Fidelity in interpretation: Lord Hoffmann and the adventure of the empty house

This paper explores Dworkin's 'law as a chain novel' analogy and considers the recent work of Dworkin and MacCormick through close scrutiny of two recent judgments of Lord Hoffmann, in Barlow Clowes v Eurotrust International [2005] UKPC 37 and Barker v Corus [2006] UKHL 20. The aim is to examine Dworkin's theory in the context of recent English private law decisions and determine whether Lord Hoffmann's approach to interpretation is consistent with that of Dworkin (as his Lordship has contended in the past). It is argued that Lord Hoffmann's treatment of recent decisions on which he himself sat raises significant questions regarding fidelity, coherence and the institutional structure of the House of Lords.

Land administration in a micro-state: the role of land use planning

Land policy in micro-states and the land administration that underpins it is often devised within a legacy framework inherited from a colonial past. Independence has allowed self-determination of the future political direction yet the range, legal framework, institutional structure and administration systems tend to mirror those of ex-colonial powers. Do land policies, administration systems and processes developed to serve large heavily populated countries scale down to serve the requirements of micro-states? The evidence suggests not: many land administration systems in the Caribbean face difficulties due to poor records, unclear title, exploitation of state lands, incomplete or ongoing land reform programmes, irregular or illegal settlement and non-enforced planning regulations. Land matters are typically the responsibility of several government departments and agencies responsible for land titling and registration, cadastral surveying of property interests, physical planning, taxation and financial regulation. Although planning is regarded as a land administration function, organisational responsibility usually rests with local rather than central government in large countries, but in microstates local government may be politically weak, under-resourced or even non-existent. Using a case study approach this paper explores how planning functions are organised in the Caribbean state of St Vincent & the Grenadines in relation to land administration as a whole and compares the arrangement with other independent micro-states in the region.

Spatial concentration in institutional industrial real estate investment in the England and Wales

In two recent papers Byrne and Lee (2006, 2007) examined the geographical concentration of institutional office and retail investment in England and Wales at two points in time; 1998 and 2003. The findings indicate that commercial office portfolios are concentrated in a very few urban areas, whereas retail holdings correlate more closely with the urban hierarchy of England and Wales and consequently are essentially ubiquitous. Research into the industrial sector is very much less developed, and this paper therefore makes a significant contribution to understanding the structure of industrial property investment in the UK. It shows that industrial investment concentration is between that of retail and office and is focussed on LAs with high levels of manual workers in areas with smaller industrial units. It also shows that during the period studied the structure of the sector changed, with greater emphasis on the distributional element, for which location is a principal consideration.

A structuration theory perspective on the institutional change in Higher Education sector

Budgeting system has been traditionally viewed as a control mechanism rather than a communication tool to facilitate the institutionalisation of organisational change. A good budgeting system not only reflects the organisational reality but also socially constructs the reality. This paper uses the structuration perspective to understand budget-related behaviour in a UK research-intensive university and especially, study the role of budgeting system in achieving organisational sustainability. Giddens’ structuration theory offers a valuable framework for the study of the duality of structure and emphasises on the structural properties of social systems. Based on the semi-structured interviews with top management and budget holders, it is concluded that in this specific context, budgeting system may place a significant role in establishing and legitimising institutional change.

On the significance of the basic structure: a priori baseline views and luck egalitarianism

This paper uses the exploration of the grounds of a common criticism of luck egalitarianism to try to make an argument about both the proper subject of theorising about justice and how to approach that subject. It draws a distinction between what it calls basic structure views and a priori baseline views, where the former take the institutional aspects of political prescriptions seriously and the latter do not. It argues that objections to luck egalitarianism on the grounds of its harshness can in part be explained by this blindness to relevant features of institutions. Further, it may be that luck egalitarianism cannot regard its own enactment as just. A related objection to Dworkin’s equality of resources, which claims that it cannot pick a particular institutional background to set the costs of resources and so is radically indeterminate, is also presented. These results, I argue, give us good reason to reject all a priori baseline views.