Transforming Breach of Confidence? Towards a Common Law Right of Privacy under the Human Rights Act

This article examines the development of a remedy for unauthorised publication of personal information that has resulted from the fusion of breach of confidence with the limited 'horizontal' application of Article 8 of the ECHR via the Human Rights Act. Its analysis of Strasbourg and domestic post-HRA case law reveals the extent to which confidence has in some areas been radically transformed into a privacy right in all but name; however it also seeks to expose the analytical and normative tensions that arise in the judgments between the values of confidentiality and privacy as overlapping but not coterminous concepts, due in part to the failure to resolve decisively the horizontal effect conundrum. This judicial ambivalence towards the reception of privacy as a legal right into English law may, it will argue, also be seen in the prevailing judicial approach to the resolution of the conflict between privacy and expression interests which, it will suggest, is both normatively and structurally inadequate.     

Abe Isoo and Kawakami Hajime in Interwar Japan — Economic Reform or Revolution?

This article explores the views of two eminent professors of economics, Abe Isoo (1865-1949) and Kawakami Hajime (1879-1946), regarding their socialist economic theories for easing poverty in Japan during the interwar years (1918-1939). Prior to this period, Abe believed the cure to capitalism’s ills lay in a combination of socialist economic reforms (sangyô demokurashii) and individual spiritual refinement. Kawakami, at that time a bourgeois economist, prioritised the spiritual revolution of the rich over any socialist-type economic reform. Thus, although convinced of the need for a different approach to eradicating poverty, they nevertheless agreed in the need for gradual change rather than radical reform (Gavin East Asia An International Quarterly 24:1, 30). The year 1928 marked a significant turning point both for Japanese social movements and in the lives of Abe and Kawakami. That year heralded Japan’s first national election under the new Universal Male Suffrage Law, and saw the police exercise their extended authority as they undertook a nationwide round-up of students and intellectuals suspected of left-wing tendencies (the March 15 Incident). Also in that year, Abe and Kawakami resigned from academic posts to dedicate themselves to alleviating the privations of the working class. Abe, by then well known as the father of Japanese socialism and as a Christian pacifist, became a symbolic figure for Japan’s working class parties, although he later came to support the government during WWII. Kawakami, who was forced to resign from his post during the round-up, “washed his hands of bourgeois economics”, became a prominent spokesman for Marxism in Japan ([28], xi, pp. 76, 169). This article will reveal that both Abe and Kawakami’s social and economic theories changed during the interwar period, so that Abe came to see imperial sovereignty as crucial to socialist economic reform, while Kawakami came to see it as a minion of the capitalists and advocated institutional and political revolution.     

Imagining Europe: political identity and British television coverage of the European economy

The article considers European economic news coverage on British television and its relationship with the UK public's perceptions of and identity with Europe. Stress is placed on the symbolic content of news about Europe; stories about the economic entitlements offered to citizens within the European Union; and portrayal of material benefits or losses for Britain. The results suggest that coverage offers mixed signals about Europe. As yet, they offer an unlikely platform for the development in the United Kingdom of European solidarity or identity. The results are assessed in the light of the way journalists approach political issues. The implications for statistical modelling of the media's relationship with attitudes towards Europe are also considered.     

The Perceptions of Academic Lawyers Concerning the Effects of the United Kingdom's Research Assessment Exercise

In this article, the authors analyse quantitative and qualitative data compiled from a large-scale postal survey of legal academics concerning the United Kingdom's Research Assessment Exercise. The purpose of the study was to measure the attitudes of academic lawyers affected by the RAE rating process and institutional responses to that process. The study reveals that a substantial number of respondents lack faith in the objectivity of the rating process, believe institutional responses to the RAE have caused damage to academic working environments, and perceive that the RAE has failed to improve the quality of legal research.     

Risky Business: What Happens to Gender Equality and Women's Rights in Post-Conflict Societies? Insights from NGO's in El Salvador

Using the case of El Salvador, this paper explores how women's organizational skills developed in civil war translate into work in NGOs in the post-conflict struggle for rights. The paper briefly describes the gender stratification methodology used in the analysis and then presents the situation in El Salvador before, during, and after the war. After discussing how Salvadoran women, despite quite limited economic power, became a well-organized force that was strategically indispensable to the rebels during the war, the paper examines factors that contributed to the success of Las Madres Demandantes (LMD), an NGO focused on the single issue of getting child support payments to women. The experience of other NGOs in El Salvador is reviewed with respect to the factors that contributed to the success of LMD. In conclusion, a few lessons from the issues faced by the post-conflict women's NGOs in El Salvador are presented.