Tunc's inaugural lecture “Tort Law and the Moral Law” in 1972 aimed to set out the moral foundations of tort liability in common law and French law. It triggered exchanges in this Journal with Hamson who challenged Tunc's views. This article explores the context of the debate and then reviews the subsequent developments of English and French law. Both systems have continued on the same path as the protagonists set out in their debate with France deepening its grounding in social solidarity as a justification for tort liability while English law sees its place only in state action or private charity.

Mistakes in assisted human reproduction procedures such as IVF, egg, sperm and embryo donation are surprisingly common, but tortious liability for such mistakes has not been addressed in the courts of England and Wales, or Ireland. This paper presents an argument in favour of a vindicatory approach to tortious claims arising from mistakes, where the claimants are the parents of the resulting, healthy, child. Drawing on the analogous tort of wrongful pregnancy, the paper provides a vindicatory account of the case of Rees v Darlington Memorial Hospital, and argues that Rees signposts the correct approach for tortious claims arising from mistakes in assisted human reproduction. It is argued that while the law should not compensate ‘loss’ flowing from the birth of a child, parents should be entitled to an award of damages to vindicate their right to reproductive autonomy. The paper explores vindication of the right to reproductive autonomy through the tort of negligence, but argues that vindication may be more effectively achieved through the creation of a separate tort which is actionable per se, strict liability, and expressly focused on vindication rather than compensation.

This article seeks to demonstrate three things. First, the orthodox conceptualisation of the tort of public nuisance is flawed, since: (1) it is in violation of basic private law principles related to privity and the actionability of crimes and (2) if taken seriously would mandate that the tort be abolished (as torts protect private not public rights). Second, the rights at the heart of the tort are the privately actionable rights to pass and repass on public highways and to fish in public waters, and that it is plausible that a sophisticated legal system would recognise such rights. Third, a tort reconceptualised in this way can make sense of: (1) the special damage rule that is generally thought arbitrary and (2) the general intuition that the recovery of damages for pure personal injuries is best left to other torts.

This article explores certain key features of the tort of deceit which, if looked at only superficially, are apt to mislead as to the gist, nature, and province of this tort. In particular, the article addresses three main issues. The first is the way in which the reliance test used in this tort comes apart from a simple (more familiar) test of causation, and why this has important theoretical ramifications. Secondly, the article seeks to reveal the true gist and province of this tort. In this regard, it is argued that it is a mistake – made by many – to suppose that the infliction of economic loss forms the gist of deceit. Instead, it is suggested that the tort is better seen as being rights-based and that, consequently, it ought not to be seen as a specifically economic tort, but rather as one which protects the victim's decision-making autonomy. Lastly, the article unearths the juristic explanation for the curious fact that, in the tort of deceit, the operation of the contributory negligence defence is excluded while the mitigation principle is applied openly. (The incoherence here inheres in the fact that both these principles are animated by the self-same concern: a desire to exclude the recovery of losses that are attributable to an unreasonable lack of self-regard on the part of the claimant.) The juristic explanation I unearth is then subjected to critical analysis in the course of which I suggest that we ought not to confuse explanation with justification. I conclude that there is no sound reason of principle to exclude the operation of the contributory negligence defence in this tort.