Shareholder say-on-pay voting allows institutional investors to influence the incentives of managers and, consequently, corporate behaviour. Surprisingly, the preferences of investors on executive compensation have been largely overlooked in the ongoing debates on the role of say-on-pay in corporate governance and the impact of shareholder stewardship on sustainable corporate behaviour. The analysis of investor disclosed explanations of say-on-pay votes in the FTSE 100 companies during 2013–2021 shows that institutional investors rely repeatedly on several dominant themes aimed at improving the incentives of corporate managers and controlling managerial rent extraction. But shareholder interests remain the core focus of say-on-pay votes, with only few investors demanding that companies reward executive directors for protecting the interests of a broader range of affected stakeholders. Additionally, most investors can be grouped into several clusters formed around the voting recommendations of proxy advisers. A group of UK-based institutional investors stands out by taking a more individualistic and diverse approach to the stewardship of executive compensation. These findings highlight the role of local investors in the oversight of executive pay, the growing influence of proxy advisers along with the increasing share of foreign institutional investors, and the influence of best practice governance codes in driving investor stewardship preferences.

This paper is a revised version of a plenary lecture delivered at the SLS Annual Conference held at Oxford Brookes University in June 2023. It adopts an auto-ethnographic approach, drawing on the author's long experience of participating in the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF), to assess the current state of legal research in the UK and consider the implications of the increasing importance in the research landscape of engaging in research that serves the public good. The paper explores what falls within the scope of ‘legal research’, particularly for REF purposes, and reflects on how REF-focused research sits within the broader scope of legal scholarly activities. Ideas of the public good are examined and their relation to measures of research impact probed. The paper concludes by painting a broad-brush picture of the current research landscape, identifying key elements and engines of change, and speculating on the direction in which things are going and what should most concern legal scholars going forward. Although primarily focused on legal research in the UK, the paper should be of interest to legal scholars beyond the UK, particularly those in jurisdictions where research assessment exercises are a feature of academic life.

Austerity measures and the cost-of-living crisis have led to rising poverty rates and violations of socioeconomic rights in the UK and Europe. However, there are limited routes of redress for these violations in many European countries. Claims using Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to address violations of socioeconomic rights are suggested but not fully described in the academic literature. The European Court of Human Rights has found violations of the Convention in very limited circumstances caused by poverty and destitution. These circumstances include violations of the ECHR in cases of insufficient food being provided to those detained by the state. This paper considers possible violations of Article 3 ECHR in relation to food poverty. It argues that hunger is a violation of human dignity and provides tangible evidence of degrading treatment. It identifies benefit caps, the two-child limit, and benefit sanctions as policies that can lead to food poverty and, as a result, could amount to degrading treatment. For some living in food poverty due to these policies, Article 3 ECHR may provide a route of redress.

Judicial institutions have become the standard solution to umpire multilevel polities across much of the European continent. However, such arrangement is not free from complexities. This paper analyses the problems associated with the construction of legitimacy regarding constitutional courts in European multilevel democracies. In these polities, constitutional courts tend to rely on three different forms of legitimacy, which are embedded into their institutional design: democratic, multilevel; and technocratic. However, these forms of legitimacy are in tension, often undermining one another when combined. Furthermore, this tension is exploited by political actors to attack the courts, resulting in reputational costs for these institutions.

Disputes over frozen embryos represent a particularly problematic case, legally and ethically, due to the ambiguity of their moral and legal status and the potential rights-claims which can be made with regard to them. Recent work has contextualised frozen embryos as liminal and suggested a contextual approach to their legal classification. By appeal to personal property law, with a lens provided by Roman law doctrines, and reproductive bioethics, we argue that frozen embryos may be subjects of property rights, providing a more stable framework for dispute resolution. To illustrate how a property approach would work, we reconsider the facts of the influential Evans case and argue that if a proprietary rather than promissory estoppel claim had been pursued, the reverse outcome may have been reached, to the benefit of women who are disproportionately harmed in these scenarios.

In this short piece we focus on two of the main changes brought in by the recent Nationality and Borders Act 2022 with a focus on sexually diverse claimants: inadmissibility and the increased standard of proof. The recent changes have a negative impact on all asylum seekers but we highlight that they have a particularly adverse impact on sexually diverse claimants because their diverse backgrounds have not been appropriately considered. The problematic provisions on inadmissibility on the basis of mode of entry and removal to a ‘third safe country’ pose particular risks for sexual minorities. Additionally, the increased standard of proof exaggerates issues already faced by sexually diverse claimants in relation to objective evidence gathering and decision-makers using guidance riddled with stereotypical understandings about sexual minorities.

