̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - John Bell

Listen: Cambridge experts talk post-Brexit options for the UK

fpjl2 — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 13:02:30 +0000

̽��ֱ��one day workshop was run by the Centre For Business Research (CBR) and the Cambridge Public Policy Strategic Research Initiative. On the day, the CBR's Boni Sones sat down with some of the experts to get their take on the major issues facing Brexit Britain. You can listen to their conversations below:

Prof Simon Deakin: Social policy post Brexit and workers’ rights

Simon Deakin is a Professor of Law and the Director of the Centre For Business Research. He specialises in labour law, private law, company law and EU law. His research is concerned, more generally, with the relationship between law and the social sciences.

To what extent we remain outside the Single Market is going to be a matter of degree. ̽��ֱ��current government’s decision for a deep and comprehensive trade agreement actually takes us back in to much of the single market, and we will be bound going forward to single market rules.”
Simon Deakin

Dr Kirsty Hughes: ̽��ֱ��right to remain of EU nationals

Kirsty Hughes is a ̽��ֱ�� Lecturer in Law specialising in Human Rights and Public Law. She lectures on Civil Liberties, European Human Rights Law and Constitutional Law among other areas, and has a forthcoming book on Privacy Theory.

̽��ֱ��suggestion that residency can be used in withdrawal negotiations does seem to be overstating matters given that residency is preserved under human rights law. It will be unlawful for us to expel EU nationals, and given therefore that it would be unlawful it seems particularly insensitive and unfair for EU nationals to be living in a state of uncertainty which is completely unnecessary.
Kirsty Hughes

You can read Dr Hughes's paper on the right to remain of EU nationals in full here.

Dr Michael Waibel: ̽��ֱ��financial cost to the UK of leaving the EU

Michael Waibel is a ̽��ֱ�� Lecturer and Deputy-Director of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law. He researches economic law with a particular focus on finance and the settlement of international disputes.

̽��ֱ��House of Lords’ assessment as a backdrop to these Brexit negotiations is that there is no legal liability. In purely legal terms I think the House of Lords has got it wrong. ̽��ֱ��UK is in principle liable for a share of the EU’s budget commitments that the UK made as a member of the EU.
Michael Waibel

You can read Dr Waibel's paper on the financial cost of leaving the EU in full here.

Dr Lorand Bartels: ̽��ֱ��WTO option

Lorand Bartels is a Reader in International Law, and teaches international law, WTO law and EU law. He was appointed as a Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Select Committee on International Trade at the end of last year.

I think legally nothing changes, in terms of the underlying rules and rights and obligations. At the moment the government’s position, and I think it is absolutely correct, is that the UK has existing rights and obligations in the WTO but you don’t see them at the moment because it is exercised via the EU.
Lorand Bartels

Dr Graham Gudgin: A critique of treasury estimates of the impact of Brexit

Graham Gudgin is currently Research Associate at Cambridge's Centre For Business Research and part-time Senior Economic Advisor with Oxford Economics. He has been a Special Adviser to the Northern Ireland First Minister on economic policy.

Over the past 15 years we have created about 3 million extra jobs in the UK, but that has been associated with a rise of about 85 per cent of people born from abroad, and a high proportion of these work on or at the minimum wage. That is not great for productivity...
Graham Gudgin

Prof David Howarth: ̽��ֱ��UK Constitution, the White Paper and the proposed Repeal Act

David Howarth is a Professor of Law and Public Policy in the Department of Land Economy. He served as the Member of Parliament for Cambridge between 2005 and 2010.

A lot of this process is far too short. Designing and drafting new law is not easy. It can’t be done by amateurs, it can’t be done by politicians on the hoof on the floor of the House of Commons. It needs to be thought through and there is just not enough time to think it through.
David Howarth

Dr Martin Steinfeld: ̽��ֱ��Free Movement of People and EU law

Martin Steinfeld is an Affiliated Lecturer in EU law. He was previously a barrister at the Chancery Bar and worked at both the European Parliament and the Court of Justice of the European Union.

