Proposals for a new constitutional settlement have highlighted issues, many of them factitious, about the Human Rights Act. This paper suggests that the relationship of rights to duties is poorly understood, and that the majority of recognised rights already carry corresponding duties, but that to try to make the enjoyment of rights conditional on the fulfilment of duties is neither principled nor practicable. It is suggested that, using mutual respect as a sounder basis, a larger Bill of Rights can be contemplated. But good constitutions cannot be willed into being: pending the arrival of a constitutional moment, reform is likely to be a process of interest-group wrangling in which the most that can be looked for are some modest but necessary reforms.

The 1844 decision of the House of Lords in R v Millis – which apparently held that the presence of an episcopally ordained minister had been necessary to create a valid marriage even before legislation was introduced to regulate the formation of marriage – has universally been regarded as erroneous by generations of scholars. This paper shows that the outcome of the case was in fact correct, even though the reasoning of all but one of the judges was flawed. It explains why the case has been misunderstood, and why the misunderstandings it demonstrated have never been corrected.

I will argue that – as an exception to the general rule adopted in England and Wales – third parties, including victims, should in some circumstances be permitted to bring proceedings for (inter alia) judicial review of sentences, and other measures, imposed on offenders. Such proceedings should not be ruled out when parts of sentences, or other orders, are meant to affect the interests of individual third parties themselves, and the prosecution cannot reasonably be expected to be solely responsible for protecting those interests. However, I will also conclude that, from a public law perspective, there is a preferable solution. Third parties who may be adversely affected by sentences or orders imposed on offenders should sometimes be given a limited degree of involvement in the process leading up to the imposition of those sentences or orders. Recent legislation takes us some way towards this goal.

Truth commissions have an intuitive appeal in squaring the circle of peace and accountability post-conflict, but some claims for their benefits risk utopianism. Law provides both opportunities and pitfalls for post-conflict justice initiatives, including the operation of truth commissions. Rather than adopting a heavily legalised approach, derived from Public Inquiries, an ‘holistic legal model’, employing social science fact-finding methodologies to explore pattern of violations, and drawing appropriately on legal standards, may provide the best option for a possible Northern Ireland truth commission.

This paper examines the challenges of enrolling minors in biomedical research that does not offer participants any prospect of direct benefit. It does so in the context of the current Singapore regime for the protection of research subjects, and seeks to evaluate if this is adequate for the task. In the process, it reviews appropriate Commonwealth and US precedents, regulatory instruments and guidelines that bear on three main issues raised by such research, and makes some recommendations on how they might be better addressed: first, the protective ceilings of risk prescribed beyond which minors may not be exposed to. Secondly, the allocation of decision-making authority and processes employed before a minor is permitted to enrol in such research. Finally, the particular regulatory oversight mechanisms that are needed to improve ethical and legal compliance.

There has been considerable debate about how it would be possible to move from cosmopolitan normative theory to cosmopolitan legal practice. These debates range from an uncertainty about what specific moral and normative principles should underwrite cosmopolitan law, to how those requirements should be institutionalised at the global level. In addition, many cosmopolitan theorists rest their more elaborate institutional models on the assumption of an already existing and thoroughgoing practice of cosmopolitan law, without detailed considerations regarding applied theory. The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of cosmopolitan law and to argue how legal cosmopolitanism provides a necessary linchpin and transitional conduit between cosmopolitan theory and more institutionally based forms of cosmopolitanism. The paper examines the historical development of legal cosmopolitanism, the uniqueness of contemporary cosmopolitan legal theory within international legal debates, and maps the various approaches for moving cosmopolitan legal theory to legal practice. Through mapping the discipline, it is argued that Kantian legal cosmopolitanism represents the most coherent attempt to move from cosmopolitan legal theory to global institutional practice. This is due to the fact that it represents a minimal and moderate form of legal cosmopolitanism that accepts that any move to a cosmopolitan order would need to evolve from our current legal order. In this regard, it is argued that Kantian legal cosmopolitanism can occupy a transitional position, that not only satisfies the cosmopolitan concern for human worth, but that is also not guilty of being grossly utopian in its quest toward global justice.

This paper addresses, from a comparative perspective, the legal position of the lay employees of religious institutions such as schools and hospitals. The legal regimes governing ‘ethos’ in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Britain are compared. The tension which exists between the right of religious schools and hospitals to uphold their ethos in a secular society on the one hand, and the rights of their employees to privacy and personal autonomy on the other, is highlighted. It will be argued that legislative reform is required to remove uncertainty from the lives of lay employees of religious institutions who work conscientiously but fear dismissal or discrimination because an aspect of their lifestyle – usually their sexuality – is considered unorthodox by their employer. The need for a change in judicial attitudes and a lessening of deference towards the actions of religious denominations is also a theme throughout.