Recent academic debate has questioned whether equitable interests should continue to be classified as proprietary, proposing instead analyses based on “rights against rights”, “modified” proprietary rights or the erosion of the proprietary/personal divide. This article, based on the text of the XXIV Old Buildings Lecture 2025, argues that these alternative frameworks, while illuminating, do not displace the enduring value of the traditional proprietary analysis. It shows that equity has long functioned as the principal means by which the law recognises ownership beyond traditional common-law categories. The proprietary characterisation of equitable interests accords with established principle, is often the simplest workable solution to the problem in hand, and corresponds to the ordinary understanding of ownership.

This article argues that the changes to the tort of private nuisance introduced by the Supreme Court in Fearn v Tate Gallery [2023] UKSC 4 necessitate reconsideration of three areas of uncertainty created by its earlier decision in Coventry v Lawrence [2014] UKSC 13: the principles governing the assessment of locality, the status and content of “coming to the nuisance”, and the exercise of remedial discretion. The decision in Fearn v Tate Gallery significantly increases the importance of these unresolved issues to the workability of the tort, thus intensifying the need for clarification. This article concludes by proposing Fearn-compliant paths towards their resolution.

The classical account of administrative law, which holds that unlawful administrative acts are void ab initio and that judicial review remedies such as quashing orders are merely declaratory of such acts’ legal status, appears to be placed in doubt by a range of recent legislative developments, judicial pronouncements and academic commentary. However, the classical account is not only capable of withstanding those apparent challenges: it is constitutionally imperative if collateral challenge is to be maintained and the rule of law thereby upheld.

This article contributes to a growing body of literature on special jurisprudence through a case study of energy law as an emergent area of law that is perceived to lack a clear understanding of its definition, foundations and doctrine. The article has two functions that both seek to integrate the literature on special (as opposed to general) jurisprudence with that on energy law as a legal discipline and an independent area of law. The first is to explain why the lack of a doctrine is a problem for a field like energy law, thus motivating the creation of a special jurisprudence. The second is to outline how the foundations of the discipline could be deliberatively developed in a meaningful and methodologically justified way.

Poor public understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) systems has become a matter of acute concern. Even when lacking expert technical knowledge, there are good democratic, economic and other societal reasons for ensuring that the public right to know operates effectively in the AI era. Yet, the trade-secret claims of AI providers and deployers are widely seen as a potential barrier to information disclosure rights and duties, which has provoked calls for areas of significant public interest to be carved out from the protections of trade-secrets law. Such transparency carve-outs are, however, likely to lead to uncertainty, over-inclusion and ineffectiveness. In this article, we argue that the dynamic, public-driven character of the right to know can be better secured through third-party participation and public-interest stewardship innovations in AI transparency.

It has long since been accepted that where a defendant induces a primary wrongdoer to commit a tort against a claimant, the procurer may be held liable for the losses and harm thereby caused. Typically, the existence of such liability has been asserted rather than rigorously demonstrated both by judges and jurists. And while some detailed scholarly engagement with this form of liability has been proffered, the explanations on offer have tended to rely less on established principles of law, than on certain theoretical pre-commitments held by the authors in question. The Supreme Court’s decision in Lifestyle Equities v Ahmed has injected some much-needed clarity into this conspicuously underexplored area of law. Yet even now, as this article seeks to show, there is much that remains uncertain concerning the nature and scope of such liability. It therefore seeks to shed light on those matters.

Cryptoassets, while viewed by many as a significant innovation in the banking and investment industry, present exigent risks to investors, markets and possibly the financial system itself. Can these risks be managed appropriately using securities regulation? This article argues that securities regulation is appropriate to regulate a popular kind of cryptoasset, utility tokens, given the similarities between utility token risks and those found in traditional securities markets. This analysis begins to point to a consistent global regulatory response to cryptoasset regulation and has implications for future cryptoassets and financial innovation more generally.

In recent debates about the proper approach towards the interpretation of contract terms insufficient attention has been paid to the history of the subject. A close examination of that history shows that there are strong traces of both textual and contextual approaches. The balance between them is not however constant. Opposing factors have pulled in different directions at various times. It is not true to say that before modern times judges were necessarily wedded to the text of contracts. In fact, there is a very prominent seam of contextualism.