The challenge that delegated legislation poses to parliamentary sovereignty and associated supremacy in the UK is purportedly addressed through what we term the ‘constitutional bargain of delegated law-making’. This has three elements: the proper limitation of delegation by Parliament through well-designed parent legislation; the exercise of self-restraint by the Executive in the use of delegated authority; and the enablement of meaningful scrutiny by Parliament. As a paradigm situation in which delegated law-making might be said to be necessary, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic is an apposite context in which to assess the robustness of that bargain. Our analysis uses a sample of Westminster-generated pandemic-related secondary instruments as a peephole into the broader dynamics of this constitutional bargain and further reveals its significant frailties; frailties that are exposed, but not created, by the pandemic.

The Attorney General for England and Wales is the Government's Senior Law Officer who, inter alia, initiates certain kinds of legal proceedings. She is also a politician: a member of the House of Commons or the House of Lords and appointed to Government by the Prime Minister. This paper considers the Attorney General's role in initiating contempt proceedings against fellow politicians. I detail a number of cases where politicians have been involved in potential contempts by publication. I argue that, in such cases, the Attorney General's position may amount to an actual or perceived conflict of interest and may breach the principle that justice should be seen to be done.

The interpretation of administrative policies is of great importance in contemporary public law. The correct approach to policy interpretation has, however, been subject to insufficient academic scrutiny. The effect of policies is to provide guidance: not only to decision-makers, but also to stakeholders in the decision. Obvious stakeholders include the applicant or the individual who is the subject of the administrative decision, but the scope of potential legitimate stakeholders may go far beyond this. In matters of general interest, the broader public may be guided by policy (for instance, whether to object to a proposal during a consultation exercise, or on what basis to object). When considering how policy should be interpreted, the court should have regard to the extent of the appropriate audience of the policy, specifically considering how the least expert reader of the policy would interpret it. This ‘least expert reader principle’ will assist in answering difficult questions, such as whether the court should have regard to the underlying evidence base when interpreting a policy. The courts should rely upon, and express their reasoning by reference to, the least expert reader principle, in order to increase the transparency of judgments in the field of policy interpretation.

The merits and means of accommodating non-binary populations into UK law is becoming an increasingly important issue for policymakers, judges, scholars and legal professionals. Following Elan-Cane's Supreme Court challenge to binary passport sex markers in 2021, the UK Government face another challenge this year concerning non-binary recognition on birth certificates. While an additional third sex option is perhaps the most well-known reform option for the current binary system, other options have been suggested, including additional multiple sex options and/or removing sex from the birth certificate. While scholars and policymakers debate the merits of these, little is known about non-binary people's own preferences towards these options. This paper therefore presents original empirical data on non-binary attitudes towards these options, demonstrating the various perceived opportunities and drawbacks of each, and reflecting on the possible consequences of reform.

Trans identities are increasingly subjected to contentious public and political debate in the UK, and this has resulted in resource to the law across various contexts. Against that background, this paper considers trans legal parenthood after the decision in R (McConnell and YY) v Registrar General for England and Wales. This judgment held that a trans man who gave birth was the legal ‘mother’ of his child. The wider consequence is that trans legal parenthood will not reflect trans identities, but birth-assigned sex/gender, regardless of whether the parent holds a gender recognition certificate. Separate from this underlying social and political context concerning trans identities, the paper argues that legal parenthood is a flexible and pragmatic concept, which lacks inherent normative content, and which has previously proved capable of accommodating a variety of different familial and reproductive circumstances. The paper argues that the gendered descriptors of ‘mother’ and ‘father’, while remaining the law's default, are not inherent to legal parenthood. Thus, the paper concludes that, despite the ongoing political and cultural debates concerning trans identities, the existing concept of legal parenthood is capable of properly recognising trans parenthood, without requiring any fundamental changes to the concept itself.

