What is “Proper Medical Treatment”?

Dr Sara Fovargue, Lancaster University
Dr Alexandra Mullock, University of Manchester

The relationship between medical practice and criminal law is much closer than many realise. Doctors are permitted to do things that others are not, provided that what they do is regarded as ‘proper medical treatment’. The legal justification for bodily invasions in the medical context has developed according to the ‘medical exception’ to the criminal law discussed by the House of Lords in the cases of R v Brown [1993] and Airedale NHS Trust v Bland [1994], and by the Law Commission in 1994. As those involved in sado-masochistic activities discovered in Brown, consent, in the absence of medical (or legitimate sporting) justification, is not enough to make harming others lawful. And in Bland, while it was legitimate for the doctors to withdraw life-sustaining treatment, if a concerned relative did the same it would become a criminal matter.

Women Who Buy Sex (@womenwhobuysex)

Andrew Goddard

As sex industry research expands, so too do sex work preconceptions. A popular stereotype and ‘myth’ is that men are always the sex purchasers, and women the service providers. However, a recent study by Lancaster University demonstrates women buy sexual services too, in a range of settings and scenarios.

This study, led by Dr Sarah Kingston of Lancaster University promises to be the most in-depth analysis of female clients in the sex industry ever undertaken in the UK, and the early results are revealing.

Why Shouldn’t “Lunatics” Run the “Asylum”?: Re A (Application for DNA Testing) and Attitudes to Children in Proceedings

Dr Aoife Daly

Staff at the European Children’s Rights Unit (University of Liverpool) and elsewhere are involved in Children’s Rights Judgments – a project to progress the use of a children’s rights approach in judgment writing. Re A (Application for DNA Testing) [2015] EWCA Civ 133 concerns an appeal against a judgment of the Liverpool County Court and it provides a notable case study to consider from a children’s rights perspective. It is probably the least child-friendly judgment you are likely to see in this jurisdiction in recent times. The reaction by a judge to the application of a child for a court order makes for extraordinary reading, and serves as a reminder of the distance left to travel in terms of universal acceptance of children’s rights as legal actors and indeed as human beings.

Part II: The Impact of the ECtHR Ruling in the Case of Maktouf and Damjanovic vs Bosnia and Herzegovina: On Transitional Justice in B-H

Maja Kapetanovic

Part Two: Political Impact

In July of 2013 the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued a ruling in the case Maktouf and Damjanovic vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina, concerning the non-retroactive application of criminal law to war crimes cases, which had tremendous negative consequences on post conflict justice efforts in Bosnia and Herzegovina (B-H). The case concerned two applicants (Maktouf and Damjanovic), convicted for war crimes against civilians committed during the 1992-1995 war in B-H, who successfully claimed that their sentencing violated Article 7 ECHR because the 2003 Bosnian Criminal Code was retroactively applied to them (the case is discussed in more detail in a previous Lancaster Law blog by Prof. James A. Sweeney, and in his recent journal on ‘Non-retroactivity, candour and transitional relativism’). This blog post will deal the political fallout from this case in B-H. My previous post examined the legal consequences.

The Impact of the ECtHR Ruling in the Case of Maktouf and Damjanovic v Bosnia and Herzegovina: Transitional Justice in B-H

Maja Kapetanovic

Part One: Legal Impact

In July of 2013 the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued a ruling in the case Maktouf and Damjanovic vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina, concerning the non-retroactive application of criminal law to war crimes cases, which had tremendous negative consequences on post conflict justice efforts in Bosnia and Herzegovina (B-H).

Part II is available here.

The spectre of Nazism haunts social media

Prof Paul Iganski, Mark McGlashan, and Dr Abe Sweiry

Each time there is an upsurge in the Israel-Palestine conflict there is a rise in violent and other abusive incidents against Jews around the world. This phenomenon is now well-known. So it was in 2014 with Israel’s military operation ‘Protective Edge’ in July and August. Numerous backlash incidents against Jews in the UK and elsewhere in the world were reported by news media.

The rule of law is the common sense of global politics: often appealed to but seldom understood

Prof Christopher May

The rule of law is often presented as preferable to the rule of men or the rule of force, and in the last couple of decades has become a central part of the common sense of global politics; an unquestioned statement about the world in which we live. To understand its appeal we need to recognise that it can mean different things to different people, but also that its central normative elements underpin the dominant view of the operation of the global market economy.

As I set out in my recent book The Rule of Law: The Common Sense of Global Politics there is a continuing debate about the rule of law might actually mean, but it is easy to identify some key relatively consensual elements:

Criminal Omissions: Assessing the Limits of the Military Profession in International Law

Lenneke Sprik

After the mass atrocities that took place in Bosnia and Rwanda during the nineties, questions were raised regarding the individual duties and criminal responsibility of military officials during peacekeeping missions.  In the Netherlands a criminal complaint was filed against the commander of the Dutch battalion (Dutchbat) who was allegedly responsible for the death of three men in Srebrenica; one working directly for Dutchbat, the others relatives of those working for Dutchbat.