The purpose of this article is to consider uncertainty in European Community law. It will be argued that, for reasons inherent in the nature of the Community, EC legislation is generally less clear and more difficult to interpret than British legislation. Five reasons are put forward as to why this might be so. While always undesirable, uncertainty is perhaps to some extent tolerable where Community legislation gives rights to the individual against public authorities: an uncertain right may, after all, be better than no right at all. It is, however, intolerable where obligations are imposed on the individual. One situation in which this arises is where directives are adopted in the field of private law, a rapidly increasing area of Community legislation. These measures will form the main focus of this study, though our attention will not be confined to them. Before considering these matters, we must, however, set the stage by making some preliminary distinctions.

The starting point for any rule of remoteness of damage is the familiar notion that a line must be drawn somewhere: it would be unacceptably harsh for every tortfeasor or contract breaker to be responsible for all the consequences which he has caused. We could, of course, just abandon any attempt to formulate rules for this area, and look to the judge's pragmatic discretion as to what is “fair” in the circumstances of the particular case: let it be simply a question of fact. Certainly, the question of where to draw the line on recoverability of consequential losses cannot be answered by a mathematically precise formula, and occasionally the judges are quite explicit that they are drawing the line on the facts of a case because they regard that as a “fair” solution.

Legally, it is possible to say of a particular company that it is a party to a criminal conspiracy, that it has acted dishonestly or that its conduct in matters of safety is so deficient as to amount to manslaughter. The mechanism which has brought most serious crimes within the competence of companies to commit is, of course, the concept of corporate alter ego or, more precisely, the doctrine of identification. This concept takes the conduct and state of mind of certain high-ranking officials to be the conduct and state of mind of the company itself, so that it may commit directly crimes which are not attributable to a company merely on a basis of vicarious liability.

The role played by the concept of legitimate expectations within administrative law has been the subject of much comment in recent years. The object of the present article is not to provide a general overview of the topic. My own views on this matter have been set out on an earlier occasion. The aim of this article is to focus more closely upon the extent to which legitimate expectations can have a substantive as well as a procedural dimension.

If a thief steals money from you is it still yours? What if the thief passes it to a friend as a gift? Does it make any difference if the thief spends the money in a shop?

The answer to these questions depends on the “currency” of money, a legal attribute not shared by other kinds of property. A person's title to property is generally derived from the previous owner. When the property is transferred, the title that once vested in him simply passes to the recipient with the result that the recipient cannot acquire a better title than the person from whom he got the property.' To take an example, when a thief steals a car he has bare possession of it and the victim remains the owner. A person buying the car from the thief can only get possession of it. This general rule governing the transfer of title to property is summed up in the maxim nemo dat quod non habet.

It is perfectly settled by a multitude of decisions, that, notwithstanding an assignment of his lease, the lessee continues liable on the personal privity of contract, to the payment of rent and the performance of the covenants, during the whole term; although the lessor concur in the assignment, or, by acceptance of rent, or otherwise, recognise the assignee as his tenant; and although the breach be committed after the assignment; and although a tender be made by the assignee for the very rent for which the lessee is sued; for if a plea of assignment and tender could be supported, a lessor might be compelled to accept an assignee contrary to his inclination. Indeed, by no act of his own can the tenant absolve himself from the charge.

More than a decade-and-a-half ago, Anthony Kronman published an article on contract law and distributive justice that has “become something of a classic in the philosophy of private law.” Kronman's article has received a great deal of attention on both sides of the Atlantic, and it has helped to sharpen the debate between libertarianism and other forms of liberalism. In the present essay, we shall seek to expose two major weaknesses in Kronman's arguments (after we briefly summarise them).

The notion of private property is endemically problematic and controversial. Although the notion has many defenders its critics have all the best lines: we know, of course, that the institution of private property was denounced as theft and attacked as the product of exploitation and class antagonism. More recently, the notion has been regarded as nothing more than a myth and, in a slight variation on Proudhon's refrain, dismissed as a form of fraud. As if this were not bad enough, it appears that even the thinkers of classical antiquity had severe reservations about the notion although, unusually, their worries were expressed without recourse to pithy rhetoric. Does the notion of private property have any conceptual or normative advantages? Ought we to abandon it altogether? In this essay we offer a negative answer to the first and an affirmative answer to the second question.

A shipper does not have unlimited freedom as to what he may have transported by sea. Restrictions on the goods which a charterer or cargo-owner may ship are imposed by the common law, the terms of the contract and statute. The statutory sources of control of what are normally referred to as dangerous goods may be divided into three categories: those under the Hague-Visby Rules (principally art. IV(6)); those under the Merchant Shipping Act 1995; and other legal sources. Provision is also made by the Hamburg Rules. Where a prohibition against the shipment of goods is not laid down by an express contractual obligation or specific rule of law, it is likely to be treated as depending on an implied term or collateral warranty.