The paper reports the findings of over a decade of pioneering, award-winning fieldwork which has explored how workplace experience, if embedded successfully in different stages of legal education, can accelerate the ‘speed to capability’ and skills development of early career lawyers. The benefits from initial experiments of graduate-level work placements carried out by the authors since 2008 are presented. The paper then explores the findings from almost 10 years of creating year-long work placements for law undergraduates, assessing student skill growth, and the impact of the work placements on degree results and employment outcomes, before and during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This is the first academic paper to consider the role that parliamentarians play in access to justice. Under austerity, England and Wales has seen cuts to legal aid and local authority budgets that have impacted the ability of people to get help for legal problems in social welfare law from the advice sector. Members of the UK Parliament and Members of the Senedd Cymru are increasingly being called upon by their constituents to fill the resultant gap in advice. This paper draws on interviews with parliamentarians that draw out the nature of the role they are now playing in access to justice across three key areas of civil justice: welfare benefits; housing; and immigration. The growth of parliamentarians as figures in access to justice has thus far been largely neglected but is crucial to grasp, as the implications for the future of access to justice are massive. The paper calls for more research to better understand the phenomenon but urges caution that elected representatives should not be considered as an adequate substitute for a properly functioning, adequately funded advice sector.

It is estimated that there are in excess of eight million unfit homes in England and that one in five excess deaths are attributable to poor housing conditions, costing the NHS some £1.4bn per year. While the policy focus tends to be on housing supply, it is the private rented sector (PRS) that is a key vehicle for provision. The pandemic has given rise to some unexpected outcomes, not least in regulating that sector. This paper will consider how strategies have changed and generated new modes of regulation in the sector, which may have important longer-term effects for the relation between tenant and landlord. Using the frame of vulnerability and risk theories as a starting position, the paper will critique the role of law in allocating landlord rights and responsibilities. It will look at the implications of moving towards an appreciation of the relational, as opposed to physical aspects of housing provision in regulating landlord behaviour and the attendant risks of so doing. It will be argued that the literatures of vulnerability and risk only make sense if a further element is added in this case: the notion of hope.

The UK enacted its first legal measure to address gender pay inequity, the Equal Pay Act 1970, more than 50 years ago. Yet, in 2021, the gender pay gap (GPG) still stood at 15.4%. Departing from the remedial and individual approach that characterises equal pay legislation, the 2017 Gender Pay Gap Information Regulations (the Regulations) require private and voluntary sector organisations with 250+ employees to annually publish pay data broken down by gender. The long-term aspiration of the Regulations is to contribute to closing the GPG within a generation. It is also hoped that they will encourage the public disclosure of pay data and changes in workplace policies to reduce organisational GPGs (immediate aims) and improve employers’ accountability (underlying aim). This paper considers whether the Regulations have what it takes to meet those immediate and underlying aims. Our assessment framework is built on the premise that for public disclosure to be useful and for employers to tackle the causes of the GPG, the information reported must be of sufficient quality, meaningful and relevant. The paper draws on both doctrinal analysis and empirical data reported by FTSE 100 Index companies to assess the Regulations and determine whether they hold the potential to meet those aims.

This paper considers whether UK corporate insolvency law and the UK Insolvency Act 1986 have extra-territorial effect post-Brexit, and whether – and to what extent – it is for the courts or the legislature to extend any extra-territorial effect. It does not deal with ‘inward recognition’, ie the recognition of foreign judgments and orders in the UK.

Brexit has left something of a vacuum and provisions which might otherwise have applied extra-territorially, at least within the EU, may now have been deprived completely of extra-territorial effect. But all is not lost and Brexit here presents opportunities. There is room for clarifying that particular provisions which might otherwise have discriminated between EU application and application vis-à-vis the rest of the world can now be given a uniform global interpretation. Courts should, however, proceed incrementally in extending the extra-territorial scope of UK corporate insolvency law.

A bolder reform would be to enact legislation that specifies the exact extent to which the UK Insolvency Act applies extra-territorially. Legislation obviously depends on parliamentary time and requires detailed drafting but also provides the opportunity for the UK to showcase that it remains at the forefront of international insolvency developments.

To address the issue of persistent unemployment, the UK Government implemented a conditional welfare scheme. Prompted by Mantouvalou's argument that the scheme forces people into exploitative work, this paper addresses the ‘pressing’ question of whether the scheme is compatible with the prohibition on ‘forced or compulsory labour’ under Article 4(2) of the European Convention on Human Rights. It is argued that, whether the scheme imposes the menace of a penalty, is involuntary, seriously exploitative or a normal civic obligation, ultimately depends on different understandings of the demands of distributive justice. Given the politically contested nature of those demands, Article 4(2) is a poor weapon to use when challenging the UK's conditional welfare scheme.