Legal Studies Research Paper Series Vol. 4, No. 12

The Faculty has published Volume 4 Number 12 of the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law Legal Studies Research Paper Series on SSRN.

This issue includes the following articles:

Neil H. Andrews: Multi-Party Litigation in England (39/2013)

In England 'multi-party' litigation can take various forms, of which the most important are (a) the opt-in system of Group Litigation Orders and (b) the opt-out system of Representative Proceedings. Category (b)n can yield damages to be distributed amongst the represented class, as recent case law shows. However, Group Litigation Order litigation is currently the main means of handling claims for compensation involving large groups of similarly affected 'victims'. Group Litigation Orders involve high levels of case management.

Christine Gray: Targeted Killings: Recent US Attempts to Create a Legal Framework (52/2013)

The significant increase in targeted killings by the USA under President Obama has led to growing demands for greater transparency about the legal justification for this controversial use of force. In response several members of the administration have recently made speeches about the legal rules governing targeted killing. This article will consider these speeches and identify some of the key questions that they have left unanswered. These include the nature of the relationship between Al-Qaeda and its 'associates', and the links of the various terrorist groups, if any, to the terrorist attacks of 9/11; the categorization of lawful targets; the role of the CIA; the scope and meaning of ‘imminence’; and the establishment and significance of host state consent.

Pippa Rogerson: Problems of the Applicable Law of the Contract in the English Common Law Jurisdiction Rules: The Good Arguable Case (53/2013)

English law as the applicable law of the contract is a basis for jurisdiction in English service out cases (ie cases involving foreign defendants that are not covered by the Brussels I Regulation or the Lugano Convention). It is also a factor in the exercise of jurisdiction. In both instances the determination of the applicable law and the assessment of its relevance raise difficult legal and practical questions. The courts use the “good arguable case” test to resolve those difficulties. Many recent decisions illustrate that the test is insufficiently clear. This article discusses those questions. It concludes that the differences between the existence and the exercise of jurisdiction have been overlooked. Further it suggests that the problem lies in the competing objectives underlying the decision on jurisdiction.

Michael Waibel: Uniformity Versus Specialisation: A Uniform Regime of Treaty Interpretation? (54/2013)

Fragmentation of international law can occur at two levels: at the level of substantive rules (applicable law), and, at the level of interpretive method. Whereas the substantive aspect of fragmentation has spawned an enormous literature over the last decade, interpretive fragmentation has received less attention. The focus of this chapter is on this second dimension: does international law know a single, unified method, or equivalently, regime or approach to treaty interpretation?

Articles 31-33 VCLT purport to set out a unified approach to interpretation. Yet this chapter contends that the VCLT constrains treaty interpreters only on the margins, and that varieties of treaty interpretation lurk behind the veneer of the VCLT’s general interpretive framework. On closer inspection, interpretive practices in international law diverge, just like in national law. The emergence of specialised interpretive methodologies in international law mirrors the earlier development of statutory and contract varieties of interpretation in domestic law.

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