CPLC Work in Progress Seminar: 'The Conceptualisation of Harm in Private Law: Vulnerability, Trauma and Its Limits' / 'The need for a structured response for repatriation of cultural items'

Speaker: Dr Bridget Fa’amatuainu (AUT Law School)

What is harm in private law, and what role should it play? Recent decisions of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal across tort, fiduciary, and commercial law have prompted renewed debate as to the role of harm in structuring liability, including a recent Court of Appeal decision on the tort of battery and aggravated damages, engaging directly with questions of harm and vulnerability beyond the commercial sphere. This paper engages with critiques of these developments by examining whether private law is structured by reference to harm, or by reference to the violation of rights. It reframes these developments through Professor Jonathan Herring’s account of vulnerability and relational care in law, arguing that vulnerability plays a significant role in shaping the content and scope of legal rights insofar as it is created, assumed, or exploited by the defendant. In doing so, it assesses the extent to which a vulnerability-based account can explain private law, as well as its limits, and draws on empirical research on trauma and, separately, social media-related harms across Commonwealth jurisdictions.

Speaker: Professor Rod Thomas (AUT Law School)

Arguments for return of museum collected items originating from colonial or indigenous peoples are invariably put in emotive terms, as a necessary moral, or ethical response, to the “theft” from other cultures. This paper suggests that a more structured response is necessary. Where a museum has good legal title, items should be repatriated only where they have “fundamental spiritual and cultural value” to the party seeking return, so as to constitute collections representative of the claimant’s cultural heritage. In such an eventuality those items are argued to have a super value, rendering their continued retention inappropriate. Otherwise a museum should deal with its collection for the purpose of “preservation, research, communication and education”, and for the benefit of our common heritage, which the United Nations recognises as being a museum’s core function.

Open to Faculty members, visitors, invitees and LLM/MCL/PhD students only.

Sandwiches served in G24 from 12.30pm; seminar to commence at 1pm.

We hope that you can make it to these exciting events: Eugene Shevchuk & Fleur Stolker (Convenors)

The Cambridge Private Law Centre acknowledges with gratitude the generous financial support of XXIV Old Buildings and of South Square.