The Government’s flagship benefit reform, Universal Credit, could be sailing into choppy waters. Universal credit aims to simplify benefits and to make work pay. It does this through amalgamating different means-tested benefits and tax credits, paid for different purposes and potentially payable to a different member of a couple. Included in Universal Credit are payments previously paid separately for housing costs and for children (Child Tax Credit).
Because it is one benefit, only one partner in a couple is paid Universal Credit – even though a couple has to make a joint claim. As charities and women’s groups have pointed out, this concentrates power and resources in the hands of that one partner, which risks encouraging financial abuse. Also by lumping child payments in with other benefits, the advantage of a clearly-labelled payment for children, which was paid to the person responsible for a child, could be lost.
By Dr Tomaso Ferrando, Lecturer in Law (University of Bristol Law School).
Since Hardin’s publication of the Tragedy of the Commons in 1968, the perception of ‘the commons’ has been closely intertwined with food and agricultural production. As a matter of fact, Hardin was worried that common land which was openly and unrestrictedly accessible to livestock would have been quickly impoverished and eventually lost its economic potential. According to Hardin, livestock production should take place on the basis of a well-defined and individualist proprietary regime which allocates the land to all users, so that the cost of idiosyncrasy and over-exploitation is borne by those who act irresponsibly and negative externalities do not affect the amount of resource that is available to the other members of society.
Through the years, the flaws and ineffectiveness of Hardin’s theory have been uncovered. For example, David Harvey has suggested that Hardin only considers the implication of commons-owned land (the natural resource), while the crucial element is represented by the commons-ownership of the means of production. Similarly, the research conducted by Elinor Olstrom through the lenses of economics and governance led to the identification of several examples in the natural world where commons-pooled resources are maintained, reproduced and shared by members of society through the introduction of rigorous forms of governance and collective discipline. Moreover, the idea that private titling and private exploitation of resources reduce the risk of over-consumption and unsustainability has been proven wrong in numerous cases of socio-environmental disasters and by the depletion of soil produced by corporate farming. (more…)
By Dr Devyani Prabhat, Senior Lecturer in Law (University of Bristol Law School).*
In this blog post, Dr Devyani Prabhat provides the context for her first book Unleashing the Force of Law: Legal Mobilization, National Security, and Basic Freedoms (Palgrave Publishers, 2016), which won the Peter Birks prize of the Society of Legal Scholars (UK and Ireland) for best book in 2017. It was also shortlisted by the Socio-legal Studies Association (SLSA) in 2016 for the best book prize. Dr Prabhat is on Twitter @DrDPrabhat. (more…)
By Dr Jule Mulder, Lecturer in Law (University of Bristol Law School).
EU and Rainbow flag
Dr Jule Mulder’s article ‘Dignity or Discrimination: What paves the road towards equal recognition of same-sex couples in Europe?’ has been published in the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law. The article explores whether the principle of dignity can help advance the Court of Justice of the European Union’s (CJEU) approach towards same-sex couples’ rights within the EU non-discrimination law framework, considering dignity-based arguments in a comparative perspective.
The European courts’ approach, mostly focusing on the concept of direct discrimination, seems insufficient to ensure the equal treatment of same-sex couples. The comparative experience, successfully invoking the dignity-principle to advance same-sex couples’ rights, challenges us to review the EU non-discrimination law and invites us to reconsider the concept of dignity and its value to foster substantive equality and equal treatment within the EU legal framework. Accordingly, recognising the limited reach of the CJEU current approach that focuses on direct sexuality discrimination only and adheres to the comparator paradigm, the article analyses possibilities to challenge de facto discrimination within the EU legal framework going beyond the concept of direct discrimination. In doing so, the article evaluates the potential of the dignity-centred approach within the context of EU equality law. Hence, the article evaluates whether the CJEU case-law’ limited substantive reach could be remedied by a more detailed engagement with the concept of dignity to provide substantive meaning to the analysis. Ultimately rejecting the usefulness of dignity, the article proposes that a more consistent application of the concept of indirect discrimination could push courts towards legal recognition of rights of same-sex couples. (more…)
Public health is proudly an evidence-based field. But evidence without values cannot tell us what we should do.
