School of Law

A short history of political and economic relations between Albania and EU ................................ .. 5 ... A legal analysis of the SAP and SAA between EU and Western Balkans .......................... .............. 10 ... Legal analysis of the SAA concluded with Albania ............................................. ...

The blog post is a critique of BBC Two’s documentary “Britain’s Secret Slavery Busniess.” Darragh MacIntyre sets out to talk about modern day slavery in the UK generally, but completely fails to incorporate women’s experiences. Women and girls make out, on estimate, two thirds of the approximately 10,000-15,000 individuals held in slavery in the UK. As such, I question MacIntyre’s analysis and the validity and effects of excluding women’s voices.

The article is an in depth analysis of the ongoing mining conflict in Northern Sweden and Sámi’s land rights from a critical legal theory perspective. It particularly analyses what the mining conflict proves in terms of the Sámi people’s land rights; that they are still settler colonised, and their land is continuously being taken away from them in a construction of expropriation. The article makes suggestions for how to move forward by using Brenna Bhandar’s principle of reconceptualising history. It also provides some recommendations for how the Swedish Government should progress to eliminate the discrimination of Swedish Sámi people’s land rights.

This article examines the case law on expert evidence of drug traces. It suggests that evidence of questionable relevance is being adduced by the prosecution and that unsuccessful challenges to its reliability have the perverse effect of inflating its probative value. It reveals troubling synergies between adverse inferences from an accused’s "failure to account" and the adduction of arguably irrelevant scientific evidence. It provides an exposition of the legislative background to s.36 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 and suggests the provision fails to comply with art.6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Citation: Crim. L.R. 2013, 10, 810-825 This article examines the case law and scientific literature on expert evidence of drug traces. It suggests that evidence of questionable relevance is being adduced by the prosecution and that unsuccessful challenges to its reliability inflate its probative value. It reveals troubling synergies between adverse inferences from an accused’s "failure to account" and the adduction of arguably irrelevant scientific evidence. It provides an exposition of the legislative background to s.36 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 and suggests the provision fails to comply with art.6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

... Towards an Analytical Framework and Research Agenda BEN BOWLING, AMBER MARKS AND CIAN C MURPHY The influence of the criminal upon the development of productive forces can be shown in detail. ... Page 4. 52 Ben Bowling, Amber Marks and Cian Murphy ...

This paper examines how forensic science and technology are reshaping crime investigation, prosecution and the administration of criminal justice. It illustrates the profound effect of new scientific techniques, data collection devices and mathematical analytical procedures on the traditional criminal justice system. These blur the boundary between the innocent person, the suspect, the accused and the convicted. They also blur the boundary between evidence collection, testing its veracity and probative value, the adjudication of guilt and punishment. The entire process is being automated and temporally and procedurally compressed. At the same time, the start and finish of the criminal justice process are now indefinite and indistinct as a result of the introduction of mass surveillance and the erosion against ‘double jeopardy’ protections caused by scientific advances that make it possible to revisit conclusions reached in the distant past. This, we argue, indicates a move towards a system of ‘automatic justice’ that is mediated by technology in ways that minimise human agency and undercuts the due process safeguards built into the traditional criminal justice model. The paper concludes that in order to re-balance the relationship between state and citizen in an automatic criminal justice system, we may need to accept the limitations of the existing criminal procedure framework and deploy privacy and data protection law which are now highly relevant to criminal justice.

This article provides an analysis of the normative framework for Spanish cannabis clubs by contextualizing it within the growing body of comparative constitutional law that recognizes legal obstructions to personal drug consumption as intrusions of the right to privacy. Article 3(2) of the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, 1988 relieves State parties from the Article's obligation to criminalize drug possession and cultivation for ‘personal consumption’ when doing so would conflict with their constitution or basic concepts of their legal system. Spain relied on Article 3(2) in its decision not to criminalize conduct involving personal consumption. The Spanish judiciary has had to consider the legal implications of collective consumption and cultivation in the form of cannabis clubs. In addition to operating in a grey area of domestic law, Spain's cannabis clubs straddle the blurred boundary in international and Eu...

This paper examines how forensic science and technology are reshaping crime investigation, prosecution and the administration of criminal justice. It illustrates the profound effect of new scientific techniques, data collection devices and mathematical analytical procedures on the traditional criminal justice system. These blur the boundary between the innocent person, the suspect, the accused and the convicted. They also blur the boundary between evidence collection, testing its veracity and probative value, the adjudication of guilt and punishment. The entire process is being automated and temporally and procedurally compressed. At the same time, the start and finish of the criminal justice process are now indefinite and indistinct as a result of the introduction of mass surveillance and the erosion against ‘double jeopardy’ protections caused by scientific advances that make it possible to revisit conclusions reached in the distant past. This, we argue, indicates a move towards a...

This article examines the U.K. case law on expert evidence of drug traces. It suggests that evidence of questionable relevance is being adduced by the prosecution and that unsuccessful challenges to its reliability have the effect of inflating its probative value. The article reveals troubling synergies between adverse inferences from an accused’s "failure to account" and the adduction of arguably irrelevant scientific evidence. It provides an exposition of the legislative background to s.36 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 and suggests the provision fails to comply with art.6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.