The focus of this study is on the public procurement law applicable where UK contracting authorities seek to adjust the provisions of existing contracts. This study aims firstly to identify the law applicable to contract adjustments and secondly to establish how that law is applied in practice. In order to achieve the first objective, chapter 2 of this study set out the substantive law applicable to contract adjustments (including that arising from the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union , the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 and 2015, and case law) and chapters 3, 4, and 5 consider respectively the content of that law specifically in the cases of review clauses, adjustments upon operation of law, and other adjustments. The second objective is met through considering the findings of relevant case law and also through undertaking empirical research. Chapter 6 set out the empirical research method, which focuses on adjustments to public private partnership contracts in the health, secure accommodation and education sectors. Data was collected through semi-structured questionnaires from private practice lawyers who advise contracting authorities on adjustments to those contracts within the scope of this research and contracting authorities themselves. Chapter 7 then sets out the findings of that empirical research. In the concluding chapter 8 the findings of the research are set out including an explanation of the ambiguities identified in the existing legal framework, and an articulation of the overall approach taken by contracting authorities when adjusting contracts, which suggests that a pragmatic approach (including assessment of likelihood of successful procurement law challenge) is taken to best enable the attainment of the contracting authorities’ procurement objectives. The study closes by setting out ways in which the law on contract adjustments could be clarified or improved.

On 25 October 1855 Lord Cardigan led the Light Brigade in a fateful charge against a Russian artillery battery. Poet Laureate Lord Tennyson immortalised the cavalry’s valour in verse. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do & die, Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred Since then, British soldiers, sailors and pilots have been engaged in countless wars, conflicts and peacekeeping missions across the globe. Many have died in defence of the United Kingdom and her interests. What obligations do states have to armed forces personnel who lay down their lives? This thesis is about guaranteeing armed forces personnel’s right to life. It asks about the obligations states owe to their own armed forces under the European Convention on Human Rights. Military service exposes individual servicemen and women to countless dangers – the risk of being killed in enemy attack, friendly fire, the risks from hostile environments and infectious disease, difficult training exercises and the inherent risks surrounding weapons. This thesis examines whether states are under a duty to protect servicemen and women against such risks. These risks are inherent to military service. Some, such as enemy attack, are virtually impossible to predict and guard against. The focus of this thesis is to establish realistic, practical and effective expressions of the right to life that fulfil states’ obligations under human rights law, whilst also maintaining military efficacy, discretion and decision-making authority. In order to be effective human rights law must not impose unrealistic burdens on states. This thesis considers how to provide effective, balanced legal protection for servicemen and women that makes allowances for the realities of military service.

This thesis provides an English law analysis on collaboration and contract management in the context of offshore upstream oil and gas contracts in light of the Maximising Economic Recovery [hereinafter ‘MER’] Strategy. The predominant subject of the thesis is the impact on offshore contracting of the MER Strategy. The thesis firstly considers that the Strategy is not merely another statute to regulate the offshore sector – its impact is of paramount importance because it sets a comprehensive framework for the coming decades until the cessation of operations in the North Sea. The MER Strategy seeks to address the field ‘maturity’ in the North Sea, which causes high extraction costs and questions the current business and contracting model. Secondly, the thesis focuses on the contracting model and relationship among operators and contractors, i.e. oil and gas companies and the supply chain. This niche area of contract law has been in the spotlight of academics and practitioners for many years, and abundant literature exists focusing on so-called ‘risk allocation’ clauses. However, the thesis approaches the subject in an original manner: looking beyond the traditional legal standpoint, it introduces the element of ‘contract and commercial management’ and focuses on the potential of ‘collaboration’. It argues that these two elements are key to the future of offshore contracting in light of the MER Strategy. The explanation of where these two terms ‘sit’ from an academic, practical and taxonomic standpoint is not an easy task. Contract and commercial management is a management-based discipline that goes beyond certain limitations imposed on the role of contract, championed by ‘strict’ school of thoughts on contract law. It perceives the contract to be mainly a device of ‘problem solving’ rather than ‘failure management’. Collaboration is a notion with great potential for contracting in general – and offshore contracting in particular – which nevertheless brings with it substantial challenges that need to be addressed. Collaboration is a crucial concept in the MER Strategy, and the thesis seeks to ascertain its meaning both within and beyond the context of the Strategy. Most importantly, the thesis explores the legal meaning and ramifications of collaboration, since although it is not a legal term of art, it is ‘reflected’ on existing doctrinal notions.

