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Are There Enough Safeguards In Place To Protect Victims Of Online / Social Media Abuse And Sexual Exploitation?
Get PDFThe laws surrounding responsibility and accountability of autonomous weapons systems are insufficient: An analysis of legal and ethical implications of autonomous weapons systems
Get PDFClinical Legal Education as an Effective Tool for Improving the Accessibility of Protective Injunctions for Victims of Domestic Abuse: A Case Study Example of the Models of Support Available at Northumbria University
Get PDFProtective injunctions are at the forefront of the family justice system’s response to protecting victims of domestic abuse. The accessibility of orders, however, has been compromised by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 which has reduced the availability of public funding for victims of domestic abuse and led to an increase in victims representing themselves in such proceedings. Research indicates that without legal support, a victim’s prospects of securing protection can be adversely affected, demonstrating a need for pro bono assistance for those who cannot afford to pay privately for legal services. Whilst the provision of pro bono support in areas of unmet need is a principal aim of clinical legal education, research shows that few clinical programs in England and Wales offer specialist services for victims of domestic abuse. This paper therefore considers the role that clinical legal education can play in improving the accessibility of protective injunctions. Part one sets out a review of recent reforms within the family justice system and analyses how they have created an increased demand for pro bono legal support for victims of domestic abuse. Part two examines the clinical landscape and the potential benefits to students of providing support to victims. By drawing on the case study of the Student Law Office at Northumbria University, part three sets out the various models of clinical legal education that may be utilised to support victims of domestic abuse. The benefits and limitations of each option for students and victims will also be considered. The paper is a helpful point of reference for clinicians and family law practitioners working in partnership with law school clinics who are considering offering support in this area
"Adult Incapacity Law: Visions for the Future Drawn from the Unfinished Story of a New Subject with a Long History"
Get PDFIn 1961 Adrian Ward was one of the first intake for the first full-time law degree in Scotland. He was enrolled as a solicitor in 1967 and practised for approximately 50 years. From 1976 he was gradually drawn into the subject of what is now known (in Scotland) as adult incapacity law, in which he became a national and then international expert. As his interest and involvement developed, so did the subject. However, although it is still a new subject, its history in law goes back to Roman law, and concepts from Roman law were central to leading cases in the development of the subject in which Adrian was involved. Attempts to protect the human rights of defined groups go back in Scotland to the 7th century, but there is fundamental conflict between the concept of universality of human rights, and according particular rights to defined groups. Violations of human rights often start with putting people into categories seen as “other”. A deliberately personalised lecture confronted the audience with personally witnessed human rights violations. Of the concepts defined in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, “reasonable accommodation”, though it attracts more attention, is always second-best to non-discriminatory solutions offered by “universal design”. Human rights must be translated into law, and law into practice. Existing law should be understood, used to maximum effect, and then if necessary improved. Measures for the exercise of legal capacity can be categorised as voluntary, involuntary, and third party, but need to recognise the reality that “capability” and “incapability” are the extreme ends of a wide spectrum. Such variations, and individual progressions through them, must be accommodated in general provision and in individual measures. Fundamental concepts of human rights and their progressive developments have driven progress to date, and enabled probable future trends to be identified
An evaluation, in light of Brexit, of the extent that the EU has been responsible for improving the habitat conservation regime in England and Wales
Get PDFConservation efforts in Britain originated in the nineteenth century; when Wordsworth described the Lake District as “a national property in which every man has a right and interest who has an eye to perceive and a heart to enjoy.” Since, an abundance of national and international legislation has been passed intending to protect the natural environment and the species inside it. This essay will explore the current habitat conservation regime of England and Wales, evaluating the extent to which the European Union has enhanced the current system. In doing so, this paper shall first outline the international framework before analysing the evolution of the current regime of Sites of Special Scientific Interest. I will then evaluate the Natura 2000 network in order to assess the effect that the EU has had on the domestic habitat conservation system. This discussion will ultimately conclude that whilst the EU has had a positive impact, the system is not doomed to fail following Brexit if the UK government avoid the disparagement of conservational measures
Preparing Students For 21st Century Practice: Enhancing Social Justice Teaching In Clinical Legal Education
Get PDFSocial justice has always played an important role in clinical legal education (CLE). Clinicians are aware that students need to acquire the necessary legal skills and strategies related to client-centred lawyering, process choice and procedural justice. This paper shows that increasingly, despite clinicians’ recognition of the value of teaching social justice in CLE, those who promote it face various challenges in instilling in students the notion that social justice is important. This paper discusses some of these challenges, including, that as experiential education expands, students are being offered clinical placements in the private sector where clients do not face the barriers in accessing justice similar to those in community settings. It therefore becomes imperative to encourage students to retain the notion that social justice is an important value. This paper makes suggestions for how these challenges can be overcome to enhance students’ awareness of the importance of social justice and ensure that it remains a value they retain as 21st century practitioners