We need public health ethics if we are to understand and explain, by reference to the classic definition of public health advanced by Winslow, what we, as a society, ought to do to assure the conditions in which people can enjoy good health and equitable prospects for health. Using the ‘organised efforts of society’ to protect and promote health and well-being is an ethical goal—indeed, as many of us would argue, it is an ethical imperative. And to be achieved, it requires law and policy. To evaluate when threats to health warrant a public health response, scientific analyses must be complemented by matters such as the balancing of values, an assessment of the relative merits of different possible interventions, an appreciation of the likely risks and impacts of intervening, and a sensitivity to political and cultural contexts and realities. (more…)
Due to the strike action in which the author/s of the blog post planned for today are participating, we are unable to publish a new entry this week. To learn more about the ongoing pension dispute and strike, please visit UCU’s dedicted webpage and UUK’s pensions webpage.
On 7 February 2018, Bermuda’s Governor approved the Domestic Partnership Act 2017 (DPA) which withdraws the right for same-sex couples to marry in Bermuda. The ‘Domestic Partnership’ purports to offer the same legal standing as marriage though there is a degree of scepticism around whether this will be the case. There is a substantial body of writing in the UK on whether the civil partnerships established under the Civil Partnership Act 2004 were in fact equal to marriage, or whether creating a second form of legal partnership also created a subordinate form of legal partnership.
This may not however, be the end of the story. According to Reuters News Agency, on 20 February 2018, a Bermudian Lawyer has filed a motion asking for the Supreme Court of Bermuda (a court of first instance unlike the Supreme Court of the UK which is the UK’s final appellate court), to consider whether the DPA is inconsistent with the Bermudian Human Rights Act 1981 (HRA). This blog piece will briefly consider whether the Bermudian constitution has been altered by the HRA to include protections for same-sex marriage, to what extent is the HRA constitutional, and can rights given under the HRA be removed. (more…)
Due to the strike action in which the author/s of the blog post planned for today are participating, we are unable to publish a new entry this week. To learn more about the ongoing pension dispute and strike, please visit UCU’s dedicted webpage and UUK’s pensions webpage.
Don Lane was a DPD courier, whose written contract described him as an ‘independent contractor’, aiming to ensure that he was neither an ‘employee’ nor a ‘worker’ and therefore was not entitled to the legal rights such as protection against dismissal, the national living wage, paid holidays, or even statutory sick pay. He suffered from diabetes and, having already been fined £150 for attending a hospital appointment earlier in the year, died in January 2018 after working through the Christmas season despite illness. His employers knew that he had suffered from a diabetic collapse at work but adopted a system which strongly discouraged him taking any time off for sickness: no income for sick leave and, worst of all, fines. The media has documented other examples of the abusive treatment of ‘gig’ workers in courier companies such as Hermes and Amazon.
In July 2017, ‘Good Work’, Matthew Taylor’s Review of ‘Modern Working Practices’ was published. The Report aimed to promote ‘good work’ through the adoption of 53 recommendations. In February 2018, the Government published its response, also entitled Good Work, mostly accepting the Review recommendations, but ducking their implementation by offering further ‘consultation’. Accompanying the thinly reasoned Response were four hastily drawn up consultation papers, on employment status, transparency in the labour market, agency workers and enforcement of employment rights.
While the Government says it is contemplating ‘the single largest shift in employment status since the Employment Rights Act in 1996’, its focus is on clarifying rather than extending its ambit. The reason seems to lie in its endorsement of the ‘flexibility’ of the current UK labour market, following Taylor’s lead, enabling individuals and employers ‘to make the choices that are right for them’. The notion that such choices are structurally constrained is ignored; rather the blame is laid at the door of the exceptional ‘bad’ employer. While some improvements are contemplated, they do not broaden the scope of access to statutory rights at work in a way that would have helped Don Lane or will prevent other forms of abuse. (more…)
Due to the strike action in which the author/s of the blog post planned for today are participating, we are unable to publish a new entry this week. To learn more about the ongoing pension dispute and strike, please visit UCU’s dedicted webpage and UUK’s pensions webpage.
The Government’s flagship benefit reform, Universal Credit, could be sailing into choppy waters. Universal credit aims to simplify benefits and to make work pay. It does this through amalgamating different means-tested benefits and tax credits, paid for different purposes and potentially payable to a different member of a couple. Included in Universal Credit are payments previously paid separately for housing costs and for children (Child Tax Credit).
