Monthly Archives: November, 2024
‘Twitter’s New Liquidated Damages Clause’
We recently posted about Twitter’s venue clause in its latest Terms of Service (ToS), which went live on November 15th and can be found here. There is another aspect to the new ToS that has gained some notoriety. It is Twitter’s new liquidated damages provision, which provides as follows: ‘Liquidated Damages: Protecting our users’ data […]
‘Call for Papers: Intellectual Property and Capitalism’
The 16th Annual Workshop of the International Society for the History and Theory of Intellectual Property (ISHTIP) will be hosted by Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain, 25-26 June 2025. Papers that address this call from historical or theoretical perspective are welcome from scholars from all disciplines. As always, we are happy to consider any other […]
‘Sisyphus and Forum Selection Clauses’
In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was fated to push a boulder up an endless hill for all eternity. No matter how hard he strove, no matter how long he pushed, he and the boulder would never reach the top. I sometimes feel this way when I write about forum selection clauses. I research and blog about […]
‘Reification and Tilt in the Critique of Trusts’
‘Power, Property and the Law of Trusts: A Partial Agenda for Critical Legal Scholarship’ was written in the mid-1980s when the American critical legal studies (CLS) movement was flourishing. Parallel but differently oriented movements were also developing in the UK and various continental European countries. In that context, the essay criticised the orientation of American […]
‘“Pryket, Pryket, Pryket”: The Persistence of Orality in Fifteenth-Century English Legal Culture’
Unlike many other places in Europe, notaries public did not take hold and proliferate in England after the twelfth-century Legal Revolution. While judge-led law in the newly instituted inquisitorial system of justice implemented by the church and some Continental states necessitated a vast army of notaries to take down depositions and record court proceedings, in […]
P Bernt Hugenholtz, ‘Copyright and the Expression Engine: Idea and Expression in AI-Assisted Creations’
ABSTRACT This essay explores AI-assisted content creation in light of EU and US copyright law. The essay revisits a 2020 study commissioned by the European Commission, which was written before the surge of generative AI. Drawing from traditional legal doctrines, such as the idea/expression dichotomy and its equivalents in Europe, the author argues that iterative […]
Aitizaz Asher, ‘Law-making is the Regime of Legislature: A Critical Overview of Partnership Model’
ABSTRACT The hallmark of 19th and 20th century doctrines of interpretation has been that they premise themselves on the principle that a court ought to interpret law as it stands. Function of the court is to interpret the language of a statute, whereas it is for the legislature to make enactments and for the courts […]
Nabil Khabirpour, ‘A Tale of Two Cases and a Story Yet Untold: Access to Justice and Legal Advice under the Civil Limb of Article 6 ECHR’
ABSTRACT The proposition that universal access to justice should be a guiding aim of any system of law is, today, commonly recognised. Less clear, however, is what the implementation of this principle should entail in practice if a party cannot afford legal assistance. This article explores the role European human rights law can play in […]
Crescente Molina, ‘Contracting Without Promising’
ABSTRACT There is one proposition about the nature of contracts that most lawyers and contract law scholars will take as evidently true: a contract is, at least in part, constituted by a promise or group of promises. This basic dogma about the nature of contract – one taught in law schools, and widely endorsed by […]
Wenhua Ji, ‘The influence of the UNIDROIT principles on the contract book of the Chinese Civil Code: process and examples’
ABSTRACT One of the main purposes of the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts (UPICC) is to serve as a source of inspiration and legal reference for domestic legislators. The evolution of China’s contract law system has been a gradual process, shaped by local characteristics and informed by the experiences of other legal systems. In […]