Amicus Curiae

Sexual Harassment, Power and Barriers to Access to Justice

2026-10-26T14:26:44+00:00

In the context of workplace sexual harassment, recognizing and addressing the inequalities that Black women face in seeking access to justice remains a pertinent issue. This article discusses aspects of the author’s empirical work on the role of Black women’s intersectional identities in influencing their tendency to seek redress for these harms in England and Wales. It draws on intersectionality theory and Rebecca Sandefur’s framing of inequalities which shape how individuals engage with legal and legal-like institutions. The article refines Sandefur’s understanding of inequalities by demonstrating how different aspects of identity interact with power to influence an individual’s decision about pursuing formal avenues of redress. It argues that the participants’ decisions on whether to seek legal recourse are shaped by their assumptions about judges and lawyers not recognizing their experiences or giving due credibility to their grievances. The participants’ perceptions also influence their willingness to use legal resources to access justice.

Keywords: access to justice; intersectionality; sexual harassment; power.

Full issue

2026-10-27T15:28:53+00:00

News and Events

2026-10-27T11:09:57+00:00

Comparative International Law: Foundations and Critique edited by Robert Schütze and Mathias Siems

2026-10-27T11:01:57+00:00

Law and Justice in Song: Murder Ballads and Popular Music by Daniel Newman

2026-10-27T11:05:31+00:00

What is Legal Argumentation?

2026-10-27T11:06:58+00:00

Two new (or newish) books examine legal argumentation, the most recent being an edited work consisting of thirty-four chapters. The purpose of this article is to review both books—although much greater emphasis will be on the edited work—with the aim of discovering how useful the books might be for those researching into legal argumentation and reasoning. The article will argue that there are some basic shortcomings. The edited work focuses largely on what theorists have to say about legal argumentation—examples from the case law are limited (with one or two exceptions)—and so researchers will learn on the whole what legal argumentation ought to be rather than what it actually is. A second reservation, applying to both books, is that there is little or no interest in examining what legal argumentation and reasoning has been. This, arguably, is to be regretted because the past can tell us much about the present.

Keywords: analogy; argumentation; artificial intelligence; epistemology; logic; reasoning; rule-model; syllogism.

In Celebration of the Work of Simon Roberts (1941–2014)

2026-10-27T10:50:32+00:00

Making Authority Visible

2026-10-27T10:57:08+00:00

Using four sequences from Farewell My Concubine—opera-school training, stage performance, a formal courtroom, and a Cultural Revolution struggle session—this article examines how bodily posture, costume, voice, space and spectatorship render roles and authority socially legible. It distinguishes legal authorization from embodied legibility and argues that the visual grammar of judgment is portable across institutional settings: it may present lawful procedure, but coercive rituals lacking defence, independent adjudication, and remedy may also appropriate it. Through structured comparative close reading, the article shows why recognizable performances of judgment cannot themselves establish legal validity and why “visual law” must attend to authorization and contestability.

Keywords: visual law; Farewell My Concubine; bodily discipline; judicial authority; struggle sessions.

Reflections of a Mediator on Inheritance Mediation

2026-10-27T10:45:13+00:00

Mediating family inheritance disputes is challenging. It places considerable technical demands on the mediator, combined with the additional emotional and psychological strain of mediating with grieving families. Often mediators are addressing the dispute itself and the underlying family conflict. Practitioners in this specialist field need appropriate training and adequate support to enable them to mediate effectively and safely. Drawing upon their own experience as mediator, the author reflects on what this should encompass.

Sir Henry Brooke Lecture 2026

2026-10-27T10:47:59+00:00

Introduction

2026-10-27T10:24:31+00:00

Illiberal Liberty

2026-10-27T10:26:54+00:00

The right to conscientious objection, and the extent of the entitlements it grants to rights holders, has become progressively more controversial due to the growing range of contexts in which the right is asserted or defended and the corresponding growth in the range of persons making, and affected by, such claims. In this paper, I examine the extent to which a right to conscientious objection in health care is compatible with the liberal pluralist commitments upon which the right allegedly rests. I focus on conscientious objections to duties to participate in the provision of abortion and contraception and argue that granting health care providers exemptions to duties to participate in the provision of such services causes wrongful harm to women, even under idealized conditions designed to preserve access to these health care services.

Keywords: conscientious objection; abortion; contraception; liberal pluralism; rights to health care; ideological freedom.

