Trust Parties’ Uniquely Easy Access to Rescission: Analysis,Critique and Reform

Parties to trusts currently enjoy easier access to judicial avoidance of voluntary dispositions resulting from mistakes and inadequate decision‐making than other persons. The principal doctrinal basis for this advantage has shifted from the rule in Re Hastings‐Bass to rescission in equity. The article argues that this advantage is normatively unjustified, and recommends a uniform legal framework to govern the avoidance of voluntary dispositions resulting from mistakes or inadequate decision‐making, whether or not a trust was involved. Under this framework, dispositions resulting from laypersons’ mistakes and inadequate decision‐making should be avoided, subject to appropriate defences, whenever that causative nexus is present, while dispositions resulting from professionals’ mistakes and inadequate decision‐making should only be avoided where the mistake or deliberative flaw was so serious as to render the transferee's retention of property transferred unjust.     

Protecting cultural heritage in war zones

In the throes of war, protecting such cultural heritage as the Bamiyan Buddhas, the Mostar Bridge, the Timbuktu libraries and Palmyra supposedly is a priority on the international public policy agenda; but government responses so far have been limited to deploring such destruction. This article explores the evolving, albeit contested, norm of the ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) and its relevance for cultural heritage. There is no need for a hierarchy of protection – civilians or culture – because the juxtaposition is as erroneous as choosing between people and the environment. This essay begins with a discussion of cultural heritage and defines the scope for the application of any new international normative consensus. It then explores why R2P, in the original concept of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), is an appropriate framework for thinking about cultural protection, despite considerable political headwinds. It then examines the current opportune political moment and existing legal tools. Finally, there is a brief consideration of the obstacles facing the creation of a better framework for cultural protection in zones of armed conflict.