scholarly journals Corporate Manslaughter by Industrial Robots at Work: Who Should Go on Trial under the Principles of Common Law Australia?

2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
S.M. Solaiman
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Production ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
International Federation ◽  
Industrial Robots ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Corporate Manslaughter

Industrial robots have been increasingly used for decades and the International Federation of Robotics predicts that 1.3 million more of such humanoids will be installed in factories across the globe between 2015 and 2018. While robots are deemed beneficial for industrial production, they pose a serious threat to our health and safety. Meanwhile, robots have killed many people and gravely injured numerous others in different countries. Policymakers around the world remain largely unmoved about resolving the uncertainty over the specificity of which persons should go on trial for such killings. This article examines the principles of common law governing manslaughter by criminal negligence with particular reference to Australia; however, it will generally apply to other common law countries as well. It finds that while it would be theoretically possible to identify the potential accused of workplace deaths caused by robots, we consider that the common law identification doctrine in practice will be a bar to successful prosecutions against corporate employers given the specific complexities associated with the usage of industrial robots. This article therefore submits a recommendation with justifications for dealing with this serious offence by enacting appropriate manslaughter law for the effective regulation of robots provoked fatalities. 

scholarly journals Corporate Manslaughter: A Radical Reform?

2007 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Griffin
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Radical Reform ◽  
The Common ◽  
Corporate Manslaughter

The objective of this article is to analyse critically the proposed new statutory offence of corporate manslaughter. The article considers the content of the proposed legislation in depth and seeks to determine whether it offers a radical alternative to the common law position. Although the intention of the proposed legislation is to remove restrictive legal obstacles associated with the prosecution of corporate manslaughter cases, the article raises serious doubts in relation to whether the proposed legislation will, in fact, achieve its goal.

The Contractualisation of Labour Law

2018 ◽  
pp. 33-47
Author(s):  
John Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Employment Relationship ◽  
Labour Law ◽  
Work Relations ◽  
Contractual Relationship ◽  
The World ◽  
British Labour ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
Main Ideas

This chapter explores the idea that labour law rests on ‘a contractual foundation’, and the idea that work relations today are ever more ‘contractualised’. Section 1 lays out some essentials of British labour law and its connections with the common law of contract. Section 2 explains what contractualisation is, not yet focusing attention on the specific context of labour law. The main claims are that contract is not a specifically legal device, and that contractualisation is therefore not a specifically legal process, even when the law is complicit in it. Section 3 shifts attention to the world of work, especially the employment relationship. Here the main ideas are that the employment relationship is not (apart from the law) a contractual relationship, and that all the norms of the employment relationship cannot therefore be captured adequately in a contract, legally binding or otherwise. Section 4 illustrates the latter point by focusing on the rationale and the limits of the employer’s authority over the employee. A contractual rationale yields the wrong limits. It gives its blessing to authoritarian work regimes and lends credence to the miserable view that work is there to pay for the life of the worker without forming part of that life. Throughout the chapter there are intimations of the conclusion drawn in section 5: that contractualisation, in the labour market at least, is a process that lovers of freedom, as well as lovers of self-realisation, should resist—or rather, should have resisted while they still had the chance.

A new lease of life for Donatio Mortis Causa?

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (7) ◽  
pp. 613-619
Author(s):  
Sue Farran ◽  
Russell Hewitson
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
New Developments ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Law Student

Abstract Coronavirus has thrown the world into disarray. New developments and contingency measures are being adopted on a daily basis. New legislation has been adopted to regulate people’s lives. As every law student learns, equity developed to address the inadequacies of the common law and achieve justice when to deny it would be unconscionable. Ideally, all those confronting the possibility of death from this virus would have had the time and resources to draw up a will. The reality is that many will not have had either. This article considers the equitable institution of Donatio Mortis Causa and its relevance in the current crisis.

A new chapter in the law of sexual harassment in Malaysia: The emergence of the torts of harassment and sexual harassment

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 191-207
Author(s):  
Abdul Majid ◽  
Sri Yogamalar ◽  
Audrey Kim Lan Siah ◽  
Jane L Y Terpstra-Tong ◽  
Luc Borrowman
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The Law ◽  
First Time

In a landmark case in 2016, Malaysia’s apex court, the Federal Court, explicitly recognised for the first time, the common law tort of sexual harassment. Actually, the Federal Court did more than that; its recognition of the common law tort of sexual harassment is built on its recognising the common law tort of harassment. The recognition of the tort of harassment has escaped notice because attention has been concentrated on the tort of sexual harassment. This article analyses the Federal Court’s exposition of the tort of sexual harassment to reveal that the exegesis itself acknowledges the existence of the tort of harassment per se. The tort of harassment that the Federal Court sent out into the world is largely a creature of its English common law ancestry.