Embodied, Affective and Relational Selves and Anorexia Nervosa (AN)

2026-10-27T10:29:16+00:00

Within her book, Law’s Relations, Jennifer Nedelsky argued that an optimal conception of human selves would integrate understandings of human beings as embodied, affective and relational. I assess the extent to which these aspects of human selves have been sufficiently captured within relevant laws (in particular, relevant case law) and academic literature, within the jurisdiction of England and Wales, pertaining to patients with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa (AN). I argue that, although relational factors may help to explain the decisions in some cases, decided by the Court of Protection, not to continue to forcibly treat patients with longstanding and severe eating disorders (LSEDs) against their will, such decisions, and related academic commentary, do not sufficiently take into consideration the broader social relations relevant to the aetiology of eating disorders, in addition to the embodied and affective aspects of those patients suffering with the disease, which may lead to unjustifiable decisions concerning capacity, autonomy and futility.

Keywords: embodied; affective; relational; anorexia nervosa; capacity; futility.

Care without Status

2026-10-27T10:31:18+00:00

This article examines the surrogacy jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights regarding intended motherhood through a feminist anti-stereotyping lens. It argues that gestation and birth remain the normative basis of legal motherhood, while non-gestational maternal claims lack equivalent constitutive force. It further considers the limited force of reproductive intention and intended mothers’ subjection to both regulatory and normative scrutiny. The article’s main contribution lies in showing how apparently neutral legal reasoning concerning recognition may reproduce gendered hierarchies. Finally, it introduces “care without status” and develops “derivative motherhood” to explain, respectively, the gap between maternal practice and legal status and the mediated structure through which intended motherhood becomes legally recognized.

Keywords: surrogacy; intended mother; ECtHR; stereotypes; derivative motherhood.

A Relational Approach to Surrogacy and Assisted Reproduction

2026-10-27T10:35:46+00:00

This article applies a relational approach to assisted reproduction law in practice. It considers the role of legal practitioners in positively supporting the relationships arising from these arrangements at three key stages, namely (a) creating and maintaining adult relationships, (b) validating or legalizing parental relationships, and (c) managing any conflict that arises. With a primary focus on surrogacy arrangements, it considers not only the limitations of the current law of assisted reproduction when viewed through this lens, but also possible solutions. Proposals include both statutory reform and professional best practice.

Keywords: surrogacy; assisted reproduction; relational approach; legal parentage; parental orders; legal practitioners; alternative dispute resolution; reform.

Autonomy and the Lawyer’s Role

2026-10-27T10:39:11+00:00

This note examines the tension between autonomy and protection in adult social care law and practice. Drawing on the authors’ experiences and the legal frameworks governing care, support and mental capacity, it explores how efforts to promote welfare and manage risk may restrict autonomy and liberty. Particular attention is given to the role of local government lawyers in advising social work professionals on the legality, necessity and proportionality of interventions, and in shaping applications before the Court of Protection and under the High Court’s inherent jurisdiction. It argues that meaningful person-centred practice requires critical reflection of the exercise of power when balancing risk, protection and individual choice.

Keywords: adult social care; Mental Capacity Act 2005; Care Act 2014; Court of Protection; inherent jurisdiction; safeguarding; autonomy; deprivation of liberty; fluctuating capacity; local authority lawyers.

Introduction

2026-10-26T15:54:45+00:00

Personal Reflections on Carrie Menkel-Meadow

2026-10-26T16:34:16+00:00

Law and Human Intelligence(s)

2026-10-26T16:36:08+00:00

This essay undertakes a comparison between human intelligence and artificial intelligence (AI) in the legal field, arguing that the first possesses cognitive, epistemological, emotional and affective abilities that are crucial for jurists and that the second could never learn. Taking Carrie Menkel-Meadow’s teachings as the polestar, the essay will identify those fundamental abilities, analyse the features and limits of AI that make this latter incapable of learning such abilities, and finally make some suggestions on how we should develop the abilities at issue to lay down the foundations of a possible “Human Intelligence Project”.

Keywords: human intelligence; artificial intelligence; legal professions; legal education; negotiation studies; legal skills; legal culture; nature of the law; conflict; dispute resolution.

Keywords

2026-10-26T16:39:13+00:00

It is such an honour to contribute to this special issue celebrating our amazing friend Carrie Menkel-Meadow. She has so many wonderful qualities, has written so many influential things, and has initiated and contributed to such important debates over many years in the field of dispute resolution that it is impossible to do her and her work justice in this essay. I therefore decided to organize my contribution around keywords that come to my mind when I think about Carrie and I will connect these to her work in separate entries as the body of my essay. I also weave into the text how she has influenced my work and continues to do so. The keywords are professional, feminist, mentor, generosity, and contemporary. This approach allows me to focus on how I understand her work to embody so many of her personal qualities. My methodological anchor here is Raymond Williams’s classic Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (1976), in which he argues that language in not neutral and that many commonly used terms carry contested and often conflicting meanings depending on who uses them and in what context. Williams highlights the close relationship between language and social life. This is a helpful way to think about Carrie and her work on dispute resolution.

