and meaning of law, the prognostications of the court regarding the status of the claim must have seemed surreal indeed – especially where disputable, patchwork value-systems are called upon to lend authority to the decision. the essay concludes that such peregrinations have implications not only for the individual claimant, but for the credibility of law and associated ethics and that the writings of existential philosophers on the subject of death can assist in modelling a more consistent, secular notion of ethics in relation to assisted suicide.