Independent Research Essays

[mcgillianaire]

Part of our Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) assessment includes a 4000 word essay in an area not covered in the seven core modules. It's worth 10% of the overall mark and is not an original thesis. The point of the essay is to prepare us for the situation that commonly arises in practice wherein you have to quickly get to grips with an unfamiliar area of the law. We have fifteen essay title choices:

01) Corporate Law: Directors' Duties
02) Corporate Law: Minority Shareholders
03) Corporate Manslaughter
04) Employment Law: Unfair Dismissal
05) Environmental Law: Waste Management
06) EU Law: Public Undertakings & The Internal Market
07) Family Law: Financial Distribution of Assets On Divorce
08) Intellectual Property Law: Copyright
09) Intellectual Property Law: Trade Marks
10) Intellectual Property Law: Patents
11) Planning & Land Law: Regulation of Land Use - Town & Village Greens
12) Medical Law: Assisted Suicide
13) Tax Law: Fairness of the Taxation of Non-Domiciles
14) Public International Law: Legal Basis of State Recognition
15) The Law of Succession: Intestacy

As you can probably guess, I chose the Corporate Manslaughter title and this is my Essay Question:

"Despite a gestation period extending over thirteen years, the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 is a disappointment. It is limited in its scope, restricted in its range of potential defendants and regressive to the extent that, like the discredited identification doctrine before it, it allows its focus to be deflected from systemic fault to
individual fault." -James Gobert (2008) 71(3) MLR 413-463

To what extent is the above quotation a true reflection of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007? Does the Act reinforce the justifications for corporate liability; or should it be accepted that in reality corporations cannot be convicted of crimes which were intended to address individual liability?
It should be an interesting five months working on this paper. I had also shortlisted two other titles, the Employment Law one about Unfair Dismissal and the Medical Law title about Assisted Suicide but I think I've settled on the Criminal Law title. Ideally, I would've liked to have written a paper on domestic Human Rights issues but I guess we'll be covering that in our Constitutional Law module so that wasn't an option. None of the other titles seemed interesting enough although not surprisingly, the most popular title in my school is the first one on Corporate Law and Directors' Duties (88 students) followed by Public International Law (56 students), then Medical Law (54 students) and Corporate Manslaughter (52 students). The least popular title is The Law of Succession with no student choosing it yet. Other unpopular titles include Planning & Land Law (9 students), Intellectual Property Law: Patents, EU Law and Environmental Law (11 students each).

Comments

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

I'd have probably gone for the intestacy one, actually. If you go for an unpopular one, you stand out; which is a good thing if your essay is good, not so good if your essay is average. The copyright one would have attracted me as well.

If you are interested in human rights stuff, are you following the Hicham Yezza thing? The blog is syndicated to LJ, and the court case started this week: hichamyezza_fd

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

>which is a good thing if your essay is good, not so good if your essay is average.
I thought of it in this way as well but decided that all law students were reasonable people and if all reasonable people (so far) have made a reasonable decision not to choose this specific title, then as a reasonable person myself, perhaps I should do the reasonable thing and choose a more reasonable title.

>The copyright one would have attracted me as well.
Here's the essay title:

"We are not entering a time when copyright is more threatened than it is in real space. We are instead entering a time when copyright is more effectively protected than at any time since Gutenberg. The power to regulate access to and use of copyrighted materials is about to become perfected." -Lawrence Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, (Basic Books 1999)

Critically assess the statement made by Lessig, using relevant law that specifically deals with the protection of technological measures designed to prevent or restrict unauthorised acts in relation to copyright law.
I thought about this one, especially because I am interested in IP law and technology, but concluded that it would be boring compared to the other three I shortlisted. Having read the title would you still be interested in it?

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And thanks for the Hicham Yezza thing... unfortunately I haven't been keeping close tabs on it but will try to do from now on. :)

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

That's not a law essay title, it's a history one! I'd actually say he was partially right, but not for the reasons he thinks he is, and only as far as 2004 or 5. It'd entail a big discussion of the concept of creative commons and stuff which have emerged strongly this century.

But there would also be a reaason to include today's XKCD in an essay, and to quote Cory Doctorow... These would be attractant factors for me. I managed to slip a Dilbert strip into an essay in my third year and got bonus marks for it LOL.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

>I managed to slip a Dilbert strip into an essay in my third year and got bonus marks for it
!! I don't think I'd get away with that, but it's fantastic you did!! :)

[drunkendeadcat.livejournal.com]

yeh I agree :)

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

Off-topic, but law-related: When is a demo not a demo? I saw it and thought of you, since it seems an intriguing case.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for sharing that! Turns out the place where they start is just round the corner from my school. I have class till about an hour before their next meet on October 31st. It will be interesting to see if the Law Lords allow it to happen...

[kapitankraut.livejournal.com]

Corporate manslaughter sounds like an unusual topic. Would that be where a company is liable for the death of someone (with corporate homicide being where they did it deliberately)? If not, I'm blank about what it could be.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

In the UK the two terms mean the same thing, Corporate Manslaughter is the term used in England & Wales and Northern Ireland while Corporate Homicide is the term used in Scotland - the Scottish criminal legal system is separate from everybody else's in the UK. And yes corporate manslaughter is where a company is liable for the death of someone. It is a very controversial topic and the legislation that came into force earlier this year has not been received well in many quarters. It has come about for many reasons including the fact that between 1965 and 2005, there were only 12 corporate manslaughter convictions, all of them against small companies, yet 10s of 1000s of people died in commercial and industrial settings. Until the current legislation came into force the only legislation that could be used against companies was a 1974 Health & Safety Act which many felt was an inadequate deterrence for company culpable death. It should be an interesting paper and if I end up going into criminal law, should serve a useful future purpose!

[kapitankraut.livejournal.com]

Fascinating! It might just reflect the way things are reported here in Oz, but I was under the impression that Aussie companies can only be sued rather than hit with a criminal action if someone dies. Then again, you've already done more law than I paid attention to...

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

You're right. Even over here companies have more often been sued for the tort of (gross) negligence and been forced to pay fines in civil courts than be convicted of a crime. Many people feel that is not fair on the grieving families and the deterrence to prevent such deaths in the first place is not enough. Others feel there remains sufficient legislation to deal with corporate misdemeanours. vingt might be able to tell us more about the state of corporate manslaughter in Australia.

Another issue is the 'identification principle', which involves identifying an individual in the company and prove them as a 'directing mind' towards securing a corporate manslaughter conviction. With the stats I mentioned above, it's often easier to identify such individuals in small companies but the problem is acute with larger companies and major corporations.