Monthly Archives: April, 2026
Daniel Fryer, ‘Justice as Repair’
ABSTRACT One standard story in political philosophy says that reparation is best viewed as supplementary to an ahistorical project of distributive justice. Once we figure out the forward-looking ideal, the argument goes, we can then focus on the necessary reparative interventions to transition us to that ideal state. I argue that this approach is mistaken. […]
Graham Virgo, ‘Free Acceptance as an Unjust Factor: The Zombie Returns’
Just when the death of free acceptance as an unjust factor seemed assured, it has returned like a zombie to plague the law of unjust enrichment. In Barton v Morris [2023] UKSC 3, [2023] AC 684, at [230], Lord Burrows had expressly rejected free acceptance as an unjust factor, albeit in a dissenting judgment, and […]
Ryota Akasaka, ‘When Right to Repair Meets AI: Reinterpreting the Right to Repair through Individuation’
ABSTRACT Recent legislative developments in the European Union, the United States, and other jurisdictions have formalized the ‘right to repair’. A premise common to these legislative frameworks is that the object of repair is a tangible artifact completed at the time of sale, and that repair consists in returning that object to a predetermined reference […]
Daniel Monk, ‘“The reading of the will”: making inheritance law visual’
ABSTRACT Wills have lent themselves to more performative possibilities than any other legal document. They have been engraved, painted, written about and sung. Yet within legal scholarship these representations have been overlooked. Interpreting the Reading of the Will widely, this article demonstrates the tenacity of the will on artistic imagination and, at the same time, […]
‘Comparative AI Law: Regulating the Future’ – special issue of German Law Journal
Comparative AI Law: Regulating the Future, German Law Journal volume 26, special issue 7, October 2025. Of particular interest for private law are: AI-Driven Dynamic Pricing: Erosion of Consumer Welfare, Invisible Hand, and Rise of Platform Quasi-Taxation (Sang Yop Kang) Digital Alchemy? Rethinking Copyright in the Age of AI-Generated Content: Lessons and Reflections from the […]
Julia Rudolph, ‘William Blackstone, Family Man: New Contexts in Gender, Jurisprudence, and Jamaica’
ABSTRACT While much has been written about William Blackstone, the jurist, politician, and legal writer, this article provides a critical new understanding of Blackstone, the husband, friend, and investor. It considers Blackstone’s legal and economic actions as well as ideas, analyzing his strategies for managing family wealth and comparing them to the strategies employed by […]
‘The Mechanical Priority Rule in Grant v Jackman [2026] UKPC 13′
Grant v Jackman [2026] UKPC 13 is an important Privy Council decision on deeds registration and competing claims to land. Its central message is not that common law title ceases to matter, but that under a registration statute of the Irish model, priority between competing deeds is governed primarily by the statutory order of registration […]
Leyi Zhang, ‘Liability for Third-Party Fine-Tuning: Capability Reconfiguration and Risk Structures in General-Purpose AI’
ABSTRACT Third-party fine-tuning has become a structural node in the general-purpose AI supply chain, yet prevailing liability frameworks continue to treat it as an ordinary act of use. The result is a systematic misalignment between legal responsibility and actual control. This Article argues that fine-tuning is better understood as an act of capability reconfiguration – […]
Jankowska and Pawełczyk, ‘Intellectual Property Philosophies and Brand Strategies: Converging Theories and Integrative Approaches’
ABSTRACT This research extends the examination of intellectual property (IP) law by delving into its intricate relationship with branding in the contemporary marketplace. Building on foundational philosophical theories such as John Locke’s Labour Theory, Hegelian Personality Theory, and utilitarianism, the study explores how these theories influence both the legal frameworks and strategic dimensions of branding. […]
‘Coverture 2.0: Rebooting a legal regime of enforced dependency’
Happy Wednesday! This is the last of three posts about women and property (at least for a week or two), and we’re ending with a post about the return of coverture. The idea of coverture has been in the Substack atmosphere lately, and I’ll take any opportunity to talk about coverture (I’ve written about it […]