Around 90% of criminal convictions in England & Wales are based on guilty pleas. The criminal justice process places deliberate pressures on defendants to plead guilty, undermining the traditional account of the guilty plea as a voluntary and reliable confession. However, despite the acknowledged risk of wrongful conviction, appeal against guilty plea conviction is limited. Through empirical research and theoretical analysis, this thesis examines how the appeal courts and the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) respond to challenges to guilty plea convictions and the accounts of the guilty plea they provide to justify these responses. This entails the analysis of appellate caselaw, alongside an examination of CCRC files in guilty plea cases, an observational study of defence plea advice and hearings, and interviews with lawyers and CCRC staff in order to assess whether the accounts offered by the courts and the CCRC have any foundation in practice. The research reveals that the criminal justice system, as designed and operated, prioritises efficiency over fairness and accuracy in its treatment of guilty pleas (reflecting Nobles and Schiff's analysis of tragic choices in the system). Despite the consequent risk of injustice, the appeal courts resist challenges to guilty plea convictions, relying on unsupportable accounts of the guilty plea as a confession, and of defence lawyers as sheltering defendants from plea pressures. In turn, the CCRC's approach to such cases is characterised by confusion and, ultimately, the prioritisation of efficiency and finality. In response, the thesis proposes an account of the guilty plea as the defendant's prediction of the likely trial outcome (the 'defendant-assessed verdict'). While requiring procedural changes to allow defendants to be supported and informed in assessing the case, this account could provide a justification for guilty plea convictions and offer a framework for assessing challenges to such convictions in the future.

Advance decisions to refuse medical treatment (“ADRTs”) have been recognised in English law through a series of cases which arose at the end of the Twentieth Century and subsequently by the Mental Capacity Act 2005. ADRTs allow adults, with the requisite mental capacity, to refuse forms of medical treatment that they anticipate being provided with at a time when they have lost mental capacity in respect of the anticipated treatment. The most frequently advanced argument for the recognition of these instruments is to respect and extend personal autonomy and/or self-determination. However, this thesis treats that particular normative ground as but one among a number of factors which have been crucial to the emergence of ADRTs. It is argued that the advancement in medical capabilities for prolonging life in its final stages is a sine qua non of ADRTs in practical terms. The demographic and financial pressures in which end-of-life care is provided add impetus to the argument for the recognition of ADRTs. However, it is suggested that the political environment in which ADRTs have emerged has also been of fundamental significance to their recognition in law. Using Michel Foucault’s theory of governmentality it will be shown ADRTs have been developed within advanced liberal programmes of government, in response to the inability of the traditional approaches of those forms of government to govern individuals who lack capacity at the end of life. The employment of this theory provides a novel perspective on the debates which have raged in this area of law and bioethics, allowing for a focus on the population, as well as the individual, and a focus on practices rather than on the outcomes.

This thesis studies the participation of bereaved families in inquests following deaths in custody in England and Wales. When a member of their family dies in custody, a family will usually want to understand when, where and how they died. When there is a possibility of negligence or culpability on the part of the State, it is even more important for a family to understand the circumstances surrounding the death. In those situations, it is also important for mistakes to be identified so that lessons may be learned and the State is held to account for its actions. Often preventing further deaths is as vital to the family as getting answers for their own peace of mind. An inquest is inquisitorial and the role of the coroner is to find the facts; so it can be argued that the participation of the family is primarily for their own closure and does not necessarily benefit the overall effectiveness of the investigation. This thesis shows that effective participation of a family (which includes ensuring they are legally represented and have access to all evidence) is vital to achieving accountability, as well as increasing the legitimacy of the process. The legal framework governing family access to an Article 2 investigation is considered, as well as the relevance of procedural justice theory for such investigations. Individuals with personal experience of inquests into deaths in custody including legal representatives, coroners, police officers and bereaved family members were interviewed to gather their views about the impact the participation of a bereaved family has on the effectiveness of the process. Perspectives described by these interviews are analysed within both legal and theoretical frameworks to take forward an understanding of why family participation in complex inquests is so important.

The most important high technology intellectual property (IP) rights in terms of innovation are patents,a form of intangible property right. Even though these corporate assets drive 21st century technological innovation, patent-backed lending to UK SMEs remains underdeveloped. One reason is that the value of their internally generated patents is under-reported in traditional financial statements due to the application of International Accounting Standard 38 Intangibles. The accounting problem is exacerbated by the fact that SMEs are exempt from company law requirements to present a directors’ Strategic Report in their annual return to Companies House. The astonishing lack of quantitative and qualitative public information about corporate IP assets makes it difficult to assess their strategic value (“the patent value story”) and directors’ stewardship of those assets. While this may restrict access to debt finance, this thesis argues there is a wider corporate governance issue. More relevant, accurate and timely corporate IP information (mostly known to internal management) is needed to triangulate intangibles financial data through cross verification with corporate narrative disclosure. The multidisciplinary insights into the transparency corporate problem and how directors fulfil existing obligations to provide “true and fair” IP information under UK law provide an academic audience with a deeper level of legal analysis concerning the intersection between: (1) the patent ecosystem; (2) accounting for intangibles; (3) patent-backed debt finance; and (3) corporate disclosure. Knowledge is advanced with an original business triage style Essential, Desirable & Optional narrative corporate disclosure model.

