Assessing economic growth in the Asian NICs

Little else is required to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice…. The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstacles with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operation.

The third and last duty of the sovereign or commonwealth is that of erecting and maintaining those public institutions and those public works, which, though they may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great society, are, however, of such a nature, that the profit could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals, and which it therefore cannot be expected that any individual or small number of individuals should erect or maintain. The performance of this duty requires too very different degrees of expense in the different periods of society. (Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Cannan edition, Chicago, 1976, Vol. I, pp. 49–50 and Vol. II, p. 244).     

The Law: An Engine for Trade

The lecture traces the process of commercialisation in English law from its early stages to the present day. Until the mid-eighteenth century the law was in a process of integration , overcoming a judicial preoccupation with technicalities and procedures to form a body of rules which merchants could trust. From that point on the law has assumed a proactive role as an engine for trade. The nineteenth century is marked by legal facilitation , where new institutions were fashioned as a robust commercial framework for the Industrial Revolution. From the end of that century to the present day business law has served to regulate , building a sensitive framework for commercial development that balances the needs of commerce with the needs of society as a whole.     

Labour Law 2008: 40 Years On

What has happened to British Labour Law over the past 40 years?It has become a larger more juridified subject. But its developmentrequires an understanding of the New Capitalism that has emerged,with capital more mobile and powerful in globalisation. Threeaspects are chosen for comment: First the meaning of the recentreview by the Law Lords of economic torts. Second, the argumentsabout the contract of employment in Britain and Italy, in thecontext of the regulation debate, forthcoming legislation andthe search for acceptable standards of social justice. Thirdly,the scene is set in European law for a new chapter in the tensionbetween employers' economic freedoms in the internal marketand social rights, including the right to strike.