European Law and New Health Technologies

Health is a matter of fundamental importance in European societies, both as a human right in itself, and as a factor in a productive workforce and therefore a healthy economy. New health technologies promise improved quality of life for patients suffering from a range of diseases, and the potential for the prevention of incidence of disease in the future. At the same time, new health technologies pose significant challenges for governments, particularly in relation to ensuring the technologies are safe, effective, and provide appropriate value for (public) money.

To guard against the possible dangers arising from new health technologies, and to maximize the benefits, all European governments regulate their development, marketing, and public financing. In addition, several international institutions operating at European level, in particular the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the European Patent Office, have become involved in the regulation of new health technologies. They have done so both through traditional 'command and control' legal measures, and through other regulatory mechanisms, including guidelines, soft law, 'steering' through redistribution of resources, and private or quasi-private regulation.

This collection analyses European law and its relationships with new health technologies. It uses interdisciplinary insights, particularly from law but also drawing on regulation theory, and science and technology studies, to shed new light on some of the key defining features of the relationships and especially the roles of risk, rights, ethics, and markets. The collection explores the way in which European law's engagement with new health technologies is to be legitimized, and discusses the implications for biological or biomedical citizenship.

The Art of Refusal: The Experiences of Grant Makers and Grant Seekers

This research project explores the communications’ experiences and practices of
selected grant making and grant seeking organisations, at the point of grant refusal. It was funded by the Charities Aid Foundation, and undertaken through collaboration with the Association of Charitable Foundations (ACF).
The research context is the enhanced competition for funding in which many grant seeking organisations experience the disappointment of refusal; whilst grant makers also face multiple pressures, in responding to grant seekers’ needs. This is an operating environment in which subsequent organisational learning appears demanding.
The aims of the research were to:
- Increase understanding of the communications demands, challenges and
opportunities in giving, receiving and sharing news of grant refusal
- Identify opportunities for organisational learning in these situations, for grant
makers and grant seekers
- Contribute to future practice improvement and development, by drawing on
the reported experiences and practices of participating respondents.

The research focuses on private, formal grant makers (foundations and trusts); and their grant seeking organisational constituencies. It excludes study of public grant makers’ grant refusal processes and those of individuals making personal gifts, direct businesses’ grant making, and grant making by community foundations and by other operating and fundraising charities. A staged research process began in 2008, and field research completed in 2009/2011.

Comparative Law and European Harmonisation - a Match Made in Heaven or Uneasy Bedfellows?

Developing the controversy indicated in the heading, this article will proceed as follows. It establishes a notion of critical comparative law, by showing how comparative law may be capable of providing critique and analysis of law-making through judicial and legislative activity at a European level. This is followed by an exemplary discussion of how comparative law is actually used in relation to European harmonisation through case law, legislation and “soft law”. The question will then be asked whether and how these uses would change under a critical approach to comparative law. The discussion will focus on industrial relations and equality law.
In both fields, recent ECJ case law has proved controversial: This article submits that such controversy could partly be avoided by making better use of critical comparative law in deciding cases and in choosing adequate forms and content of legislation.

Labour Law as Human Rights Law: A Critique of the Use of ‘Dignity’ by Freedland and Kountouris

In their recent book, The Legal Construction of Personal Work Relations, Mark Freedland and Nicola Kountouris present an ambitious study of the personal scope of (what they would not want to call) ‘employment’ law. The book does this within a broader argument that calls for the reconceptualization of labour law as a whole, and it is this broader argument on which I shall focus in this chapter. Their aim, in urging us to see labour law through the lens of ‘dignity’ is to bring labour law and human rights law into closer alignment than has sometimes been the case in the past. Increasingly, dignity is seen as providing a, sometimes the, foundation of human rights law, particularly in Europe. I shall suggest that whilst the aim of constructing a new set of foundations for labour law is a worthy and increasingly urgent task, the concepts on which Freedland and Kountouris seek to build their project pose significant difficulties. In particular, their espousal of ‘dignity’ presents problems that must be addressed if their reconceptualization is not to prove a blind alley.

The Triangular Relationship between Fundamental Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law in the EU: Towards an EU Copenhagen Mechanism. CEPS Paperbacks. November 2013

This study examines the protection of fundamental rights, democracy and rule of law in the European Union, and the challenges that arise in reflecting on ways to strengthen EU competences in these contested terrains. It provides a ‘state of play’ and critical account of EU-level policy and legal mechanisms assessing the relationship between rule of law, democracy and fundamental rights in the member states of the Union. The cross-cutting challenges affecting their uses, effective implementation and practical operability constitute a central point of the analysis. The study argues that the relationship between rule of law, democracy and fundamental rights is co-constitutive. Any future rule of law-related policy discussion in the EU should start from an understanding of the triangular relationship between these dimensions from the perspective of ‘democratic rule of law with fundamental rights’, i.e. the legally based rule of a democratic state that delivers fundamental rights. The three criteria are inherently and indivisibly interconnected, and interdependent on each of the others, and they cannot be separated without inflicting profound damage to the whole and changing its essential shape and configuration.

A practical treatise on the law of trusts /

Mode of access: Internet.