There are many rights that EU citizens exercising their rights to free movement have had for many years. That is a matter for huge discussion on a domestic level in terms of what pieces of legislation may or may not flow to replicate the rights they already have.
Martin Steinfeld

Prof Catherine Barnard, Prof John Bell and Prof Brendan Simms: ̽��ֱ��White Paper; Brexit and Devolution; the Geopolitics of Brexit

Catherine Barnard is a Professor of European Union Law and Fellow of the UK in a Changing Europe programme.
John Bell is a Professor of Law and Director of the Centre for Public Law.
Brendan Simms is Professor in the History of International Relations in the Department of Politics and International Studies.

̽��ֱ��actual logistics of disentangling ourselves from the EU are incredibly large and it will take a considerable period of time – certainly more than the two years the government thinks it can be done in.
Catherine Barnard

Dr Julian Ghosh: Brexit and our tax laws

Julian Ghosh is a QC and Bye-Fellow at Peterhouse, Cambridge. His practice covers all areas of taxation. He is particularly well known for his corporate work and that involving European taxation issues.

[Business] could say you said we were subject to EU law previous to this date but this post two year date decision tells us what that law actually is, so see you in court. It is hopeless for the government and business.
Julian Ghosh

On 30 March, the day after the 'triggering' of Article 50 began the official Brexit process, a group of ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge lawyers, economists, historians and tax experts gathered in Peterhouse.

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Yes

Opinion: Only by keeping close ties with Europe can UK research remain globally competitive

sc604 — Mon, 08 Aug 2016 11:44:40 +0000

̽��ֱ��best ideas do not respect national boundaries. Great research and scholarship has always relied on cross-border interactions. Rivalries, such as that between Newton and Leibnitz over the invention of calculus, and collaborations, such as those at the CERN project in Switzerland involve people from different nations working on common problems. Since at least the philosopher John Duns Scotus in the 13th century, the mobility of scholars has been a major channel of progress.

̽��ֱ��UK’s vote to leave the EU on June 23 poses a challenge to this status quo. ̽��ֱ��UK will now have to work hard at exploring new ways of belonging in Europe, because in recent decades, EU mobility, collaboration and funding has lain at the heart of the country’s global research excellence.

Looking elsewhere

̽��ֱ��referendum result leaves researchers with acute uncertainty about the commitment of the UK to maintain the open environment in which the best research can take place and into which the best researchers are recruited. Unlike many countries, the UK’s recruitment procedures are very open and focused on attracting talent, rather than simply favouring success in a national competition. Many fine people have been able to build whole careers here.

So the uncertainty over the status of non-UK nationals from the EU and European Economic Area is especially disquieting. They make up 16% of academic staff in UK universities and in certain departments it is far more: more than 50% of professors in LSE’s economics department for example.

We know of and have heard of colleagues who are being offered jobs elsewhere in Europe, and we know of prospective job candidates who have turned down positions in the UK since the referendum. At this early stage it is difficult to say whether the humanities and social sciences are more affected than other disciplines in this way but the mood music in the community is very uncertain.

̽��ֱ��UK is not as attractive a place for researchers as it was before the referendum. This may be just an initial shock and it may all die down, but on the other hand a reputation once lost is very hard to regain. We have many competitors overseas and the best people move to the most flourishing environments to work.

̽��ֱ��language used in the referendum against migrants was felt as a personal attack by many staff at all levels within the academic community, as well as by students. Facing such emotions, it is understandable that many may re-evaluate what they thought they knew about working in UK research.

Cementing collaboration

When it comes to collaboration, UK research is internationally competitive in part because it seeks out the best international partners: 60% of our international collaborations are with our EU partners, and in the EU’s Framework Programme 7, for 23 of the 27 member states, collaborations with UK-based researchers ranked the highest or second most frequent.

