Journal Article
Browse by
Recent Deposits
-
Barbarians Within the Gates: Congressional Debates on Mormon Polygamy
In 1879, the Supreme Court of the United States delivered its judgment in Reynolds vs United States on the constitutionality of a federal anti-polygamy statute. The Reynolds decision brought to a halt the nearly three-decade ... -
Reviving the Obligatory Abstention Rule in the UN Security Council: Reform from the Inside Out
The decision-making protocol for the United Nations (UN) Security Council follows the Charter of the United Nations, which states that decisions of the Council “shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members including ... -
The Way We Do Things Back Home: Do Expatriate Judges Preferentially Cite the Jurisprudence of Their Home Countries?
This study considers ‘expatriate model’ judicial systems, whereby some or all of the judges that sit on a country’s courts are nationals of a foreign state. The author explores whether these foreign judges ‘favour’ their ... -
Autonomy, Capacity and Vulnerable Adults: Filling the Gaps in the Mental Capacity Act
This paper explores the distinction between being autonomous and having capacity for the purposes of the Mental Capacity Act. These include where a person misuses affective attitudes in making the decision; where a person's ... -
Just an Hour of Your Time? Providing Limited (Unbundled) Assistance to Litigants in Person
This article considers the landscape for “unbundled” legal assistance in New Zealand. The author draws on and discusses the substantial international literature and data from a study conducted on litigants in person in the ... -
Comfort Letters - Let the Issuer Be Aware!
Comfort letters are controversial. They are usually the result of a compromise. The issuer, while wishing to ensure that the recipient will participate in the implementation of the underlying transaction (commonly a loan ... -
No-Fault Compensation and Unlocking Tort Law’s: ‘Reciprocal Normative Embrace’
The purpose of this article is to explain how the principle of corrective justice has been displaced by the provision of no-fault compensation for personal injuries. In explaining the transition from tort liability for ... -
'Going Through All These Things Twice': A Brief History of Botched Executions
This article considers botched executions throughout history and the legal and policy consequences that have resulted from such incidents. The author adopts a retrospective approach to botched executions and focuses ... -
‘You Can’t Handle the Truth’: Medical Paternalism and Prenatal Alcohol Use
The publication of the latest contribution to the alcohol-in-pregnancy debate, and the now customary flurry of media attention it generated, have precipitated the renewal of a series of ongoing debates about safe levels ... -
Capacity to Consent to Sex
‘When is it appropriate for society to intervene paternalistically in a decision or decisions that individuals make as to their sexual relations?’ With these words, Sir Brian Leveson opened the judgement of the Court of ... -
Dangerous Patients and Duties to Warn: A European Human Rights Perspective
The recent case of David Bradley, who shot and killed four members of his family after telling his doctor he ‘wanted to kill someone’, has raised the question of whether a healthcare professional could ever be held liable ... -
The Legal Status of Body Parts: A Framework
There is legal uncertainty and academic disagreement as to the legal status of biological material that has become separated from the person. This article sets out the two criteria upon which the assessment of the legal ... -
The Trespasses of Property Law
The purpose of this article is to identify a limit to the appropriate application of property law to the use and storage of bodily material. I argue here that property law ought to be limited to protecting ‘contingent ... -
Human Rights Reasoning and Medical Law: A Sceptical Essay
I am sceptical as to the contribution that human rights can make to our evaluation of medical law. I will argue here that viewing medical law through a human rights framework provides no greater clarity, insight or focus. ... -
Sexual Offences and General Reasons Not to Have Sex
This article contends that there are general (but defeasible) reasons not to engage in penetrative sex. If there are such reasons, then we are able to refute a predominant justification for the current drafting of the ... -
Justifying and Excusing Sex
This article aligns two complementary claims: that sexual penetration (itself) should be considered a wrong and that consent requires express words and conduct that manifest a person’s willingness or acquiescence towards ... -
The Functional-Formal Impasse in (Trust) Property
This paper identifies an impasse between two conceptions of ‘property rights’. Formal conceptions explain ‘property rights’ in terms of an alienable right to exclude, that has moral significance in terms of individuals’ ... -
Public Wrongs and Private Wrongs
There are a set of wrongs that are normatively distinct as ‘criminal wrongs’, and yet, there is disagreement as to ‘the basic features of criminal liability’ that explain this normative distinctiveness. The only consensus ... -
Challenges To 'A Most Dangerous Doctrine' or a 'Fantastic Theory' of Volitional Insanity
In theory, an insanity defence can take two forms: the cognitive form (C-insanity) and the volitional form (V-insanity). The defence of C-insanity recognises that a disordered state of mind can make the ability to understand ... -
Can Facilitated Aid in Dying Be Permitted by 'Double Effect'? Some Reflections from a Recent New Zealand Case
While the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) remains controversial in ethical circles, it continues to be recognised in common law courts. In 2015, the High Court of New Zealand became the latest to acknowledge the existence ...