The Role Of Law Clinics in the Fight Against Statelessness by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Unhcr) in Nigeria
Get PDFStatelessness has become a global phenomenon. Statelessness simply means that a person does not belong to any country in the world. It means that a person does not have a nationality or any means to prove his or her nationality. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has embarked on a fight against Statelessness. The UNHCR have estimated that 10 million people in the world are stateless, one million of which are located in West Africa, although no figure has been estimated yet in Nigeria. However, because of numerous factors, the UNHCR has brought the fight against statelessness to Nigeria. They have mapped out their strategies in a National Action Plan (NAP) in 2018, and among such strategies are awareness and sensitization. They are of the belief that Nigerians are not aware of the concept of Statelessness. To test their assertion, empirical research was conducted for this paper via a questionnaire. One of the major consequences of statelessness is that stateless persons are deprived from enjoying their basic fundamental human rights like the right to freedom of movement, civil and political rights and the right to access of certain services which include access to health care and access to justice. More so, the Universal declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has a right to a nationality, which means the very notion of being stateless runs contrary to this universal basic right. This paper submits that derivation of fundamental rights especially access to justice is a social justice issue that could be handled through public interest lawyering. These two- Social Justice and Public Interest Lawyering- form part of the Clinical Legal Education (CLE) curriculum, therefore a nexus is immediately formed between CLE and the fight against statelessness. From the results of the research conducted in this paper, it is recommended that the service component of CLE, which is the Law Clinics, can assist the UNHCR in the fight against statelessness in Nigeria by actualising some of their strategies contained in the NAP which include but not limited to; sensitization and awareness. The UNHCR also raised a red flag on lack of data on this issue; again, this paper recommends that law clinicians can be their foot soldiers and aid in gathering the necessary data through client interviews and outreach activities. Lastly, the benefits of this partnership between the law clinics and UNHCR to the law clinicians was also outlined, as it will be of extreme benefit to them and it would lead to the achievement of the ultimate outcome and objective of CLE .
Keywords: Statelessness, Nationality, Identity, Access to Justice, Human Rights, Law Clinics, Social Justice, Public Interest
The health/power/criminality-nexus in the state of exception
Get PDFThe positioning of the ‘other’ as a dangerous vector of disease is a long-standing trope. This has existed both in racial terms, such as the 1905 Aliens Act, and for others positioned as on the outliers of society, such as sex workers, under the Contagious Diseases Acts 1864, 1866, 1869 (Hamilton, 1978). The public health system has long been used as a system of control, alongside its self-described role as existing for the betterment of population health. Similarly, other aspects of our health system have long functioned both as a foundational part of the welfare state, and as key perpetrators of racial injustice and part of the carceral state. This is most obvious in the psychiatric system, where there continues to be a disproportionate detention of black men (Singh, 2007). Injustice, surveillance, and even mass detention, that is enacted within a health systems framework is rarely given the same critical focus as other systems of power, such as the criminal justice system – which has been highlighted by the reality that various recent reports into racial discrimination only give a brief mention to the role of healthcare systems in perpetrating various injustices (Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2016). During the pandemic the healthcare system has increasingly been used as a justification for advancing a state apparatus of biopower, and has experienced little resistance from the organised left
A Policy Agenda for Legal Education and Training and the Fourth Industrial Revolution: The Case of England and Wales
No full textWhile the full impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution remains uncertain, it is by now generally accepted that highly intelligent technologies and their applications – such as robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, digitialisation, and big Data – will continue to fundamentally transform all aspects of our occupational and personal lives. Yet, in the realm of higher education policy and specifically with regard to non-STEM disciplines like law, thorough-going engagement with this most recent wave of technological development remains lacking. It is the aim of this article to set a policy agenda for legal education and training that is sensitive to the opportunities and potential negative outfall of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (now exacerbated by COVID-19), while also taking into consideration the distinctive nature of legal education and training in England and Wales. Set against the higher education policy landscape of England and Wales, a number of concrete recommendations are made for bringing legal education and training into the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. These include, for example, a call for the radical transformation of the traditional, linear, and monodisciplinary LLB degree, addressing current and projected skills gaps and skills shortages by way of, inter alia, curriculum reform, and working towards greater mobility of law graduates between different legal jurisdictions and also within one jurisdiction but amongst different roles. These changes are necessary as legal education and training in England and Wales currently leave law graduates ill-equipped for the future labour market and do not adequately value and build on the job-tasks that legal professionals uniquely supply