CPLC Work in Progress Seminars: '"Unchartered Waters": Fundamental Rights and the Common Law University of Cambridge Contract of Employment' & ‘What is Agency Law About?’

Speaker: Mr Niall O’Connor (University of Cambridge): "Unchartered Waters": Fundamental Rights and the Common Law University of Cambridge Contract of Employment'

This paper seeks to examine the continued relationship between the fundamental social rights found in the EU Charter and the common law contract of employment post-Brexit. In the absence of a binding labour rights text, to what extent can we rely on the common law of contract and private law principles more generally to preserve social rights/standards? First, the paper considers the existing relationship between contractual principles and legislation in the employment context, with a particular emphasis on the development of implied terms in law. Second, in the absence of employment legislation altogether, what is the capacity of the common law to embrace autonomous social principles?

Speaker: Miss Rachel Leow (University of Cambridge): 'What is Agency Law About?'

What do an estate agent, a bank, and the brother you send to the shop to buy a loaf of bread, have in common? The law’s answer is that they are all agents. The law of agency only coalesced as a distinct subject in the early 1900s, yet today it is widely assumed that it is one. But what holds the law of agency together apart from the binding of agency law books? What is the subject about? Existing answers to this typically point to the common normative justification of consent, the existence of a Hohfeldian power-liability relationship, that the agent acts to change the principal’s legal position, or a combination of these factors. These answers are either under-inclusive, over-inclusive, or both. The main argument of this paper is that what defines agency law as a subject is that it is the body of law where an individual A has a Hohfeldian power to exercise the Hohfeldian powers of another, his principal P. This explains many of the core features of agency law, and points the way towards re-organising the subject.

The work in progress seminars are open to all LLM/MCL and PhD students, Faculty members and Faculty visitors.

Please note that, as an amendment to the original published programme, there are now two speakers giving papers at this seminar.