The New Model Wales

The United Kingdom is currently undergoing a rapid process of fundamental constitutional change. One of the chief developments is a redistribution of law-making and governmental powers to different territories of the Union. It is a programme of devolution, as befits an unwritten constitution characterized by the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, and not federalism. The case of Wales, historically closely integrated with England,1 presents here its own challenges. The aim of this article is to examine the process of change for Wales, to explicate and critically assess the Welsh scheme of devolution, and to consider possible future development in a broad legal and constitutional setting.     

Does devolution make a difference? Legislative output and policy divergence in Scotland

Devolution provides large scope for Scotland to make its own policy. Primary legislation is one measure of this. Scottish legislation before devolution tended to replicate measures for the rest of the United Kingdom, with differences of style. Scottish legislation in the first four-year term of the Parliament shows a big increase in output. There is an autonomous sphere, in which Scotland has gone its own way without reference to the rest of the UK. In other areas, there is evidence of joint or parallel policy-making, with Scottish legislation meeting the same goals by different means. Finally there is a sphere in which Scottish legislation is essentially the same as that in England and Wales. Sewel motions have not been used to impose policy uniformity on Scotland. There is evidence that devolution has shifted influence both vertically, between the UK and Scottish levels, and horizontally, within a Scottish legislative system that has been opened up.     

Inching toward incrementalism: federalism, devolution, and health policy in the United States and the United Kingdom

In the United States, the recently enacted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 envisions a significant increase in federal oversight over the nation's health care system. At the same time, however, the legislation requires the states to play key roles in every aspect of the reform agenda (such as expanding Medicaid programs, creating insurance exchanges, and working with providers on delivery system reforms). The complicated intergovernmental partnerships that govern the nation's fragmented and decentralized system are likely to continue, albeit with greater federal oversight and control. But what about intergovernmental relations in the United Kingdom? What impact did the formal devolution of power in 1999 to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have on health policy in those nations, and in the United Kingdom more generally? Has devolution begun a political process in which health policy in the United Kingdom will, over time, become increasingly decentralized and fragmented, or will this "state of unions" retain its long-standing reputation as perhaps the most centralized of the European nations? In this article, we explore the federalist and intergovernmental implications of recent reforms in the United States and the United Kingdom, and we put forward the argument that political fragmentation (long-standing in the United States and just emerging in the United Kingdom) produces new intergovernmental partnerships that, in turn, produce incremental growth in overall government involvement in the health care arena. This is the impact of what can be called catalytic federalism.     

Human Rights: Changing the Culture

The Human Rights Act 1998 is likely to come into force early year next year. It unquestionably has the potential for being one of the most fundamental constitutional enactments since the Bill of Rights over 300 years ago. While so much constitutional change in the United Kingdom has been achieved without resort to legislation, this is a deliberate part of a programme of constitutional change by legislation. The legislation has to be seen in the context of the government's wider programme of constitutional reform: the reform of the House of Lords, the promised Freedom of Information Act, devolution to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and elected mayors. Any evaluation of a change in the way in which the constitution is perceived and imagined in the United Kingdom cannot ignore the interrelationship of these reforms. The scope of this collection of essays is, however, narrower. It is to consider what changes have brought about this particular constitutional reform and its potential for creating a 'human rights culture'.     

Juvenile delinquency as reflected by offenders of the borstal institute of Cameroon

This paper will describe the governmental structure of Papua New Guinea and the justice system. It identifies justice policy in relation to devolution and the involvement of the community in the justice system. After pointing out that in colonial times judicial powers were exercised at the village level it notes that the introduction of a Village Court system in 1975 and the commencement of Probation in 1985 have both served as a means of introducing custom into the legal system and into the justice system. Probation and Village Courts are discussed and constraints in their operation and development are identified. Other functions of the Probation Service which assist in giving the community a voice in sentencing and in the supervision of offenders are described. The paper concludes that although there has been no formal devolution policy until recently, the desirability of involving the community in the maintenance of law and order has been recognised, primarily through Village Courts and Probation. The fact that Provincial Governments have no law and order powers is identified as a factor marginalising Provincial Governments from the justice system and to that extent, the community within the Province. The paper suggests that policy makers need to address the position of the Provincial Governments within the justice system. Institutional devolution has been limited and there is scope for more to be done but adequate resources must be made available. Gender bias in the Village Court and within Probation as well as the attitude of the lower courts towards Probation are noted as constraints generally.     

Riders on the Storm: Wales,the Union,and Territorial Constitutional Crisis

The United Kingdom continues to undergo a rapid process of constitutional change, with an ongoing redistribution of law‐making and governmental powers to different parts of the Union under an expanded rubric of ‘devolution'. This article illuminates a pervasive sense of territorial constitutional crisis and opportunity in the most recent period, familiarly associated with, but not confined to, Scotland. Constructive and flexible federal‐type responses inside a famously uncodified constitution are championed. Wales, commonly treated as a junior partner in the United Kingdom, presents special challenges for constitutional and legal analysis and distinctive perspectives on the Union which have not received the attention they deserve. In tackling this deficiency, the article elaborates a ‘new Union’ concept of a looser and less hierarchical set of constitutional arrangements in which several systems of parliamentary government are grounded in popular sovereignty and cooperate for mutual benefit.     

