The theme of the book symposium ‘The Rule of Law in Transnational Development Projects’ is, as Bhatt's Concessionaires, Financiers and Communities (2020) and Lander's Transnational Law and State Transformation (2020) highlight, ripe for critical reflection. The two books reveal the power wielded by private for-profit actors in the co-constitution of legal norms, often at the expense of local communities in development-investment settings. The co-constitution of legal norms by private actors via ‘contracts’, ‘policies’ and ‘intermediaries’ (Bhatt, Lander and Taekema, Book Symposium Introduction in this issue) development permeates rule of law in the public sphere, including in ways that affect the application of domestic and international legal norms relating to human rights. Of course, rule of law may be defined by ‘thick’ conceptions … as a just system of laws ‘consistent with international human rights norms and standards’ (UN Secretary General, 2004, para. 6) or ‘thin’ conceptions with more formalistic requirements that do not prescribe political or social values. Deontological questions aside, even in its ‘thinnest’ conception, rule of law means that legal norms ‘should be publicly promulgated; be predictable in their application; apply to all citizens, including government officials; and be subject to some form of neutral adjudication in the event of disputes as to their interpretation or application’ (Trebilcock, 2011, p. 209). Yet, rule of law has often been applied ‘to favour entrenched elites over resistance groups, vested interests … over civil disobedience, official actors over unofficial actors and property owners over protestors’ (Simpson, 2012, p. 9).

This paper examines the reciprocal interplay between Peter Fitzpatrick's life and work, between significant people, events, ideas and values, and the ways in which he made and re-made himself. It illuminates Peter's struggle, especially from the 1990s onwards, to place ethics centre stage in both life and law. Drawing on archival and secondary research, including interviews with Peter's family, former colleagues and students, this contribution to legal life writing adds to what we already knew about Peter and his scholarship. It assesses and clarifies his key ideas and their intersection with his ethics and lived experiences. It is hoped that the paper will encourage those who are less familiar with Peter's work, or who find his writing daunting, to tackle it anew and appreciate its significance.

It is observed in the Introduction of this special issue that the rule of law has been an integral part of the development of democratic systems of government in national states and features powerfully within contemporary ‘good-governance’ promotion in the Global South by development financial institutions (DFIs). However, the rule of law is predominantly used to emphasise the importance of stability of contract and protection of property in connection with transnational development projects (TDPs) and does not so much focus on the general stability of (e.g. indigenous) rights, access to justice and fairness. Thus, it is important to deviate from a narrow interpretation of the rule of law and include the role of all types of actors in safeguarding this rule of law.

We are sympathetic to the research aims of the two books examined by this symposium and their desire to understand law's role in generating and contesting social injustice. We are also intrigued by the proposal in the Introduction to this symposium, notably to expand the normative reach of the rule-of-law ideal to private actors, in order to transform it into an ally of counter-hegemonic action. In our research, we share a similar research focus (development projects), methodology (case-studies) and concerns (harmful effects of development interventions) with the authors of the two books. Accordingly, in this contribution, we want to think together with the editors of the symposium – by examining the case-study of the Hidroituango project in Colombia (hereinafter, ‘Hidroituango’) – whether the rule of law can indeed be reimagined to limit the arbitrary exercise of power by private actors, and what benefits this might create for dealing with social injustice. However, since neither Bhatt nor Lander advances an explicit account of rule of law in their books, our critique in this piece is addressed not at them, but rather at the theorists and advocates of rule of law as a political ideal.

This brief paper is an account of Peter Fitzpatrick's appointment to the Faculty of Law at Queens University, Belfast, and his consequent transformation, personally and professionally, during his short tenure at Queens.

I have long felt that Peter Fitzpatrick's 1987 paper, ‘Racism and the innocence of law’, should be closely studied by all law students during, or shortly after, their induction to the study of law. These concise notes on the paper are written primarily in tribute to a friend, colleague and mentor but, in writing them, I hope also to demonstrate how this early instance of a theory about how law is intertwined in racial capitalism could be taught in those law schools that harbour ambitions to be not only critical, but also decolonial. Inevitably, in such a short piece, choices have had to be made about which aspects of the paper to foreground and which to leave out entirely. I trust that my decision to focus on those aspects that can be more readily comprehended by a student with limited knowledge of legal theory and substantive fields of law will not be thought to have unduly watered down its meaning.

This paper reflects upon the enduring relevance of Peter Fitzpatrick's analysis of incommensurability in the context of post-colonialism and the lived experiences of Indigenous peoples in the US.

By browsing the website of Land Matrix, one can measure the extent of land-related large-scale investments in natural resources (LRINRs) and place it on the world map. At the time of writing, the extent of these investments covers an area equal to the surfaces of Spain and Portugal together – or, for football fans, around 60 million football pitches. These investment operations have often been saluted as instrumental to achieve the developmental needs of host countries and as the necessary private counterpart to state (and interstate) efforts aimed at (sustainable) development goals. Yet, the realities on the ground offer a scenario characterised by severe instances of displacement of indigenous or local communities and environmental disruptions. The starting point of this short essay is that these ‘externalities’ are generated through the legal construct enabling the implementation of these investment operations. As such, this contribution lies neatly in the line of research set forth in the excellent books of Kinnari Bhatt and Jennifer Lander, from the perspective of both the development culture shaping these investment operations and the private–public environment in which these are situated. The essay tries and dialogues with both components, while focusing at a metalevel on the theoretical shifts potentially geared to turn a ‘tale of exclusion’ into a ‘tale of inclusion’.

