The Faculty has published Volume 8 Number 9 of the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law Legal Studies Research Paper Series on SSRN.
This issue includes the following articles:
Jacob Eisler: One Step Forward and Two Steps Back in Product Liability: The Search for Clarity in the Identification of Defects (32/2017)
Product liability law has struggled to develop a test for identifying when products are defective under the Consumer Protection Act 1987 (“CPA”). In Wilkes v Depuy International Ltd. [2016] EWHC 3096 (QB), Hickinbottom J. offered the most prolonged reflection on product defect since A v National Blood Authority [2001] EWHC 446 (QB), and rejected much of the framework of NBA. However, Wilkes provides little guidance regarding when products should be identified as being defective, reinforcing the need for a more deeply grounded approach.
Matthew H. Kramer: On Political Morality and the Conditions for Warranted Self-Respect (33/2016)
In my recent book, "Liberalism with Excellence", I have expounded at length a conception of warranted self-respect. That conception, which draws heavily though far from uncritically on the scattered passages about self-respect in the writings of John Rawls, is central to my defense of a variety of liberalism that combines and transfigures certain aspects of Rawlsianism and perfectionism. However, it is also central to the positions taken in some earlier books of mine on capital punishment and torture. Although my understanding of warranted self-respect was presented far more briefly or obliquely in each of those earlier books than in "Liberalism with Excellence", it in fact underlies both my limited defense of the death penalty and my absolutist insistence that the use of interrogational torture is never morally permissible. The present paper will recount the gist of my conception of warranted self-respect and will then explain how that conception figures pivotally in my ruminations on the diverse matters of political morality that have been mentioned here.
Nicholas McBride: Vindicatio - The Missing Remedy? (35/2017)
This paper was written for a special issue of the Singapore Academy of Law Journal on ‘Remedies’. In this paper, I set out the nature of a vindicatio remedy, and discuss its rarity in common law legal systems. I go on to set out two arguments – a pragmatic argument, and a principled argument – for making such a remedy available in the case where a defendant is in possession of an item of personal property that belongs to the plaintiff, and examine whether either of those arguments can be made out.
Rumiana Yotova: Systemic Integration: An Instrument for Reasserting the State's Control in Investment Arbitration? (37/2017)
This chapter argues that systemic integration can be used as an effective tool by States for reasserting their control in investment arbitration, provided this is done with due consideration of the inherent limitations of the principle under international law and within the confines of the processes of interpretation and application of treaties. The chapter begins with outlining the origins, function and application of the principle in general international law. It emphasises the distinction between the role of systemic integration in the interpretation and in the application of treaties. The second part analyses the applicability of systemic integration in investment law. It argues that there are special considerations limiting the application of systemic integration in an investment context. The principle ought to be applied mutatis mutandi given the mixed character of investment arbitration involving a non-State actor who is not a party to the investment treaty. Investment case law indicates that systemic integration is invoked with most success by States reasserting their sovereignty to regulate in accordance with their public policy. Overall, systemic integration is a powerful tool that ought to be used with caution in reasserting control in a process governed by specialised economic treaties and involving a non-State actor.
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