In this paper, I explore the sanctity of life doctrine and consider the scope of s 4(5) of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, a provision designed to give statutory effect to the sanctity principle. Rather than question the intellectual validity of the doctrine, I examine the legal and practical problems created by this limited section. I argue that it necessarily creates dilemmas for medical practitioners, which could only be avoided by a wholesale adoption of the principle. I conclude, therefore, that the provision fails to ensure a coherent moral and intellectual shape to the law.

This article seeks to argue that the new offence of causing death by careless driving is undesirable and ought not to have been created. From a legal perspective, the offence goes against some fundamental principles of criminal law and, from a practical view, it will fail to rectify previous problems with the pre-existing offences available as criminal charges in cases of road death. Furthermore, it will not satisfy the public’s appetite for a more punitive approach to drivers who kill. It will be argued that the law in this area should not be driven by this latter consideration but that it should be used primarily as a method of increasing road safety. A radical alternative offence structure of general driving offences is proposed with this as its objective.

The rhetoric of partnership appears to have played a central justificatory role in policy change and law reform during the past decade, especially in the field of industrial relations. We investigate in this paper its implications for higher education. We do so in the context of the 2006 pay dispute with reference both to recent developments in the higher education sector and to the legal framework within which the dispute was conducted. We argue that despite the government’s suggestion that this was only a dispute between universities as employers and their employees, its particular version of partnership shaped the contours of the dispute and determined its outcome.

Statistics from HM Revenue & Customs predict that receipts from inheritance tax will amount to some £3.56 billion in the tax year 2006/07. This compares to £1.68 billion in 1997/98. This paper explores the reason for the large increase in inheritance tax revenues and, in the light of those findings, together with a consideration of the recent public reaction to the changes to the inheritance taxation of trusts announced in the Budget 2006 and incorporated in the Finance Act 2006, argues that, whereas the justification for a tax on the value of property in a person’s estate on death (or within a certain number of years before death) was rooted in equity, equity now forms the argument for its abolition or, at least, its substantial reform.

Much of the legal attention surrounding human embryonic stem (ES) cell research within the UK has, to date, focused on cloning techniques. Whilst this is both understandable and appropriate given litigation on this topic, there has been less focus on other areas. This paper identifies and analyses areas of incoherence and deficiency within the regulatory architecture governing human ES cell derivation and research within the UK. This is not merely a theoretical exercise, as there are indications that many of the policy objectives currently being pursued in this area have, at best, a shaky jurisdictional basis. It is all too easy to recall that lobby groups have challenged the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, the legislative foundation for embryo research and most infertility treatment, on the basis of jurisdictional uncertainty and statutory interpretation. Whilst many pro-life campaigners are opposed to ES cell research on ethical grounds, the arguments utilised thus far in relation to litigation have been entirely legal, involving issues of statutory interpretation and whether the regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), or the Department of Health have acted ultra vires the 1990 Act. This paper will reveal that there are a number of further areas which might be open to attack on this basis.

Given the burgeoning of genetic research and proliferation of human genetic databases, especially in the biomedical sphere, this paper explores whether the existing laws and regulatory structures for governing genetic databases in England and Wales are adequate. Through a critical survey of relevant rules, bodies and practices, it argues that the current UK framework is far from ideal in at least five major areas: (1) forms and styles of law used, especially the separate legislative regimes for physical biomaterial and data; (2) core definitions; (3) formal regulatory bodies, licensing and notification requirements; (4) ethics committees and other advisory panels; and (5) enforcement powers and sanctions. Such shortcomings could have major implications for stakeholders, hamper efforts to achieve European or international harmonisation of genetic database principles and practices, and undermine the UK’s standing as a world leader in genetics and biotechnology. Drawing on comparative analysis of governance strategies adopted in Estonia, Iceland and Sweden, the paper identifies alternative options and lessons from experiences abroad, suggesting possible avenues for reform that may warrant serious consideration in the UK.

One of the most controversial aspects of the assessment of damages for breach of contract is the extent to which there can be recovery for ‘intangible’ losses such as disappointment and inconvenience. In Watts v Morrow, Bingham LJ assumed that public policy generally proscribed contractual liability for such losses, unless the object of the contract was to provide pleasure and/or peace of mind, or the breach caused foreseeable physical inconvenience to the victim. Unfortunately, Watts, and its associated case-law, offered scant guidance on the underlying rationale for either the general rule or its two exceptions. Consequently, more recent judicial pronouncements on this issue, particularly from the House of Lords, are to be welcomed insofar as they demonstrate a greater preparedness to eschew the use of arbitrary policy constraints in favour of focusing upon a claimant’s expected benefits as contained within the contract. In so doing, disappointment and inconvenience appear to be subject to the same rules of recovery. This paper will seek to justify and encourage this trend, arguing that a logical application of the principles contained within Hadley v Baxendale and Robinson v Harman dispenses with any need to use ‘policy’ as a means of limiting the recovery of damages for disappointment and inconvenience, more properly takes account of a claimant’s known preferences, and ensures that all forms of inconvenience and disappointment are subject to the same rules; in short, that damages properly reflect the full range of the claimant’s expectation deficit.

Regulatory interest in ‘hedge funds’ has intensified in the wake of the collapse of the Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) hedge fund, and the growing retailisation of the sector through vehicles such as ‘fund of funds’ hedge funds. Though recognised by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) as playing an important role in the financial system, the hedge fund sector continues to pose formidable regulatory challenges. In particular, there is a real possibility that hedge funds and ‘prime brokers’ will increase their risk profiles, thus threatening not only their own solvency but, more importantly, the stability of the financial system more generally. Similarly, there exist problems surrounding issues such as asset valuations and side letters which raise heightened fears about conflict of interest abuse and investor protection. While any attempt by the FSA to subject the sector to closer regulatory scrutiny needs to be sufficiently robust to ensure that the above regulatory concerns are adequately addressed, any measures adopted must not be so heavy handed as to drive lucrative hedge fund business further offshore to less heavily regulated centres. In striking the right balance, a further complication is that of ‘moral hazard’– to the extent that the FSA seeks to tighten its grip on the hedge fund sector through more exacting regulation and oversight, there is the worry that such moves will encourage investors and financial market operators to take less care over their investment decisions. Although it is clear that prime brokers and other market counterparties have very real incentives to engage in private supervision of the hedge funds with which they deal, given the presence of significant market failures there is a danger that the private interests of these entities will not always be fully aligned with the public good. I argue that the FSA’s reliance on private interests and incentives to regulate an industry, the collapse of which could have serious public consequences, is an understandable yet ultimately deficient form of regulatory strategy. It is understandable because of the obvious limitations of the FSA’s scope for unilateral action. Yet it is deficient because the FSA must do more to challenge the complacency of the current international regulatory consensus – one that the FSA has helped shape, and one that its recent reform measures are part. This challenge would, at the very least, require minimum standardised disclosure requirements to be imposed on hedge funds, and for the full risks that these funds take to be fairly reflected in the cushion of capital that they are required to maintain, as well as the ‘margin requirements’ and ‘risk management’ systems they are required to adopt. These reforms would, if instituted at the international level, represent an important first step in helping to ‘bring to heel’ an industry which has assumed for far too long that it is a law unto itself.