Despite their evident military utility, controversy over cross-border operations has erupted. Professor Schmitt tackles two legal issues - the use of force in another State’s territory and incidental civilian deaths. The former derives from the jus ad bellum, that aspect of international law restricting the resort to force by States, whereas the latter is based in the jus in bello (international humanitarian law) which governs how combat may be conducted. Discourse regarding both has evidenced serious misunderstanding of the strictures of international law.  

Clifford Chance's Client Briefings are an invaluable snapshot of the law in practice. In this briefing, Clifford Chance analyse the attempt by Liverpool FC's (now) former owners to use the US courts following their failure in the UK.

In an interlocutory decision rendered on 16 February 2011 the Appeals Chamber of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon held that terrorism has evolved into a crime under international customary law. The following comment will show that the decision is based on two major errors: First, it can be shown that for the tasks at hand it was absolutely unnecessary for the Appeals Chamber to resort to any endeavour to establish whether terrorism was a criminal offence under international customary law or not (III.). Second, the finding that a customary rule of international law regarding the international crime of terrorism had emerged is based on insufficient grounds and cannot be upheld (IV.). Rather than triggering speculation as to what caused the judges to be led astray to such a significant extent, the decision will hopefully serve to stimulate a discussion that is long overdue and goes to the heart of international criminal law, namely the legitimacy and reach of customary international criminal law (V.).

The article examines recent proposals by the Department of Business Innovation and Skills not to repeal the much criticized Bills of Sale legislation relating to the giving my individuals of security over personal chattels, largely motor vehicles, in return for a loan; nor to ban outright the use of chattel mortgages in consumer credit transactions but instead to rely on a combination of the powers given to the enforcement authorities under the Consumer Credit Act 1974, Consumer Credit Act 2006 and the EU Consumer Credit Directive 2008/48/EC supplemented by industry self-regulation, in the form of a code of practice agreed with the Consumer Credit Trade Association. The article contends that the Bills of Sale legislation should be repealed and the regulation of Bills of Sale outside the area of regulated consumer credit agreements be left to the common law and where credit agreements are regulated then the chattel mortgage be fully absorbed into the consumer credit regime. Far from being banned the use of the consumer chattel mortgage be put on a modern footing.

Around 70 children under the age of 16 are killed each year. The vast majority are killed by their parents or carers. No one questions that those who deliberately kill children deserve punishment. But, in many of those cases there were other adults who lived with the child, who must have been aware of the dangers the child faced and yet did nothing to protect them. Should they not be punished too? Section 5 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2005 means they can be. This enables the conviction of a person who fails to take reasonable steps to protect a child they were living with from a significant risk of significant harm from someone else in the household. This article will not go into the detailed provision of what has become known as the “failure to protect” offence. Instead the focus will be on its use in cases where the defendant was herself the victim of domestic violence.

One of the major distinctions often heard about the German as a member of the family of continental legal systems is that its procedure is inquisitorial as opposed to the common law adversarial model. But what does that really mean? Professor Bohlander assesses the features of German procedural law and addresses the criticisms of this procedure.

In fact, confidentiality is one of the most eminent features which distinguishes the relationship between a banker and a customer. The present article discusses the confidential nature of the banker-customer relationship. Basically, the work will be divided into four parts. The first part illustrates the general concept of this sort of relationship. The second part will discuss the basis of the confidentiality. The leading case of Tournier v. National Provincial and Union Bank of England will be dealt with in the third part in order to examine the scope and duration of the bank's duty of confidentiality. This paper will then seek to demonstrate and interpret the exemptions to this duty in the last part.

Recent legal reform in English law has dramatically changed the legal status of the homosexual. Once a social and legal pariah, the contemporary queer finds themselves apparently benefitting from unprecedented legal rights. However, this article seeks to argue that these new-found rights - whether they be in the construction of the family, the workplace or in the operation of leisure - operate so as to enshrine in law a homosexual identity anchored in domesticity and Rubin’s conceptualisation of ‘good’ sex. This article seeks to explore the emergence of the new (homo)normative legal discourse and how two sexual phenomena - barebacking and public sex - continue to present socio-legal challenges to its operation.