Replacing the ASBO with the injunction to prevent nuisance and annoyance: a plea for legislative scrutiny and amendment

In May 2013, the Coalition Government introduced a Bill which if passed will streamline the tools available to tackle anti-social behaviour. One of their proposals is to replace the controversial anti-social behaviour order (ASBO) with what is termed an Injunction to Prevent Nuisance and Annoyance (IPNA). Although designed to tackle criminal and sub-criminal behaviour, this new intervention will be a purely civil order replacing the civil-criminal hybrid ASBO. This article explores some of the more troubling aspects of this part of the Bill including its expansive definition of anti-social behaviour, the avoidance of due process protections, the extensive restrictions that respondents may face and the likely impact of its use on young people. With legislation presently under Parliamentary scrutiny, this article calls for amendments to avoid the most problematic aspects of the ASBO being not just replicated but amplified.

'It Is Not as Easy as ABC': Examining Practitioners' Views on Using Behavioural Contracts to Encourage Young People to Accept Responsibility for their Anti-Social Behaviour

This article examines the use of acceptable behavioural contracts as a tool for engendering the voluntary acceptance of responsibility in children and young people perceived to be engaging in anti-social behaviour and low-level criminality. Based on the results of a qualitative empirical analysis with local government and social housing anti-social behaviour teams, the article explores the attitudes of practitioners to the use of this unregulated but commonly utilised intervention. Practitioners' views are contrasted with the ideals of voluntary responsibilisation upon which the contracts are supposedly based. It is argued that there is a spectrum of differing approaches among practitioners, with some using the contracts more to encourage the voluntary acceptance of responsibility, whilst others use them more coercively to hold individuals responsible for their behaviour. The implications of these differing approaches are examined.

The community trigger for anti-social behaviour: protecting victims or raising unrealistic expectations?

In October 2014, a statutory remedy for victims of anti-social behaviour became available called the community trigger. It affords complainants a right to request a review of their case if they consider that the response from local agencies has been inadequate. The Government has hailed the reform as “putting victims first”. This article first explores the context behind this reform. This includes a number of high profile cases involving the deaths of complainants after systematic failures led to prolonged exposure to anti-social behaviour. The article then examines the provisions and how they are likely to operate in practice. It argues that whilst much will depend upon implementation, the community trigger has the potential to improve the level of service offered to vulnerable complainants without necessarily impacting adversely on the rights of alleged perpetrators. As such, the community trigger may provide a model from which other areas of the criminal justice system may draw.

Victim impact reports in Northern Ireland: Victims’ voices influencing sentencing?

Discusses three Northern Ireland Court of Appeal decisions concerning the role of victim impact reports (VIRs) on sentencing in sexual violence cases, and illustrating how courts may be unable to rely on victims' accounts of the harm they suffered because the experts' reports were unreliable. Details key features of the cases, the use of VIRs as evidence-based harm, and why improved guidance on their use is needed in Northern Ireland.

An Incomplete Narrative: Prosecuting Sexual Violence Crimes at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

This article explores the feminist critique that progress in the classification of sexual violence crimes within international criminal law has not been matched by sufficient legal enforcement. It takes the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) as a case study, exploring the various myths, investigative failures and procedural developments that have hindered the ECCC’s effective investigation of sexual violence. The article argues that while there is a need to adopt a nuanced perspective of the many gender inequalities facing women, it remains crucial that sexual violence is adequately investigated and prosecuted, due to the normative value of such prosecutions. It concludes with some suggestions as to how the ECCC can improve accountability for such crimes, but also highlights lessons that future courts can learn from the ECCC’s failures.

What is the Point of Copyright History?:Reflections on Copyright at Common law in 1774 by H. Tomás Gómez-Arostegui

Copyright history has long been a subject of intense and contested enquiry. Historical narratives about the early development of copyright were first prominently mobilised in eighteenth century British legal discourse, during the so-called Battle of the Booksellers between Scottish and London publishers. The two landmark copyright decisions of that time – Millar v. Taylor (1769) and Donaldson v. Becket (1774) – continue to provoke debate today. The orthodox reading of Millar and Donaldson presents copyright as a natural proprietary right at common law inherent in authors. Revisionist accounts dispute that traditional analysis. These conflicting perspectives have, once again, become the subject of critical scrutiny with the publication of Copyright at Common Law in 1774 by Prof Tomas Gomez-Arostegui in 2014, in the Connecticut Law Review ((2014) 47 Conn. L. Rev. 1) and as a CREATe Working Paper (No. 2014/16, 3 November 2014).

Taking Prof Gomez-Arostegui’s extraordinary work in this area as a point of departure, Dr Elena Cooper and Professor Ronan Deazley (then both academics at CREATe) organised an event, held at the University of Glasgow on 26th and 27th March 2015, to consider the interplay between copyright history and contemporary copyright policy. Is Donaldson still relevant, and, if so, why? What justificatory goals are served by historical investigation, and what might be learned from the history of the history of copyright? Does the study of copyright history still have any currency within an evidence-based policy context that is increasingly preoccupied with economic impact analysis?

This paper provides a lasting record of these discussions, including an editorial introduction, written comments by each of the panelists and Prof. Gomez-Arostegui and an edited transcript of the Symposium debate.

‘Article 16’ Provision, Commentary on the Law of the International Criminal Court

The Commentary on the Law of the International Criminal Court provides an online provision-by-provision analysis of the Rome Statute and the Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the International Criminal Court.