Boxing, in particular professional boxing, has been bedevilied in recent years by a number of highly publicised tragedies in the ring. Despite these tragedies, the Law Commission in its recent Consultation Paper declined the opportunity to review the legality of professional boxing. The Law Commission concluded that

‘boxing, if it is to remain lawful, can only do so by the application of public policy considerations that are particular to that sport. Since that is a matter of pure policy, divorced from the more general considerations addressed in this Paper, we do not think it would be useful for us to add to the already formidable public debate on the issues.

The Privy Council decision in Prebble v Television New Zealand Ltd on parliamentary privilege in the New Zealand House of Representatives might at first sight seem to be of little concern to either the British courts or the Westminster parliament. However, the New Zealand parliament bases its freedom of speech on article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1688. Indeed the need to allow MPs to speak freely in proceedings in parliament without fear of legal action is accepted as a basic principle throughout the Commonwealth. It is perhaps surprising that there is relatively little English case law on the meaning of this article. This may be because as Lord Browne-Wilkinson observed in Prebble, article 9 is one manifestation of a wider principle, namely: ‘that the courts and Parliament are both astute to recognise their respective constitutional roles.

When the topic of severance of a beneficial joint tenancy is discussed, most judges and academics start with the case of Williams v Hensman. The judgment of Sir William Page Wood V-C is the ‘locus classicus’, the ‘starting point for any discussion of the modem law’. One paragraph of Page Wood's judgment is quoted in case after case:

‘A joint tenancy may be severed in three ways: in the first place, an act of one of the persons interested operating on his own share may create a severance as to that share. The right of each joint tenant is a right by survivorship only in the event of no severance having taken place of the share which is claimed under the jus accrescendi. Each one is at liberty to dispose of his own interest in such a manner as to sever it from the joint fund - losing, of course, at the same time, his own right of survivorship.

Private nuisance is, on the face of it, an old-fashioned tort, whose agrarian, antidevelopmental roots may make its contemporary relevance seem limited. On the other hand, both nuisance and Rylands v Fletcher hold obvious attractions for litigants whose interests have suffered as a result of environmental change. The potential apotheosis of nuisance into a ‘Toxic Tort’ presents tort lawyers and environmental lawyers with a number of pressing questions concerning the nature and scope of private law in this context.

This article will seek to assess in outline the positive potential of tort law in this respect, but it will also be argued that there may nevertheless be real conflicts between the law of tort and central elements of environmental law. The nature of those potential conflicts can only be understood if we clarify the form (or forms) of liability effected by relevant torts, and here the tort of nuisance poses particular problems. Once clarified, however, I would suggest that these conflicts can contribute to debates, not just about tort law, but also about the basic aspirations of environmental law and policy.

Are company executives greedy? Recent reports reveal that executives’ pay no longer corresponds with corporate performance. The earnings gap has also continued to widen since the 1980s and senior executives in public companies are regularly criticised for taking too much from the corporate purse. The press has highlighted large salary figures and, during a period of economic recession, headlines which accuse corporate bosses of riding a gravy train have considerable impact. This is an issue for corporate governance. We are forced to ask why company law has seemingly failed to control levels of pay at the top of the corporate hierarchy.

The Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 (CDDA) instituted, inter alia, a mechanism whereby directors of failed companies can be disqualified from holding office in the future as the result of an application to the court by the Secretary of State, or in the case of compulsory liquidators, the official receive and a subsequent finding by the court that the director is unfit. The operation and effect of the CDDA has been the subject of speculation in the national press, other media and comment from insolvency practitioners since its inception. Most of this comment has focused on the role of the DTI and on its perceived failure to take steps to disqualify directors in sufficient numbers.