Since the referendum, our European partners are noticeably asking us to stand aside as principal investigators or step out of consortia bids entirely.

̽��ֱ��government has said that nothing has changed legally. This is true. But partners in the EU are evaluating their options. They may decide, from a “safety first” perspective, that collaborations with the UK come with too big a risk

One simple solution would be for the UK government to guarantee or underwrite every application to the EU’s flagship Horizon 2020 research programme from now until a new relationship with the EU is stabilised. This would mean promising to pay for research if European funding is withdrawn at a later stage. Legally, if nothing has changed, then the government ought to be happy to put its best foot forward in the short term, and thereafter, negotiate accordingly in order to support its world-leading research base. Here is a challenge that the government needs to meet squarely head on if it values national research excellence and its contribution to economic competitiveness and creativity.

Funding at risk

Until now, the UK has been very successful in gaining EU research funding. Such success should not be punished. In the humanities and social sciences, UK-based researchers have won a third of all advanced grants and starting grants ever awarded by the European Research Council (ERC). This is an incredible achievement – a sign of established research excellence.

There is no UK equivalent of the ERC in terms of scope and size so what will happen if we leave the EU and cannot access funding streams such as Horizon 2020? ̽��ֱ��success and international standing of the humanities and social sciences needs to be protected.

From our rough calculations using data on past and future research allocations in the UK, and data sent to us by the ERC, the value of the awards won by UK-based researchers each year from 2007-15 from the ERC is equivalent to 27.5% of the annual budgets of Economic and Social Research Council and Arts and Humanities Research Council combined. It was around 10% for the life sciences and physical sciences and engineering.

As the government negotiates its new relationship with the EU, it should realise that until now the EU has provided resources that do not exist in the UK. These instruments may well need to be created anew in the UK. If that is the case, the government will need to take some clear and prominent steps to ensure the UK remains bound to and relevant to the global scholarly endeavour if it wants the country to remain attractive to researchers from around the world.

̽��ֱ��challenge Britain now faces is one that raises risks for its purpose, identity and capability to compete internationally and remain relevant at home. Business as usual it cannot be. Of course, new international collaborations will be sought and nurtured by UK researchers and institutions. UK research will not remain paralysed after Brexit, but it does not make sense to walk away from the European interactions that have served us so well so far.

Ash Amin, 1931 Chair in Geography and Fellow of Christ's College, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and John Bell, Professor of Law, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

Ash Amin (Department of Geography) and John Bell (Faculty of Law) discuss the importance of European research collaborations, and how they might continue post-Brexit.

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Yes

Finding fault

tdk25 — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Examining how western legal systems have developed, and understanding the factors that have shaped the dynamics of legal change, has been at the heart of a three-year study that reached its conclusion in December 2007. ̽��ֱ��European Legal Development project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), was led by Professors John Bell and David Ibbetson at the Faculty of Law. It brought together some 70 academics, including eminent scholars and early career researchers, from 10 different jurisdictions across Europe.

Although concerned with legal development and involving the research input of many lawyers, the project also benefited from the insights of historians, philosophers and scholars in other disciplines. It stands as a model for how national scholars can be supported and developed in an international context in the humanities and social sciences. Regular meetings and website interactions have built a network of researchers that will continue long after the project itself.

Illustrations of legal development

Of course, the topic ‘How do western legal systems develop?’ is very broad. Does the law change principally in step with the state of the economy and of society at large, or does it respond to its own internal dynamics of change? Even where there are strong similarities between the social and economic factors that fuel changes in the law, how do legal systems in different European countries respond? To make these areas of enquiry more manageable, they were tackled through the lens of a particular branch of law that illustrates legal change over a specific period of European history: the liability for harm caused to others by fault in the years 1850–2000.

In England, the core principles for deciding when one individual has to compensate another for the harm they have caused date back to the 14th century; in continental Europe, they date back to the 3rd century BC. This research has sought to chart how these old principles have needed to change and to seek explanations for what happened.