In order to investigate students’ success and experience at university, this thesis compared students’ access to knowledge through the curriculum, teaching and learning (pedagogy) in Law undergraduate degrees at two UK universities of different status: a higher status ‘pre-1992’ Russell Group University (‘Global’) and a lower status ‘post-1992’ university, which is a member of the Million + Group (‘Local’). Lower-status universities recruit more students from unrepresented groups: students from ethnic minorities; those with disabilities; those who have been in local authority care; mature students; and, students from lower socio-economic groups. These students are often judged to be at a further disadvantage because their universities’ positions in higher education league tables gives the impression that the universities they are attending offer a lower standard of education than the higher status universities. This research focuses upon students’ experiences, at different universities, during their degree and, as such, contributes to the limited body of research about factors which affect student retention and success in higher education. This research built on a three-year ESRC-funded research project entitled ‘Pedagogic Quality and Inequality in University First Degrees’ (2008-2012) which used a theoretical framework drawn from the sociologist Basil Bernstein to analyse curriculum and pedagogy in sociology-related social science disciplines in four universities in different positions in higher education league tables. This study employed the same broad conceptual framework and some of the methods of the ESRC project for a smaller-scale study exploring how access to knowledge plays out in the discipline of law in two different status universities. The research presented here was a longitudinal comparative case study of an undergraduate Law degree. At each university, curriculum documents for seven core modules were analysed to highlight the similarities and differences in curriculum content and pedagogical processes; two tutorial sessions were observed in consecutive years and tutors (4) interviewed before and after the tutorial; six students (12 students) were recruited and interviewed during each year of their degree course (three times altogether). A biographical life grid was completed during the first year of the students’ course to provide a biography of each student. Despite the Law Society dictating a core curriculum for a qualifying law degree, the degrees were differently classified and framed. The main differences that emerged are expressed as three dichotomies (1) vocational/academic: Local offered ‘practical insights’ by including in the curriculum practical, work-based modules and learner centred teaching and has strong links with the legal profession. It offered a greater variety in assessment methods and more contact time (2) formal/informal relations: relationships between staff and students at Local were more informal and friendly than at Global where a clear, formal hierarchy between staff and students exists (3) independence/dependence: Global expected more independence of its students than Local where they were guided through material. Students at Local appeared to have higher levels of confidence when contributing to taught sessions and when using their legal knowledge in a professional environment, and project a sense of belonging within their departments and with other legal scholars. Students and staff at Local projected an identity as ‘future lawyers’ and vocational education, placements and acceptance onto professional legal training courses were highly regarded. In contrast to this, students, and particularly staff, at Global projected an identity as ‘academic, critical thinkers’ which does not relate to actual practice- vocational training and placements are extra-curricular, post-graduate concerns. Only one of the students at Global chose to pursue a career in law. In conclusion, I argued that students at Global and Local were being advantaged and disadvantaged by different elements of the pedagogy and curriculum.

My work in the field of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and domestic family law grew out of concern as to whether the so-called 'paramountcy principle' contained in the Children Act 1989 (CA 1989) was compatible with the ECHR as incorporated by the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA). My first examination of its compatibility took place within the context of the extension of the paramountcy principle from private law children proceedings to public law adoption proceedings by the Adoption and Children Act 2002. This evolved into a larger and more detailed analysis with Professor Helen Fenwick, an expert in the field of human rights, of the compatibility of the principle in both private and public law proceedings under the CA 1989 within the broader context of the merits of adopting a rights-based approach to applications by parents under the act. This also examined in detail what I considered to be a great deal of sceptism about the adoption of a rights based approach and the possible reasons for it within the domestic family law field. After this, I was able to provide a detailed analysis of the merits of adopting a rights based approach to the issue of domestic violence with Professor Jonathan Herring in two further publications. All of these publications therefore form part of the body of work on which the PhD is based.

Lord Neuberger describes open justice as a procedural principle requiring that "what goes on in court and what a court decides is open to scrutiny".1 The prime rationale typically given for this principle is that it is a safety check on the right to a fair trial, and so instrumental to the fulfilment of the justice purposes of criminal and civil justice processes. The thesis argues that such a conception of open justice only applies on a relatively superficial level to inquests into use-of-force deaths at the hands of the state. Rather it is clear that openness in these inquests is intrinsic to the purposes of the inquests themselves, and that this is also true of other types of investigation in these circumstances. The thesis examines the practice of, and rationales behind, opening up deaths at the hands of the police, or in police or prison custody to scrutiny in order to frame a context-specific conception of open justice in the aftermath of such deaths. The focus of the thesis is police and PPO investigations into deaths in prisons, IPCC investigations into deaths involving the police, and inquests and inquiries under the Inquiries Act 2005 (where the latter replace and fulfil the role of an inquest). The thesis introduces recognition theory both as a way of understanding the potential harms that may be associated with a lack of openness regarding deaths in these circumstances, and to provide a normative link between openness and justice in these circumstances—a link that is implicit in the term ‘open justice’ but rarely explored in these non-retributive, non-compensatory justice processes.