Legal Studies Research Paper Series Vol. 17, No. 4

The Faculty has distributed Volume 17 Number 4 of the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law Legal Studies Research Paper Series on SSRN.

This issue includes the following articles:

Catherine Barnard & Fiona Costello: Life after Brexit, a Local view from EU Citizens and British Nationals Living in the East of England (8/2026)

Ten years on from the Brexit referendum, we revisit the town of Great Yarmouth to see the extent to which the lives of both EU and UK nationals have changed. Great Yarmouth, a deprived town on the Norfolk coast, experienced high levels of migration in the period leading up to the referendum: the EU migrant population increased by over 200% between 2000 and 2016. It had the fifth highest 'leave' vote in the UK referendum, in part as a protest vote regarding levels of migration to the town. This article considers the impact that Brexit has had on the day-to-day life of EU citizens and British nationals living in Great Yarmouth, their views on the promises made about Brexit and (relatedly) its outcomes. For EU citizens, we examine the application of the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) and, in particular, the EU Settlement Scheme, the scheme to which all EU citizens living in the UK before 2020 had to apply to regularise their continued residence in the UK. We also explore their long-term plans in a post-Brexit world. The research also offers reflections from local residents on the ten years since the Brexit referendum and how they have experienced changes to the town in that time. Focusing on in-depth qualitative data about belonging, this paper offers an important insight into the complex, topical and (still) highly divisive issue, migration. It argues that despite considerable resource being given to the town, widespread dissatisfaction and unhappiness remains. This has manifested itself in part in the election of a Restore MP, Rupert Lowe, with strong anti-migration views.

Brian R. Cheffins: Opening History's Shareholder Activism Black Box (10/2026)

Shareholder activism is a pivotal element of corporate governance. Historical analysis of shareholder engagement in publicly traded companies has nevertheless generally been cursory. This paper draws upon a hand-collected dataset of proxy contests compiled from newspaper archives to correct matters for the United States for the first half of the 20 th century. The dataset reveals shareholder engagement occurred with greater frequency than conventional wisdom implies, particularly in the 1930s and the 1940s. Moreover, the stakes were typically high, with corporate control often being in play by way of contests for directorships. The paper accounts for the trends the proxy contest dataset reveals by reference to applicable corporate law rules and incentives shareholders potentially had to launch proxy contests.

David Erdos: C-199/24 Legal Newsdesk limits Freedom of Expression under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (12/2026)

C-199/24 Legal Newsdesk arose from the need to determine the position under the GDPR of a database which, in return for payment, provides both criminal record and related court judgment information in response to searches on persons who had been subject to conviction in Sweden. Consistent with their lack of orientation towards a collective public (or society), the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) correctly indicated that such databases did not fall within Article 85’s concept of “journalistic purposes”. Going beyond existing case law, it further held that this concept only covered processing related to disclosure “in compliance with the rules and codes of conduct of the profession of journalist” and where “factual allegations” had been “verified so as to be sufficiently reliable”. Additionally, the CJEU held that even journalistic processing could not be exempted from the GDPR’s remedies and liability provisions and that Article 85’s reference to freedom of expression in its totality did not empower Member States “on the basis of that provision” to adopt derogations beyond journalistic and similarly special expression. Several of these holdings are concerning and, at the least, will need to be narrowly construed if a proper reconciliation between data protection and freedom of expression consistent with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is to remain possible.

Julian Glitsch, Josra Riecke & Henning Grosse Ruse-Khan: Delivering on the Promise of Climate Technology Transfer: How to make a 'Green Technology Pool' work (13/2026)

This study explores whether and how a green technology pool – a centralized mechanism through which technology holders can license relevant patents and know-how – can accelerate climate technology transfer to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). It first maps the international legal framework governing such transfers, spanning customary duties to cooperate on climate action, treaty-based obligations to promote technology transfer, and flexibilities for governing relevant intellectual property (IP). It then assesses key IP management tools for transferring climate technologies, before analysing the advantages and recurring pitfalls of technology pools in depth. Building on this analysis, the paper proposes a practical design framework for a green technology pool specifying: (i) a narrow technological focus aligned with identified IP bottlenecks, market demand, and LMIC absorptive capacity; (ii) calibrated incentives for licensors and licensees combining standardized yet flexible terms, appropriately structured royalties, and complementary public support; (iii) comprehensive transfer that bundles patents with codified and tacit know-how, training, and implementation support; and (iv) governance structures that balance political support with operational autonomy.

Mark Elliott & Nicholas Kilford: The Relational Principle of Parliamentary Sovereignty (15/2026)

Parliamentary sovereignty is perhaps the most important principle in UK constitutional law. However, some of UK Supreme Court's most significant constitutional jurisprudence of the last decade sees that principle being put to uses and given meanings that are novel and, often, expansive, exposing the principle's flexibility and the Court itself to criticism. This article, centring on the novel accounts of parliamentary sovereignty offered in Privacy International, Miller II and UNCRC, explores the different ways in which that principle is understood by the Court and, particularly, the way the Court appears to conceptualise parliamentary sovereignty's relationship with other constitutional principles. This article offers three different models for making sense of the way the Court describes parliamentary sovereignty in these cases. It argues that these models illuminate, at a deeper level, three different underlying visions of the constitution which respectively postulate sovereignty as something that (a) overpowers other constitutional principles, (b) constitutes a threat to other principles (requiring the management of that threat), and (c) sits in relationship with other principles as part of a normative network. The article argues that the Court's presentation and mechanisation of parliamentary sovereignty is most effective when, and to the extent that, it takes full account of the relationship-including both its dissonant and consonant aspects-between the sovereignty principle and the other constitutional principles with which it should properly be understood as interacting.

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