Large grant-making philanthropic foundations in the UK and the EU can have a significant influence over environmental law and as such are worthy of more attention from environmental law scholars. Through analysis of publicly available documents, we identify in this paper an absence of consistent transparency by these foundations. This makes their influence hard to understand, hard to research, hard even to see at work in the world. Transparency is complex and challenging, however. And so, rather than berating problematic approaches, we explore through interviews with actors in the field, as well as the academic literature, both the difficulties that foundations experience in pursuing transparent practices and the benefits of transparency. We conclude by identifying some principles for improved visibility of foundation work.

There is a widespread perception among academics, doctors and patients that the common law can effectively drive the development and incorporation of patients’ autonomy-based rights into medical practice. However, there is reason to doubt that this is correct.

We present a critical analysis of this view, prompted by themes that emerged from interviews with n=31 lawyers and n=24 doctors as part of a larger interdisciplinary study. We focus on the limitations of case law in driving autonomy-respecting clinical practice. Part I examines how the development and impact of decided cases is dominated by practical and economic considerations. It also considers the lack of understanding of case law among clinicians and the extent to which this limits its ability to drive change. Part II sets out our reasons for treating these limitations as a cause for concern. In Part III, we conclude by considering different levers for supporting case law in creating or confirming autonomy-respecting norms in medical practice, suggesting ways in which these might be developed further.

We argue that clinical negligence litigation is important as a guide to clinical practice and a means of enforcing autonomy-based patient rights but that it cannot be relied upon to drive changes in practice. Both professional guidance and legislation can augment case law but, for them to be effective, proper communication between doctors and legislators, courts, lawyers and insurance organizations is essential.

The ‘Digital Economy and Society Index’ (DESI) Dashboard for the Digital Decade is a set of indicators created by the European Union in the early 2010s to monitor Member States’ progress in pursuing the EU’s Digital Agenda, as well as many of the goals of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainability. The figures provided by the Dashboard are perceived by academics, the media and the general public as objective neutral data on the progress of Member States towards digitalisation, and on the promotion of sustainable development. This short contribution unpacks the Dashboard, examining the variables it considers and the methodology it employs, and finds out a very different picture. The Dashboard mainly assesses how easily people can access products and services online. It thus promotes a pro-market digitalisation agenda that excludes any other possible alternative and has little to do (if any) with the idea of sustainability. As is often the case with quantitative measurements of social phenomena, behind its seemingly scientific numerical veil the Dashboard conveys a policy vision that is hardly compatible with the objectives the Dashboard allegedly promotes. The essay thus raises broader questions as to the legitimacy of governing through indicators and as to the role of EU in shaping Member States’ digital future.

This article develops an evaluative framework for community-rooted justice systems through comparative analysis of South Africa’s Community Advice Offices (CAOs) and Bolivia’s constitutionally recognised Indigenous jurisdictions. Departing from courtroom-centric approaches that have dominated access-to-justice scholarship, the study employs socio-legal methodology synthesising ethnographic research, constitutional texts and institutional analyses. The examination reveals that both systems derive legitimacy from relational embeddedness rather than formal legal authority, resolve disputes holistically within social networks and navigate ongoing tensions between community autonomy and state regulation. From these practices, five evaluative dimensions emerge inductively: accessibility, responsiveness, legitimacy, empowerment and sustainability. The framework offers conceptual tools for assessing alternative justice mechanisms on their own terms, contributing to a shift from descriptive legal pluralism toward evaluative pluralism attentive to how communities themselves produce and experience justice.

In recent decades, theorists of disability rights have made the moral and legal case for supported decision-making. Whereas surrogate decision-making, the long upheld legal standard, looks to a third party to make a decision for a person deemed to lack the capacity to make that decision for themselves, support in decision-making empowers that person to make their own decisions. In this article, we argue for a significant shift in the norms governing enrollment in clinical trials. Rather than assume that support is only appropriate for individuals who cannot independently make sufficiently informed enrollment decisions, we propose “support in decision-making for all” when research protocols are beyond a certain risk threshold. Drawing inspiration from the universal design movement and feminist insights about autonomy, we argue that making support in decision-making the presumption has substantial expressive and practical benefits, and better empowers all potential research participants to make more informed, autonomous decisions.

On July 25, 2025, the French Court of Cassation handed down an important decision concerning the existence in international law of possible exceptions to the functional immunity of agents of a foreign state. The Court of Cassation reached the conclusion that the “principle of functional immunity from jurisdiction in criminal matters” recognized for foreign agents acting in the exercise of their functions cannot be invoked in cases of prosecutions for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. However, the Court’s internationalist approach, which sought to identify the evolution of custom on the issue by examining relevant state practice, remains exclusively Eurocentric, by examining the practice of only five states, all from the same region of the world.

The study is one of the first in its field to be grounded in extensive, original qualitative data on the lived experiences of senior managers in financial firms. Its principal aim is to construct a comprehensive, empirically-based typology of culture in finance, drawing on findings from 29 semi-structured interviews with current and former senior managers in UK financial firms and regulatory personnel. The study employs a rigorous participant selection and thematic analysis process that reflects the diverse array of financial firms, sectors, roles and perspectives on culture. It does so by applying appropriate theoretical frameworks on organisational culture to unearth the nuances and typology of culture in the UK finance industry. Our findings indicate that financial firms are in a state of transition between two distinct types of culture, from an old and heavily criticised archetype (which still holds sway) towards a not yet fully realised vision of a new transformed culture. Beyond its theoretical interest, our analysis reveals ways to improve culture in finance and provides recommendations for the development of financial regulation and broader policymaking, aiming for a whole-hearted shift from principles-based regulation to outcomes-based regulation.

While supported decision-making for persons with dynamic cognitive impairment has been considered in the context of medical treatment, there has been little attention to its application in the context of enrolling cognitively impaired subjects in clinical research. The Common Rule allows enrollment permission from a Legally Authorized Representative, one empowered under institutional policy to provide consent for subjects lacking decision-making capacity, but many Legally Authorized Representatives lack knowledge of the person’s values and preferences adequate to an ethically valid judgement about research enrollment. Supported decision-making and surrogate decision-making can be complementary as subjects transition between impairment stages, providing an opportunity to address ethical problems with the current practice of reliance on uninformed surrogates. Through designation of a supporter who is willing to serve through the progression of impairment, dementia patients choose their supporter and ultimate surrogate, engage with them on the issues that later give rise to requests to enroll the subject in research, and ensure that the surrogate will have knowledge of the values and preferences of the subject necessary to an ethically defensible substituted judgement. Legal frameworks can be adapted to provide recognition of research enrollment as an area of valid decision by supporters on behalf of beneficiaries.

Federal disability anti-discrimination laws expect clinical trials to render study processes and sites accessible to potential participants, including through the provision of reasonable accommodations. Nonetheless, people with disabilities, and particularly people with mental illness, are often excluded from clinical trials. Supported decision-making, a strategy that allows people to select trusted others to help them understand and communicate decisions, is an important accommodation to further inclusion. However, because mental illness can be dynamic and vary widely in nature (e.g., diagnosis, symptom severity, functional impairment) and duration (e.g., short-term, intermittent, progressive, permanent), supported decision-making is neither a one-size-fits-all strategy nor one that can serve as a reasonable accommodation in every situation. While prior work on supported decision-making has focused predominantly on adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities or dementias, people with mental illness may also benefit from supported decision-making, although the variability in decision-making capacity in mental illness presents nuanced challenges. Here, we explore supported decision-making in the case of people with intermittent or episodic mental illness that may impact decision-making capacity to varying degrees at different times.