Keywords: Carrie Menkel-Meadow; ADR; professional; mentor; feminist; engaged contemporary; generosity.

Process Pluralism without Borders

2026-10-27T09:48:19+00:00

This essay celebrates Carrie Menkel-Meadow’s extraordinary contribution to the study of mediation beyond the United States. It argues that process pluralism, the concept she coined and developed over four decades, is not merely a description of a desirable justice system; it is an inherently culturally sensitive framework. Its foundational principle, that “one size does not fit all”, applies as much across legal cultures as across case types. Drawing on Carrie’s sustained engagement with cultural variation on her visits to the University of Haifa, where she co-taught a course on peacebuilding in the Middle East with Jewish and Arab students, and on the subsequent development of dispute resolution education and practice in Israel, this essay traces how process pluralism travels, adapts, and takes root in new contexts without losing its core commitment to justice.

Keywords: process pluralism; cultural sensitivity; legal transplants; mediation; Carrie Menkel-Meadow; ADR; Israel; Middle East; comparative dispute resolution.

Marginal Doors? Avoidance and Violence in the Multi-Door World of Process Pluralism

2026-10-27T09:51:32+00:00

At the heart of Carrie Menkel-Meadow’s work lies “process pluralism”, the recognition that responses to disagreement extend beyond litigation. This essay, offered in her honour, argues that the pluralist repertoire, viewed sociologically, should embrace the neglected ends of the processual spectrum more firmly: avoidance and prevention at one end, self-help and violence at the other. Drawing on legal anthropology, the sociology of conflict and Chinese materials, it proposes that process links structural and situational accounts of both. Seen from the poles, the middle ground of negotiation, mediation, umpiring and hybrid processes appears as a valuable but partial repertoire.

Keywords: dispute resolution; process pluralism; avoidance; dispute prevention; violence; self-help; mediation; Menkel-Meadow; sociology of conflict; China.

Tracing the Roots of a Jurisprudence of ADR

2026-10-27T09:55:09+00:00

This article traces the most significant intellectual influences of Carrie Menkel-Meadow, widely regarded as a pioneer in the field of alternative dispute resolution (ADR). It argues that key elements of Mary Parker Follett’s approach to conflict resolution, Lon L Fuller’s legal philosophy—particularly his work on alternative processes for handling disputes—and Howard Raiffa’s negotiation theory are reflected in Menkel-Meadow’s contributions to integrative negotiation, process pluralism, and her conception of negotiation as both an art and a science. The article examines these three theoretical pillars and concludes that one productive way to expand ADR’s theoretical scope is to engage intellectual history and legal philosophy to better understand the field’s development, its future directions, and to re-signify the past to open up new ways of thinking about ADR.

Keywords: ADR; negotiation; Carrie Menkel-Meadow; Lon L Fuller; Howard Raiffa; Mary Parker Follett; intellectual history; conflict resolution theory; genealogy.

Thus I Became a Lawyer …

2026-10-27T09:59:50+00:00

This article examines how German legal education and training socialize students into the legal profession. It analyses the state-regulated two-stage system, its demanding examination culture, hidden curriculum and distinctive professional habitus. Particular attention is paid to students’ social background, uncertainty and competition, the relationship between academic study and practice, transferable professional competencies, internationalization and the feminization of law. The article argues that German legal education fosters a strong professional identity and respect for law, but may also reinforce conformity, social homogeneity and conservative professional cultures.

Keywords: legal education and training; professional socialization; legal profession; Germany; state examinations; professional habitus; gender; sociology of law.

Carrie Menkel-Meadow and Me

2026-10-27T10:01:51+00:00

La Maestra

2026-10-27T10:04:09+00:00

Editor's introduction

2026-10-26T14:23:15+00:00

Queering Guardianship

2026-10-26T15:38:00+00:00

In Githa Hariharan v Reserve Bank of India (1999), a provision of the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act 1956 was challenged before the Supreme Court of India on the ground that it violated the constitutional guarantee of equality since it stated that the father is the “natural guardian” of a minor, and the mother comes “after him”. The Supreme Court held that “after” does not mean “after the death of the father” but rather “in the absence of” the father, including situations where the father is unwilling, incapable, indifferent, or has abdicated responsibility. This holding, however, ironically reiterated the primacy of the father over his children’s guardianship and remains the position of law to date. This rewritten judgment re-imagines the case from a queer lens. It highlights the problematic prevalence of the father/mother binary within parenthood laws in India, contests the assumption of a bionormative parental unit, and refutes the idea that guardianship should flow from gendered parental roles. It illustrates how Indian constitutional law has long had the tools to “queer” guardianship and that courts often choose interpretive restraint, not because of doctrinal limits but because of a failure of moral imagination regarding essentialized gender identities and the gendered division of labour. The rewritten judgment envisions an alternative, relational conception of guardianship centred on actual decision-making and caregiving. This affirms equality between heterosexual parents while creating space to recognize same-sex parents, non-biological caregivers, and trans parents whose legal gender does not map onto mother/father, and chosen-family structures.