̽��ֱ��law relating to fault began to alter around 1850. Enormous technological and economic changes took place as industrialisation and urbanisation occurred in different countries, influencing many aspects of society, including the law. With the rapid rise in the use of steam boilers to power factories, boats and trains, accidents became more frequent. Machinery was both more complex and less predictable than before, causing injuries to employees and passengers. Although in 1850 there were many similarities in approaches to liability for fault across the legal systems of western Europe, significant divergence began to occur in the years that followed.

Constructing the case

To understand the forces behind legal change, we have to look beyond the experience of one country and investigate many. To this end, six case studies were investigated by academics from jurisdictions across Europe: England, Scotland, ̽��ֱ��Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Sweden, France, Italy and Spain.

̽��ֱ��six case studies, each convened by a different project member, focused on the problems that the law has faced in the 150-year period under study: liability in relation to technological change; liability between neighbours; liability for traffic accidents on rail and road; liability for products; liability for medical negligence; and legal doctrine, or the writings of legal academics trying to set out the principles of this developing law.

Factors for change

In a second stage, the project examined the factors that actually shaped legal development in the fields studied. Certain legal institutions, such as law reform bodies, have been important in fostering change in the law. But these bodies have depended on key individuals who have promoted change, typically by persistence over many years. Governments often promote legislation in response to recent prominent crises or disasters, and at such moments proposals that are already formulated are often seized upon.

To what extent does the law reflect developments in social and political ideas? Sometimes there is a clear connection. For example, the French social theorist Émile Durkheim influenced key French legal writers of the late 19th century to argue that the law should provide compensation out of social solidarity with those who were injured, rather than focusing simply on whether a responsible individual was at fault. But, in other areas, it is the opinions of specialist technical experts that shape the law. For example, the law governing asbestos was strongly influenced by relatively small numbers of people in inspectorates, rather than by a broad movement of opinion or ideas.

Changes in the economy clearly have an impact on law – new problems arise that the law has to solve. But it is less clear whether the pattern of solutions directly responds to economic interests. For example, the easy availability of insurance is frequently invoked in arguments for legislation or in court. But it does not dictate a solution. Although Germany and France introduced insurance-based compensation for road accidents, England did not, even though the economic conditions and the availability of insurance were similar. And so, similar economies do not necessarily adopt similar legal solutions.

This study has illustrated that private law can operate with a kind of relative autonomy from contemporary social and political ideas or economic interests. History and legal ideas can be powerful determinants of how far private law contributes to the solution of contemporary problems.

A multicentre project led by the Faculty of Law has reached its conclusion, having studied over a century's worth of European legal changes relating to liability.

It stands as a model for how national scholars can be supported and developed in an international context in the humanities and social sciences.

Keith Heppell

Members of the European Legal Development Project

Coming to a Conclusion

Three main trends in the law relating to liability have become apparent from this study:

Victims of accidents have gradually found it easier to obtain compensation, either because the burden of proof has shifted towards the person causing the injury or because liability no longer depended on proof of fault.
Simpler and less expensive compensation systems have gradually been created outside private law (the law of relations between individuals). For example, although the victims of boiler and railway accidents tended to be employees, they rarely gained compensation through private law but instead through state-created insurance-based workmen’s compensation systems. In Germany, Sweden and France, such schemes have also replaced private law for most road accidents, and Sweden and France have now adopted similar schemes for medical injuries.
Although private law has played a minimal role in incentivising accident prevention, other forms of regulation could have an impact. For instance, state regulation on the siting of boilers, or of buildings or crops alongside railway lines, as well as regulation related to determining who can practise as a doctor, has played a very important role in reducing the incidence of harm.

For more information, please contact the author Professor John Bell (jsb48 AT cam DOT ac DOT uk) at the Faculty of Law.

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Yes