This paper reflects on the notion of partial ambiguity. Using a framework decomposing ambiguity into distinct layers of analysis, among which are risk and model uncertainty, and allowing for different attitudes toward these layers, I show that partial ambiguity may prove less desirable than full ambiguity, even under ambiguity aversion. This observation poses difficulties for interpreting the notion of partial ambiguity in relation to the partial information available to determine the potential compositions of an ambiguous urn. Two Ellsberg-style thought experiments are described to challenge the meaning of partial ambiguity further, and an alternative interpretation, based on a more ambiguous relation, is discussed.

There are two general pathways towards climate change litigation in China: tort-based litigation to hold carbon emitters accountable in civil law, and administrative litigation against the government to demand better climate regulation. While the first pathway is gaining momentum among Chinese scholars, this article argues that legal barriers to applying tort-based rules to climate change should be fairly acknowledged. The article argues that China's legal framework for environmental impact assessment (EIA) provides more openness and flexibility for the resolution of climate change disputes. Therefore, EIA-based climate lawsuits, which challenge environmental authorities for not adequately taking climate change factors into account in decision-making processes, encounter relatively fewer legal barriers, require less radical legal or institutional reform, and have greater potential to maintain existing legal orders. The regulatory effects produced by EIA-based litigation suggest that the scholarship on climate change litigation in China should take such litigation seriously because it could influence both governments and emitters in undertaking more proactive efforts. This China-based study, with a special focus on judicial practice in the largest developing country, will shine a light on China's contribution to transnational climate litigation.

Present-day English is unlike Old English in not using singular demonstrative pronouns with anaphoric reference to human beings. This article adds to the contributions of Cole (2017) and Los & van Kemenade (2018) in our understanding of the factors determining the choice between personal and demonstrative pronouns in Old English by documenting the hitherto unexamined use of these pronouns as heads of relative clauses. It also traces how the singular demonstrative pronouns referring to humans retreated as heads of relative clauses in Early Middle English. A corpus-based study shows that third-person personal pronouns were unusual as heads of relative clauses in Old English and normally referred to specific individuals, while demonstratives were the pronouns of choice for generic reference but could also refer to specific individuals. The increased use of personal pronouns for generic reference is well underway in Early Middle English. While the retreat of the singular demonstrative pronouns to refer to humans in Early Middle English seems to have some connection with the reduced marking of feature distinctions in that period, a simple explanation in terms of loss of gender is untenable.

This article examines the contribution of the FILEF (Federazione Italiana Lavoratori Migranti e Famiglie) to the European debate on the human, social and civil rights of migrant workers during the 1970s. Through the project of an ‘International Statute of Migrant Workers’ Rights’, presented to the European Parliament in 1971, FILEF submitted a proposal for the reform of the 1968 Community Regulation on the Free Movement of Migrant Workers in Europe in order to extend to workers from non-European countries the same rights and protections accorded to those from the EEC area. The analysis is focused on the discussion around the proposal in the committees of the European Parliament as well as on the debate that developed within the transnational network of the FILEF during the international conferences organised by the Federation from the mid-1970s until the early 1980s.

While almost all European democracies from the 1980s started to accord legal recognition to same-sex couples, Italy was, in 2016, the last West European country to adopt a regulation, after a tortuous path. Why was Italy such a latecomer? What kind of barriers were encountered by the legislative process? What were the factors behind the policy change? To answer these questions, this article first discusses current morality policymaking, paying specific attention to the literature dealing with same-sex partnerships. Second, it provides a reconstruction of the Italian policy trajectory, from the entrance of the issue into political debate until the enactment of the civil union law, by considering both partisan and societal actors for and against the legislative initiative. The article argues that the Italian progress towards the regulation of same-sex unions depended on the balance of power between change and blocking coalitions and their degree of congruence during the policymaking process. In 2016 the government formed a broad consensus and the parliament passed a law on civil unions. However, the new law represented only a small departure from the status quo due to the low congruence between actors within the change coalition.

While the intergovernmental climate regime increasingly recognizes the role of non-state actors in achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement (PA), the normative linkages between the intergovernmental climate regime and the non-state dominated ‘transnational partnership governance’ remain vague and tentative. A formalized engagement of the intergovernmental climate regime with transnational partnerships can increase the effectiveness of partnerships in delivering on climate mitigation and adaptation, thereby complementing rather than replacing government action. The proposed active engagement with partnerships would include (i) collecting and analyzing information to develop and prioritize areas for transnational and partnership engagement; (ii) defining minimum criteria and procedural requirements to be listed on an enhanced Non-state Actor Zone for Climate Action platform; (iii) actively supporting strategic initiatives; (iv) facilitating market or non-market finance as part of Article 6 PA; and (v) evaluating the effectiveness of partnerships in the context of the enhanced transparency framework (Article 13 PA) and the global stocktake (Article 14 PA). The UNFCCC Secretariat could facilitate engagement and problem solving by actively orchestrating transnational partnerships. Constructing effective implementation partnerships, recording their mitigation and adaptation goals, and holding them accountable may help to move climate talks from rhetoric to action.

From the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, technology companies have participated in the search for solutions to new challenges. One of these has been the need for public health authorities to engage in contact-tracing to help curb the spread of the disease. Manual contact-tracing for public health purposes is a well-established component of the management of epidemics and pandemics. Public health authorities identify infected individuals, question them about close contacts, and then reach out to those contacts with the appropriate public health advice. From the outset of the pandemic, many believed that technology could play a role in supplementing manual contact-tracing. How it could do so quickly became tied to issues of how it should do so, engendering a normative discussion affecting the partnership between business and government in the large-scale design and deployment of technology for public health surveillance.