International Law

Fáilte, IJLS!

Posted on July 13, 2010
As prefigured here a little while ago, there is a new peer-reviewed Irish legal journal, the Irish Journal of Legal Studies. The publication of Volume 1, Issue 1, 2010 has just been announced on the journal’s homepage, and the contents of the first issue are as follows: Sexual Violence: Witnesses and Suspects, a Debating Document by [...

Financial Services Supervision in the EU after the Financial Crisis

Posted on July 12, 2010
The School of Law, Trinity College Dublin is delighted to present a public lecture entitled Financial Services Supervision in the EU after the Financial Crisis: The Proposed Role of the European Securities and Markets Authority by Professor Reyes Palá, Professor of Commercial Law, University of Zaragoza and former deputy Director of the Spanish Securities Exchange Commission (CNMV)...

Is Apollinaire obscene? The ECHR says: no!

Posted on July 07, 2010
When I was growing up, I read a children’s book called The Arabian Nights, an innocent version of the Islamic classic One Thousand and One Nights. Perhaps surprisingly, a group of Egyptian lawyers has recently called for a ban of a newly-released version of the Nights, on the grounds that it is “obscene” and could [...

Unjust Enrichment and Public Law

Posted on July 06, 2010
I’ve just received news of the publication of the eagerly-awaited: Unjust Enrichment and Public Law. A Comparative Study of England, France and the EU by Rebecca Williams This book examines claims involving unjust enrichment and public bodies in France, England and the EU...

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Shrek and the Law of Contract

Posted on July 04, 2010
Faustian bargains are at the heart of Shrek Forever After, the final chapter in the Shrek franchise, and those bargains raise interesting questions for the law of contract (even as the marketing of the film has raised others). Like Australia (and in many ways even more than the obvious Paper Chase) Shrek Forever After is [...

The formal recognition of the Press Council

Posted on May 25, 2010
The second Annual Report of the Press Council and the Office of the Press Ombudsman (pdf) was launched yesterday. Speaking at the launch, Dermot Ahern, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, announced that he had, on 21 April, signed the Order granting the Press Council of Ireland recognition as the Press Council for [...

Thawing the libel chill?

Posted on May 24, 2010
On Thursday evening, from 6:30pm to 8:00pm, the Science Gallery in TCD will host what promises to be a fascinating event on the chilling impact of the law of libel on scientific debate: Libel Chill with Simon Singh and Peter Wilmshurst Libel reform has become increasingly relevant in scientific research and journalism in the UK and Ireland, [...

Academic Freedom in the Universities Act, 1997

Posted on May 24, 2010
I’m sorry not to have been able to acknowledge the celebration of AFAF’s International Academic Freedom Day on the day itself by a wonderful blog carnival on the right to learn, ably convened by Deirdre Duffy, and hosted by the ever-wondrous Human Rights in Ireland blog...

xkcd on blogging

Posted on May 23, 2010
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Rationales for free speech online

Posted on May 16, 2010
Angela Daly, a PhD candidate in Law by the EUI, Florence, has just published a fascinating article on SSRN on the extent to which the existing rationales for freedom of expression apply online. The abstract provides: The Internet, and Rationales for Free Expression The changes to society brought by the Internet have prompted a challenge to orthodoxy [...

Ten Copyright Myths

Posted on April 26, 2010
At Ignite Dublin #4, held in TCD’s Science Gallery as part of last week’s Trinity Week celebrations, I gave a 20-slides-in-5-minutes presentation on Ten Copyright Myths, in part because the previous weekend saw the 300th anniversary of the first modern copyright statute, the Statute of Anne, 1710 (fascimile | transcript | wikipedia)...

Blasphemy from Ireland to Indonesia via South Park

Posted on April 24, 2010
The Council of Europe has just published the Venice Commission’s Report on Blasphemy, insult and hatred – Finding answers in a democratic society (Science and Technique of Democracy No 47, 2010) (cover left) (earlier related publications here)...

Political advertising from Ireland to Switzerland

Posted on April 23, 2010
Section 41(3) (also here) of the Broadcasting Act, 2009 provides: A broadcaster shall not broadcast an advertisement which is directed towards a political end or which has any relation to an industrial dispute. Earlier this week, at the annual conference of the Independent Broadcasters of Ireland, the Chairman of the IBI and CEO of Today FM, Willie [...

Are we there yet? Formal recognition of a Press Council is one step closer

Posted on April 22, 2010
Section 44 (also here) of the Defamation Act, 2009 (also here) provides that the Minister for Justice may by recognise a body as the ?Press Council? , and Schedule 2 (also here) to the Act sets out the minimum requirements such a body must meet to be so recognised...

The frontiers of the ?political? in Rawls?s political liberalism

Posted on April 17, 2010
At the Irish Jurisprudence Society (IJS) Symposium, the final paper is being delivered by Eoin Daly (UCC) on Non-domination as a primary good: re-thinking the frontiers of the ‘political’ in Rawls’s political liberalism. His main focus is the work of John Rawls, but he also engages with the criticisms of Rawls in John Maynor “Without [...