Keywords: guardianship; mother; father; equality; caregiving; discrimination; gendered parental roles; bionormative.

Towards Intersectional Justice

2026-10-26T15:42:00+00:00

This article analyses the first-level refugee appeal cases in New Zealand by queer women through utilizing an intersectional feminist lens. While New Zealand is often seen as welcoming towards individuals who claim asylum on the grounds of sexual orientation, it has been argued that tribunal judges set high thresholds for establishing the credibility of queer women’s asylum applications compared to queer men. An analysis of the decisions of the New Zealand Immigration and Protection Tribunal highlights the judiciary’s increasingly progressive understanding of the challenges faced by queer women, contributing to critical analysis challenging intersectional discrimination impacting queer women.

Keywords: gender; sexuality; intersectionality; asylum; New Zealand.

Queering the Form of the Judgment

2026-10-26T15:44:01+00:00

In TH v Czech Republic (2025), the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) found in favour of a non-binary applicant for the first time. However, throughout its judgment, the ECtHR also misgendered the applicant by using masculine pronouns. In this article, we explore the effects of such seemingly small aspects of the judgment’s form through a queer lens. Focusing on ECtHR decisions concerning trans* and gender diverse people, we argue that misgendering, deadnaming and the use of pathologizing language produce a cisnormative “background”, which can have a “disorienting” effect on queer readers and a “straightening” effect on society more broadly.

Keywords: European Court of Human Rights; judgment; form; trans*; gender diverse; misgendering; deadnaming; pathologization; cisnormativity.

Producing Sex

2026-10-26T15:48:26+00:00

Legal interpretation operates through rhetorical claims to discovery whereby courts purport to ascertain the meaning of language via the neutral application of interpretative rules developed and refined throughout legal education. This article demonstrates that such claims constitute Barthesian myth, a second-order semiotic operation in which contingent, historically produced meaning is presented as natural, self-evident, and innocent of its own construction (Barthes 1972: 129-130; Boer 2011: 218). This article will show that judicial interpretation, rather than discovering meaning, produces it, whilst simultaneously erasing the productive mechanisms through which interpretation operates.

Deploying semiotics through the work of Roland Barthes (1972), Charles Sanders Peirce (Hartstone, Weiss & Burks (eds) 1931-1958), and Eco (1976), Foucauldian genealogy (Foucault 1978), Butlerian performativity theory (Butler 1990), and Elena Gambino’s (2020) account of recursive power, this article traces the discursive production of sex across UK jurisprudence from Corbett v Corbett (1971) through R (Castellucci) v Gender Recognition Panel (2025) KB 577 and For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers (2025). This genealogy illuminates discontinuity rather than continuity: the signifier “sex” emerges through contradictory epistemic regimes, each asserting access to a stable, pre-legal truth. Notably, the deliberate linguistic conflation of sex and gender in the Gender Recognition Act 2004, designed by its drafters purely and simply to confound future debates, exemplifies the productive rather than declaratory character of legal language and For Women Scotland’s declaration of plain biological meaning accomplishes what Charles Stivale (2002: 465) terms “revolutionary ex-nomination”, naturalizing contingent interpretation whilst occluding over two decades of divergent juridical practice.

Castellucci demonstrates what is at stake: non-binary subjects rendered legally impossible through law’s iterative performance of binary categories, compelled to present what Mairead Losty and John O’Connor (2018) term a “false self” based on biological sex whilst concealing their experienced identity. This semiotic critique exposes judicial interpretation’s concealment of productive power, revealing how claims to discovery constitute violence against lives unintelligible within law’s binary framework.

Keywords: semiotics; legal interpretation; trans law; non-binary; Barthes; Foucault; Butler; UK equality law; gender recognition.

Speaking Intimacy

2026-10-26T15:50:28+00:00

This article examines how narratives of non‑monogamies are mobilized in the defence of human trafficking for sexual exploitation in Belgian case law. Analysing three appellate judgments, it shows how defendants invoke polygamy, open relationships or multiple “marriages” to obscure coercion and contest criminal liability. While consent is legally irrelevant to the qualification of trafficking, it remains central to judicial reasoning on related sexual offences, creating tensions in cases involving intimate relationships. Drawing on queer, non‑monogamy and “rough sex” scholarship, the article argues for moving beyond the “loverboy” anti-trafficking concept towards a contextual analysis of coercion embedded in intimate settings.

Keywords: human trafficking; sexual exploitation; loverboy; non-monogamy; consent.