This paper draws on Marxist scholarship concerning the law's emancipatory potential to shed new light on the history of UK trade unions, and their relationship with law. It traces the historical development of UK trade union law from the nineteenth century to the present day with a view to illustrating the importance of considering not just the content, but also the form, of law, in explaining the role of law in shaping the development of the trade union movement, and in understanding the limits of law, including human rights law, when it comes to realising the emancipatory potential of trade unions in society today. It concludes with some observations about how legal and social actors might make use of their understanding of the legal form when it comes to harnessing the law as part of their political strategies.

It has been argued in previous work that Hedley Byrne v Heller addressed no actual mischief. In the case itself, the defendant's credit reference about Easipower Ltd. was neither a misstatement nor negligently given, and in general the indemnification of reliance on negligent statements is far better regulated by contract than it can possibly be by negligent misstatement. This paper expands on the significance of contract relative to tort in Hedley Byrne, but mainly argues that the mischief perceived by the claimant was caused by the operation of the statutory regime regulating Easipower's insolvency. This makes regarding Hedley Byrne as a necessary response to “the privity of contract fallacy” even more implausible.

According to the “Inadequacy Thesis”, the law's refusal to extend the tort of conversion to interferences with contractual rights is evidence of systemic ossification and proof of its failure to protect the most valuable asset class in the modern economy. Whilst it is true that, like chattels, the benefit of contractual rights can be usurped by third parties, transforming such rights into objects of property is the wrong solution to the problem. This article departs from previous analyses by stressing that the analogue of acts of interference with contractual rights is not the conversion of a chattel but a “triangle dispute”. The problem raised by triangle disputes is not how to reach the primary wrongdoer, but how to allocate the loss between the innocent parties. Invoking the concept of “property” cannot solve this problem. Its efficient solution is to be found in better contracts, not more property.

Volenti non fit injuria allows a negligent defendant to escape liability by showing that the claimant voluntarily and willingly accepted the risk in question. This article combines the theoretical limitations of the volenti defence with a case analysis of how its application has played out in the “real world”, and argues it is not fit for modern tort law. The defence has a controversial and chequered history, being described as a “so-called principle … of little help: indeed, it is confusing, unnecessary, and if we are not careful, it will lead us to the wrong outcome”. It is submitted that volenti is based on unjustified concepts of people agreeing to risks, leads to harmful outcomes and that the defence does not fit with current approaches to tort liability. This article therefore concludes that the harmful outcomes of the volenti defence far exceed any potential benefits provided, and the defence should therefore be abolished.

Can claimants choose between contract and tort claims arising on the same facts with different jurisdictional and/or choice-of-law consequences? While domestic legal systems generally recognise concurrent liability, commentators object that its extension to private international law would be unprincipled and would threaten the field's values. This, however, contrasts with the position in common law and under EU Regulations, where concurrent claims are generally recognised with only narrow limits. This article justifies concurrent claims in private international law, arguing that the same premises supporting concurrent liability in domestic law exist in private international law, and that no field-unique concerns foreclose it.