Legal Consciousness: Some Observations

This article argues that US studies of 'legal consciousness' have much to offer UK socio-legal studies. It is, perhaps, surprising that so little attention has been paid to this set of understandings. I seek to rectify that imbalance in the transatlantic relationship by outlining legal consciousness and its critiques. I then draw on homelessness applicant interview data to discuss their 'legal consciousness', illustrating the importance of the value of dignity; how they make sense of their decisions; and the spaces in which legal consciousness may be produced. The study is a limited examination, but it enables us to question the assertion that welfare applicants 'know the law' and (ab-)use it.     

Another special relationship? Interactions between health technology policies and health care systems in the United States and the United Kingdom

Confronted with similar challenges, the United States and the United Kingdom have adopted very different health technology policies. In the United States, the focus has been on technology creation, in particular the funding of basic biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health. This both reflects and reinforces an innovation-first culture in the United States, including in health. By contrast, the United Kingdom has been much more heavily committed to applied research and evaluative research, including health-technology assessment. That is, while U.S. policy has focused on technology creation, U.K. policy has been more oriented toward technology diffusion. This article surveys the sources of these differences. We consider the impacts of institutional, cultural, and other factors that may explain them, and emphasize that it is hard to disentangle the separate effects of those factors. We conclude with a discussion of the difficulties in drawing cross-national lessons in health technology policy.     

The emergence of self-managing schools in South Africa: Devolution of authority or disguised centralism?

This paper considers the devolution of authority to public school governing bodies (SGBs) in the context of self-managing schools. It examines the nature of the powers, functions and duties assigned to them in legislation and asks whether the manner in which South African legislation provides for the devolution of authority and power represents authentic devolution of power, or whether it can be characterised as centralisation in disguise. The question is answered by examining, against the backdrop of general and education-specific legal provisions, two examples of functions of SGBs, namely those to determine language and admission policies.     

When arbitration clause and oppression claim collide

The question regarding the position of arbitration clauses within the context of shareholders’ protection under company law rules has been dealt with in a decision from the United Kingdom, Exeter, which upheld the inalienable right of the members to bring an oppression claim despite the presence of an arbitration agreement. The issue was recently revisited in several common law jurisdictions – United Kingdom, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong with mixed results. The article discusses this development to clarify the scope, breadth and limits of the arbitration clause within company law.     

An Exploration of the Historical Background of Criminal Record Checking in the United Kingdom: From the Eighteenth to the Twenty-First Century

Potentially preventable crimes resulting from failures in criminal record checking and recording emerged as problematic in the eighteenth century and have continued up until the present day. Ranging from child abuse to murders, reports suggest that if criminal records had been evident, in some cases unlawful acts may have been prohibited. The historical background to the emergence of criminal record collection and checking in the United Kingdom (UK) is analysed from the mid-eighteenth century. This time period is chosen because it marks a pivotal change in the treatment of criminals, crimes and the start of the policing system in the United Kingdom. As a result of growing societal concerns over public safety and changes in the legal system, the approach in which criminal records have been utilised in employment decision-making has evolved most rapidly in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The recording, storing and sharing of criminal record information has received most attention only in the past decade. Developments in recruitment-vetting procedures for the protection of vulnerable persons have only emerged in the last 50 years to manage such crimes in the United Kingdom. In 2002 the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) was established in the United Kingdom to ensure safer recruitment decisions could be made in society. However, the question remains whether or not these practices have been and are effective.     

The Regulation of Xenotransplantation in the United Kingdom After UKXIRA: Legal and Ethical Issues

Xenotransplantation - the transfer of living tissue between species - has long been heralded as a potential solution to the severe organ shortage crisis experienced by the United Kingdom and other 'developed' nations. However, the significant risks which accompany this biotechnology led the United Kingdom to adopt a cautious approach to its regulation, with the establishment of a non-departmental public body - UKXIRA - to oversee the development of this technology on a national basis. In December 2006 UKXIRA was quietly disbanded and replaced with revised guidance, which entrusts the regulation of xenotransplantation largely to research ethics committees. In this article we seek to problematize this new regulatory framework, arguing that specialist expertise and national oversight are necessary components of an adequate regulatory framework for a biotechnology which poses new orders of risk, challenges the adequacy of traditional understandings of autonomy and consent, and raises significant animal welfare concerns. We argue for a more considered and holistic approach, based on adequate consultation, to regulating biotechnological developments in the United Kingdom.     