Outline of the law of trusts prepared especially for students of New York law,

Mode of access: Internet.

Modern American law; a systematic and comprehensive commentary on the fundamental principles of American law and procedure, accompanied by leading illustrative cases and legal forms, with a rev. ed. of Blackstone's Commentaries;

v. I. The modern democracy, the citizen and the law - Legal ethics - Law : its origin, nature, development - Courts : federal and state - Law of contracts -- v. 2. Law of torts -- v. 3. Criminal Law - Law of criminal procedure - Law of persons and domestic relations -- v. 4. Personal property and bailments - Law of liens and pledges - Law of agency - Law of sales of personal property -- v. 5. Law of real property -- v. 6. Law of descent and distribution, wills and administration, guardian and ward - Law of landlord and tenant - Law of irrigation and water rights - Law of mines and mining -- v. 7. Equity - Law of trusts - Law of quasi-contacts - Law of estoppel -- v. 8. Law of negotiable instruments - Law of suretyship and guaranty - Law of mortgages : real and chattel - Interpretation of statutes -- v. 9. Law of private corporations - Law of partnership - law of banks, banking and trust companies - Law of receivers -- v. 10. Pleadings in civil actions at common law and under modern statutes - Practice in civil actions - Law of equity pleading - Law of evidence - Laws of attachment and garnishments - Law of judgments and executions - Law of extraordinary remedies - Law of habeas corpus -- v. 11. Constitutional law : definitions and general principles - Organization and powers of the United States Government - Constitutional guaranties of fundamental rights - Eminent domain - Taxation - Naturalization -- v. 12. Conflict of laws - International law - Law of interstate commerce - Law of bankruptcy - Law of patents - Law of copyright - Law of trademarks - Unfair competition and good-will -- v. 13. Law of public service companies, especially common carriers - Law of municipal corporations - Law of public officers and elections - Parliamentary law -- v. 14. Law of damages - Law of insurance - Admiralty law - Medical jurisprudence - Forms -- v. 15. Blackstone's Commentaries.

Handbook of the law of trusts.

Mode of access: Internet.

A practical treatise on the law of trusts.

Paged continuously.

Cases on the law of trusts,

Mode of access: Internet.

Increasing relevance and interest : teaching environmental and planning law to built environment students

A new approach was taken to delivering a challenging "stewarship of land" unit to over 350 predominantly first year built environment students stewardship. The new approach involved incorporating environmental and planning law into the syllabus, exposing students to a wide range of statutes, selecting legal cases according to a et of criteria and revisiting the material using different modes of delivery and teaching resources. To evaluate the effectiveness of the new approach, the students were surveyed to elicit their learning experience and preferences. The survey found that most students perceived learning about environmental and planning law, including legal cases, worthwhile.----- Areas identified by the surcey for improvement included the perception by some students that: environmenatl and planning law is irrelevant to their discipline and future caree; studying law is dull and sometimes daunting; and the prescribed reading could be omitted.----- To address student perceptions, it is proposed to reorder the topics commencing with local, charismatic topics, while explanding international content and cases, to enlarge and enhance the repertoire of video clips to include sites of legal cawses and development projects, and to reformat the online weekly quizzes to promote reading of primary material.----- Overall, the approach to teaching environmental and planning law to built environment students, including the criteria for selecting legal cases, described in this paper, was found to be effective.

Access to public sector information : law, technology and policy

On the back of the growing capacity of networked digital information technologies to process and visualise large amounts of information in a timely, efficient and user-driven manner we have seen an increasing demand for better access to and re-use of public sector information (PSI). The story is not a new one. Share knowledge and together we can do great things; limit access and we reduce the potential for opportunity. The two volumes of this book seek to explain and analyse this global shift in the way we manage public sector information. In doing so they collect and present papers, reports and submissions on the topic by leading authors and institutions from across the world. These in turn provide people tasked with mapping out and implementing information policy with reference material and practical guidance. Volume 1 draws together papers on the topic by policymakers, academics and practitioners while Volume 2 presents a selection of the key reports and submissions that have been published over the last few years.

Modernising charity : steps to an alternative architecture for common law charity jurisprudence

This chapter addresses the question, how can the common law concept of charity law be modernised? There are difficulties with the present jurisprudential conception. The focus of the chapter is not on those difficulties, however, but rather on the development of an alternative architecture for common law jurisprudence. The conclusion to which the chapter comes is that charity law can be modernised by a series of steps to include all civil society organisations. It is possible if the ‘technical’ definition of charitable purpose is abandoned in favour of a contemporary, not technical concept of charitiable purpose. This conclusion is reached by proposing a framework, developed from the common law concept of charities, that reconciles into a cohesive jurisprudential architecture all of the laws applying to civil society organisations, not just charities. In this section, first the argument is contextualised in an idea of society and located in a gap in legal theory. An analogy is then offered to introduce the problems in the legal theory applying, not just to charities, but more broadly to civil society organisations. The substantive challenge of mapping an alternative jurisprudence is then taken in steps. The final substantive section conceptualises the changes inherent in a move beyond charities to a jurisprudence centred on civil society organisations and how this would bring legal theory into line with sectoral analysis in other disciplines.