I?m sorry, HAL, I?m afraid iPad can?t do that

Posted on February 21, 2010
Image: One astronaut to another, as they look at a monolith on a bleak lunar landscape. Caption: Well, I’ll be darned, it does have the Apple logo on it! Bonus link: Oxford Dictionary’s; Waitor required, fluent in English; and Ladie’s powder room; blooper photos via Turner Ink...

Espionage is a serious business ? redux

Posted on February 09, 2010
Further to my earlier post about last week’s Current Legal Problem lecture on Spies Like Us? Frank Snepp and George Blake: Freedom of Speech and Restitutionary Remedies the paper is now available here, via Scrib’d. It’s a good remedy for insomnia...

Trouble in the Blog O?Sphere

Posted on February 03, 2010
It all began innocently enough: just before Christmas, Sunday Times journalist John Burns wrote a piece lamenting the shortcomings of blogging in Ireland. Leading bloggers naturally begged to differ. A month later, the spat was picked up by Trevor Butterworth writing on Forbes...

Espionage is a serious business: freedom of speech and restitutionary remedies

Posted on February 01, 2010
Over sixty years ago, the Faculty of Laws at University College London established the Current Legal Problems lecture series and accompanying annual volume as a major reference point for a broad range of legal scholarship opinion, theory, methodology, and subject matter, with an emphasis upon contemporary developments of law...

Undergraduate Awards, 2010

Posted on January 31, 2010
Last week, Peter Sutherland gave a speech about the Irish university sector. It generated quite a lot of controversy at the time, and an edited version appears in yesterday’s Sunday Times. Unfortunately, the speech has rather overshadowed the occasion; this is a pity, since it was the launch of the Undergraduate Awards of Ireland and [...

Corporate Twitter

Posted on January 31, 2010
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The Defamation Act is a welcome but imperfect reform

Posted on January 17, 2010
In today’s Irish Times (with added links): Defamation Act a welcome but imperfect reform for libel cases The Defamation Act [2009] which came into effect this month, is a significant improvement on the old law, but serious problems remain … [It] modernises the law...

Blasphemous rumours and constitutional amendments

Posted on January 04, 2010
The free speech guarantee in Article 40.6.1(i) of the Constitution is a fragile freedom, much to the inglorious discredit of Irish democracy. However, there is a slim chance that the controversy over the blasphemy provisions in Part 5 of the newly-commenced Defamation Act, 2009 might provide an opportunity to replace the current text of Article [...

O?Rorke on the Defamation Act

Posted on January 02, 2010
Writing in today’s Irish Times, Andrew O’Rorke, Chairman of Hayes Solicitors who are that paper’s legal advisors, welcomes the recent commencement of the Defamation Act, 2009 (much as the Editor did at the time of its enactment): Defamation Act will facilitate more sensible, efficient justice … The impetus to change the law on defamation originated in 1987...

Birthday Times

Posted on January 01, 2010
The above image is the front page of the first ever Times newspaper, first published as the Universal Daily Register on 1 January 1785. From today’s Times Online: The Times celebrates its 225th birthday How a former bankrupt with a big idea started a feeble rumbling that became The Thunderer On this day 225 years ago the very [...

And so it continues

Posted on December 31, 2009
In today’s Irish Times, Mary Minihan writes: Complaints to BAI over TV3 cancer disclosure The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) has received 70 e-mails complaining about the TV3 news broadcast on St Stephen?s Day disclosing the cancer diagnosis of Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan...

New year?s resolution

Posted on December 31, 2009
Image: Two clinking glasses of champagne. Caption: A new year’s resolution … is something that goes in one year and out the other. Happy new year! If you like this post, please click on this link to pass it on. Thanks! Hide Sites $$('div...

And so it begins, with dreary predictability

Posted on December 30, 2009
You read it here first folks. Now, in today’s Irish Times, Michael Foley (School of Media, DIT) writes: Lenihan broadcast could lead to privacy law rethink ANALYSIS: TV3 had no more than a rumour about Brian Lenihan?s health, and no attributable source...

On This Day

Posted on December 29, 2009
Mairead Enright, on Human Rights in Ireland, writes: These are special days in the history of Irish constitutional rights. On December 29, 1937 the Irish Constitution came into force, having been passed by a national plebiscite in July. The picture shows Eamon De Valera, architect of the new Constitution and then President of the Executive Council, [...

A side-effect of disclosing a Minister?s illness?

Posted on December 28, 2009
There has been much comment over the weekend about TV3’s disclosure of the serious illness with which Brian Lenihan, Minister for Finance, has recently been diagnosed. This poses many questions, but I want to ask only one: will the public anger at TV3’s disclosure provide the political impetus – or perhaps simply political cover [...

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