scholarly journals Applicability of the 2017 FIDIC Red Book in Civil Law Jurisdictions

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Omar Hisham Al-Hyari
Keyword(s):  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common

Abstract In 2017, the FIDIC launched a new edition of its Red Book—a recommended construction-related contract for building and engineering works designed by the employer. The roots of this book were influenced by the common law legal system, whereas many countries follow the civil law legal system. Amongst the latter countries is the United Arab Emirates, which has attracted construction parties from all over the world. Those who wish to use the Red Book amongst such parties should be acquainted with the local limitations on its applicability. Such acquaintance can provide them with a proper understanding of their rights and obligations. This article discusses these limitations using the doctrinal research method, which included, inter alia, an examination of all relevant decisions by local higher courts during the 2009-2019 period. The discussion shows that such limitations can be confronted owing to conflicts with local judicial jurisprudence and/or mandatory statutory provisions.

Comparative Legal Families and Comparative Legal Traditions

2019 ◽  
pp. 422-441 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Patrick Glenn
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
First Century ◽  
Static State ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
System A ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The World ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
The Common ◽  
Legal Normativity

For much of the twentieth century, comparatists have divided the world into ‘legal families’ (such as the civil law, the common law, socialist law, etc.) and assigned each (national) legal system a place in one of them. The chapter argues that this taxonomic enterprise has largely remained at the descriptive state, entailed a misleading division into fixed categories, and that is has failed to produce real comparison between laws. It is also too static, state-centred, and Euro-centric to be workable under conditions of late twentieth and early twenty-first century globalism. It should be replaced by the paradigm of ‘legal traditions’ which not only emphasizes the evolving nature of law, but also avoids dividing the world into clearly separated groupings. Instead, a ‘legal traditions’ approach focuses on the fluidity, interaction, and resulting hybridity of laws, thus facilitating their comparison. As it is not tied to Western-style national legal systems, it can easily capture the laws of the whole world, including the increasingly important non-state forms of legal normativity. Since the chapter was written by the late H. Patrick Glenn over a decade ago, the editors added a postscript bringing the reader up to date on the scholarship on, and the debate about, legal families and traditions.

scholarly journals A COMPARISON OF THE COMMON LAW BASED DUTY WITH ITS CIVIL LAW EQUIVALENT

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Azamat Omarov ◽  
Asylbek Kultasov ◽  
Kanat Abdilov
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Comparative Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Legal Structure ◽  
Legal Term ◽  
Legal Effect ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common

The article discusses the features of civil law in different countries. The authors studied the origins of the modern tradition of civil law, comparing the legal systems of two European countries. One of the traditional classifications of duties in civil law is analyzed, the conclusion is made about the inappropriateness of the allocation of personal and universal duties. In comparative law, there are many situations where the same legal term has different meanings, or where different legal terms have same legal effect. This confusion most often occurs when civil lawyers have to deal with common law, or vice versa, when common law lawyers deal with civil law issues. While there are many issues which are dealt with in the same way by the civil law and common law systems, there remain also significant differences between these two legal systems related to legal structure, classification, fundamental concepts, terminology, etc. As lawyers know, legal systems in countries around the world generally fall into one of two main categories: common law systems and civil law systems. There are roughly 150 countries that have what can be described as primarily civil law systems, whereas there are about 80 common law countries. The main difference between the two systems is that in common law countries, case law – in the form of published judicial opinions – is of primary importance, whereas in civil law systems, codified statutes predominate.

Formation of Contract and Stipulations for Third Parties in Indonesia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary F Bell
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Contract Law ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law

Indonesia is one of the most legally diverse and complex countries in the world. It practises legal pluralism with three types of contract law in force: adat (customary) contract laws, Islamic contract laws (mostly concerning banking), and the European civil law of contract, transplanted from the Netherlands in 1847, found mainly in the Civil Code (Kitab Undang-Undang Hukum Perdata). This chapter focuses on European civil law as it is the law used for the majority of commercial transactions. The civil law of contract is not well developed and there is a paucity of indigenous doctrine and jurisprudence, since most significant commercial disputes are settled by arbitration. The contours of the law are consistent with the French/Dutch legal tradition. In the formation of contracts, the subjective intention of the parties plays a greater role than in the common law. As with most jurisdictions with a Napoleonic tradition, the offer must include all the essential element of the contract, there is no concept of ‘invitations to treat’ or of ‘consideration’, the common law posting rule is rejected, and the contract is formed only when the acceptance is received. There are generally few requirements of form but some contracts must be in writing and some in a notarial deed.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document