Historically, Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code has influenced in the debate over the reform of personal property security law in England. The revision to Article 9 has provided some further impetus to the issue of reform. A central feature of Article 9 which has been adopted in recent reform proposals for English law is the development of a generic unitary concept of the security interest and the specific rejection of formalism in security transactions. The impact upon the common law environment in England and Wales of the adoption of such an approach is considered in this paper. It is argued that the unitary concept of a ‘security interest’ is too blunt a concept and is over inclusive in that it wrongly assumes that all security interests perform an identical function. Furthermore, the development of functionalism seen in Article 9 has blurred an important distinction drawn under the common law between relative property rights and in this way fails to distinguish between what are essentially different transactions. In turn, this invites scrutiny of the usefulness in this context of notice filing and the first-to-file priority rule which is at the heart of an Article 9 regime.

The legal profession has experienced enormous upheaval over the last 30 years and this paper suggests that legal professional associations have failed to come to grips with this ‘brave new world’. This paper argues that the Law Society's current difficulties in performing its traditional roles are not simply examples of passing contemporary problems. Rather they represent the declining ability of the Law Society to serve as the fulcrum of the profession's collective advancement. Professional control may exist but on an individual and contingent basis alongside a reduced role for the Law Society.

This paper examines the developing and complex legal relationship between universities and students, or would-be students, who have mental health problems. Discussion takes account of the wider social and policy contexts, including the extent of mental ill-health among the student population, the market for higher education, and government policies towards universities. It contends that the legal position of students with mental health problems demonstrates that there is a need for the relationship between students and universities to be conceptualised with reference to the citizenship ideal rather than the consumer paradigm with which it has tended to become associated in public policy terms.

Use of the term ‘informed consent’ is commonplace in both bioethics and medical law. In the legal context the term may be referred to as ‘the doctrine of informed consent’ but the way that this latter term is used raises doubt as to its value as a legal concept. In this paper I explore the concept of the ‘doctrine of informed consent’ and suggest that it may be useful, but only if limited to the autonomy-driven duty to disclose rather than as a more general referent. Having established the nature of the concept I then consider whether the doctrine - which is applied in a minority of US states, Canada and Australia - has crossed the Atlantic and become part of the law in England and Wales. In particular, I analyse Lord Woolf MR's judgment in Pearce v United Bristol Healthcare NHS Trust and suggest that the law has moved towards the doctrine but that it still falls short of the disclosure required by the reasonable patient standard.

This paper considers the possible reform of the law governing property rights upon the termination of a close personal relationship, taking as its point of departure the Law Commission's Discussion Paper on Home-Sharing (2002). Having considered the reasons for the inconclusive outcome of the Law Commission's project (and the Discussion Paper's comments on the law of trusts), the paper moves on to consider the possible shape of future reform. It examines first the preliminary question of whether possible legislation should focus on unmarried cohabitees or whether a wider range of relationships should be encompassed (with or without a cohabitation requirement), The paper then looks at the form which a legislative scheme might take, examining the possibility of focusing on contributions (along the lines of New South Wales’ legislation) and the Law Society's proposals for a regime based on‘economic advantage and disadvantage’. The experience of the courts in the matrimonial context is considered with a view to extracting relevant lessons. In general, rather defending one particular model for reform, the paper attempts to identify and explore key issues which will be of relevance across a variety of approaches to reform.

Academic lawyers have commented extensively on the judicial interpretation of the Human Rights Act 1998, but the reaction of politicians to it has received less attention. This paper examines the trends in parliamentary attitudes to human rights by analysing Commons and Lords debates on the Human Rights Bill itself, the Terrorism Bill 1999–2000, the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill 2001 and the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill 2002. It also considers MPs' response to the Thompson and Venables and Anderson judgments, as well as Conservative attempts to amend the Human Rights Act. Against this background, it argues that the British polity can be characterised as a ‘contestatory democracy’, in which the system of fundamental rights protection is incomplete since it neglects Parliament's vital role in defining the Convention rights.