Articles

I. Introduction Issues of priority are at the centre of English land law. Where a plot of land in which a third party has an interest is transferred from one party to another, a conflict arises between this third party and the transferee: whose interest has priority? If push comes to shove, can the transferee prevent the third-party interest holder from exercising her right, or is the third-party interest-holder entitled to enjoy her interest in the face of the transferee’s o

I see NFTs as a way to innovate, empower others and push the boundaries of how artists interact with their fans. I see NFTs…as the future...

Introduction The human–animal relationship, as a concept of study, spans multiple disciplines and indeed has been an area of interest across both time and geography. At its core are historic and cultural norms which often go unchecked and unquestioned. The set of legal rules governing human–animal relationships is known as animal law.[1] This area of law is a complex web of rules that govern many relationship types and situations related to animals. At an academic level this

Motive is traditionally considered to be an unwelcome guest in criminal trials, a bête noire that should only appear at a sentencing....

1. Introduction The criminal law continues to grapple with the concept of ‘deceptive sex’ and struggles to draw the appropriate parameters around the provisions on consent contained within the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (henceforth, ‘the SOA’). Particularly notable in this regard have been cases involving ‘gender fraud’, wherein the defendant (D) is alleged to have deceived the complainant (V) as to their gender in order to procure sexual relations. This was found to be the cas

In Northern Ireland, one of the most significant human rights instruments resulting from the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement in 1998 is Section 75 (s. 75) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. It legally binds public authorities to not only have due regard to the promotion of equality of opportunity amongst nine protected categories of persons (those of differing religious belief, political opinion, racial group, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, those with dependent

Shakespeare understood much about the role of law in society, possibly thanks to his direct links with London’s Inns of Court. The Inns...

Christopher A Marinello is an expert in recovering stolen, looted, and missing works of art. A lawyer for over 38 years, Marinello began his legal career as a litigator, negotiating complex title disputes between collectors, dealers, museums, and insurance companies. In 2013, he founded Art Recovery Group, a specialist practice providing due diligence, dispute resolution, and recovery services for the art market and the cultural heritage sector. Marinello has overseen the dev

The purpose of the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) was to ‘bring rights home’, allowing people to protect their fundamental human rights...

The United Kingdom has experienced two major political crises in the last five years. Brexit and COVID-19 are crises of very different...

I. The case of George Gavriel   A recent incident in Cyprus re-ignited the debate about the limits of artistic freedom. George Gavriel, a director and teacher of art of a secondary education public school, who is also an artist in his leisure time, posted on social media in September 2020 pictures of some of his latest paintings.[1] Some of them have a clear anti-Church theme, with one picture in particular showing a naked Jesus riding a motorcycle and wearing a scarf with th

Is a judge more like an artist or a scientist? This seems to be a trick question, and yet extreme versions of both perspectives have, at one time or another, been advocated. For instance, James Boyd White, often regarded as the founder of the ‘Law and Literature’ movement, considered lawyers to be artists, and the solving of complex legal problems to be akin to high art.[1] Conversely, Christopher Columbus Langdell, once Dean of Harvard Law School, believed that ‘law is a sci

In the opening essay of Ways of Seeing , John Berger writes, ‘We only see what we look at. To look is an act of choice. As a result of...

Vittoria Mastrandrea is writer and presenter of the Christie’s Education Art Law course and a PhD candidate in Law at the London School...

Becky Shaw is a Senior Associate at Boodle Hatfield in the firm’s art law and commercial litigation teams. She has worked on cases...

Abstract Expressionism emerged amid a tense post-war climate, as a new genre of art that seemed so devoid of representational form or...

Anthony Julius is a solicitor advocate who has represented Princess Diana and Deborah Lipstadt. He is Deputy Chairman of Mishcon de Reya,...

In the digital age, the sharing of images is prevalent across a variety of online platforms. Instagram, one of the largest of these, can provide an up-and-coming artist with an audience of over one billion users. Some already predict the platform’s decline. Kenny Schachter recently commented that, given Instagram’s ever-changing format, ‘it is only a matter of time before the powers that be get too greedy and the ease and accessibility of the app decline’.[1] Yet platforms li

Introduction   Frans Hals was a mildly successful seventeenth-century Dutch old master who specialised in portraits. Few of his works have persisted in popular cultural consciousness in the intervening 400 years. One exception is the Laughing Cavalier,  painted in 1624, which remains on display in the Wallace Collection in London. The Laughing Cavalier  was once described by the Harvard art historian   Seymour Slive as ‘one of the most brilliant of all Baroque portraits’.[1]

The application of print privilege (pre-copyright) legislation to Venetian cartography came about by chance.[1] While the Venetian Republic was not the first state in Europe to construct a system of printing privileges, it was the earliest to grant limited monopolies for cartography and artwork. Intended originally for bestowing printed book privileges, the wording of the sixteenth century legislation and printing culture of Early Modern Venice enabled the expansion of the pr

Camilla Perera-de Wit is the Secretary-General and Director-General of the Netherlands Arbitration Institute (NAI). Her previous experience in dispute resolution includes her work at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) and at P.R.I.M.E. Finance. She is a board member of the Court for Arbitration of Art (CAfA) in Rotterdam.   Bert Demarsin is a law professor at KU Leuven, who has conducted extensive work on art disputes. His work particularly focuses on provenance and aut

A central image in the consideration of law is the totemic figure of justice—Justitia—the blindfolded Roman goddess of justice. Often appearing in statue form in many courthouses and carrying a sword and scales, she heralds the idea of law as impartial and unseeing, of law as a system that, theoretically at least, is open to all—democracy as a form of blindness. The irony of this sightlessness will not be lost on artists, who tend (with good reason) to think of law as oafishl

The Jamaican Jerk seasoning. Halloween. Kendall Jenner’s new Tequila brand. The mascot of the Washington Redskins. Rugby. Victoria’s...

Professor Andreas Rahmatian is Professor of Commercial Law at the University of Glasgow School of Law. Originally from Vienna, he obtained his first degree in law and a PhD in Private Law from the University of Vienna, and completed another degree in musicology and history there. He holds an LLM from the University of London. He worked as an associate attorney-at-law in Vienna and qualified as a solicitor with a City firm in London before he became a full-time academic. He ha