Birds Behaving Badly: The Regulation of Seagulls and the Construction of Public Space

This article is about the socio‐legal construction of one of the least‐loved birds in the United Kingdom: the ‘seagull'. In particular, it is about how the gull has been brought within the realm of the ‘anti‐social', in a context in which urban‐nesting gulls (of which there are many in the United Kingdom) are cast as causing a great deal of public nuisance, ranging from noise, aggression, and mess, to attacks, injuries, and stress. The article examines the measures adopted by local authorities to regulate the gull population – and to regulate people, in the name of regulating gulls – and shows how a construction of the ‘seagull’ underpins and justifies this regulatory framework. It argues that the story of the regulation of seagulls in the United Kingdom is also a story about the construction of public space, to the point that the measures adopted here challenge the very idea of public space.     

Economic and Sociological Correlates of Suicides: Multilevel Analysis of the Time Series Data in the United Kingdom

For the effects of social integration on suicides, there have been different and even contradictive conclusions. In this study, the selected economic and social risks of suicide for different age groups and genders in the United Kingdom were identified and the effects were estimated by the multilevel time series analyses. To our knowledge, there exist no previous studies that estimated a dynamic model of suicides on the time series data together with multilevel analysis and autoregressive distributed lags. The investigation indicated that unemployment rate, inflation rate, and divorce rate are all significantly and positively related to the national suicide rates in the United Kingdom from 1981 to 2011. Furthermore, the suicide rates of almost all groups above 40 years are significantly associated with the risk factors of unemployment and inflation rate, in comparison with the younger groups.     

Organizing cigarette smuggling and policy making, ending up in smoke

The smuggling of taxed goods, like tobacco or alcohol, has always been a lucrative cross-border crime business. The very high excises for tobacco in the United Kingdom since the 1990's has stimulated the already existing cigarette smuggling from the continent, particularly from Eastern Europe. The analysis of the investigations carried out by the Dutch customs showed that the Netherlands function as a gateway from the continent to the United Kingdom. However, part of the contraband remains in the Netherlands and is sold on the black market. The crime-entrepreneurs operating on this market rarely have a criminal background or connections with other contraband markets like drugs. Despite that while trading they developed crime-organisations, which again underlines the dynamic dimension of ``organising crime.' Some international wholesalers developed extensive organised crime-networks. Two criminal trading patterns could be discerned: a Northern European ``trade belt,' stretching from the Baltic to the British isles and a Southern one, in which the Iberian peninsula and Italy are more prominent. This indicates that this form of crosse-border crime should be addressed from the perspective of economic ``crime-regions.'     

Northern Ireland Dimensions to the First Decade of the United Kingdom Supreme Court

This article focuses on the relationship between the United Kingdom Supreme Court and Northern Ireland over the course of a constitutionally significant period of time, namely the first decade of the Court's existence. It does this by exploring what difference the Court has made to the law of Northern Ireland, what significance the cases from Northern Ireland have had for the law in other parts of the United Kingdom, and what part has been played in the Court's work by the sole Justice from Northern Ireland, Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore, and by the Attorney General for Northern Ireland, John Larkin QC. It concludes that the Court has established itself as an indispensable component of the legal system of Northern Ireland.     

The law and practice in maritime boundary delimitation: lessons for the resolution of dispute between Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana

Definitions of terrorism in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries tend to provide that behaviour can constitute terrorism only if it is politically, religiously or ideologically motivated. Critics argue that this complicates prosecutions, distorts trials, and encourages racial profiling. Defenders argue that the requirement helps yield a definition which corresponds to common understandings of what terrorism entails, and limits the danger of terrorism‐related powers being abused. Part 1 of this article examines the antecedents of the requirement, part 2 examines its legal significance, and part 3 argues that it is unnecessary and undesirable. While many of the criticisms of the motivation requirement are either unpersuasive or exaggerated, defences of the requirement are not altogether convincing. While the requirement excludes from the definition some behaviour which ought not be treated as terrorism, it also excludes some socially dangerous activities which should be.     

Ranking of United Kingdom Law Journals: An Analysis of the Research Assessment Exercise 2001 Submissions and Results

Notwithstanding the Chancellor of the Exchequer's announcement in the 2006 Budget that, after the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise ('RAE 2008'), it is the government's firm presumption that the system for assessing research quality and allocating quality-related funding to United Kingdom universities will be mainly metrics based, RAE 2008 is vitually certain to proceed and to have considerable significance for legal research in the United Kingdom. In this rapidly developing and controversial context, this paper uses statistical analysis of the data from RAE 2001 to construct a series of metrics-based rankings which, when taken together, provide a reliable and coherent ranking of leading United Kingdom law journals.     

The world at their fingertips? The mental wellbeing of online distance-based law students

In recent years there has been an increased interest in student mental wellbeing within higher education. In terms of legal education, much of this has been focused upon the United States (US) and Australia, with a lack of United Kingdom (UK)-based empirical data available. Although there is now extensive provision of online distance learning options available to UK (and other) law students, there is a notable lack of research into the possible challenges which are specific to this form of tertiary offering. This paper seeks to contribute to the development of research in this area by reporting upon, and analysing, preliminary data gathered from an empirical study of the mental wellbeing of online distance learning law students.