Publications

The Social Contract Revisited: The Modern Welfare State

This report summarizes the three-year programme investigating the social contract and the modern welfare state.

Any society can propose a minimal set of circumstances such that persons who are disadvantaged should be compensated. This will lead to policies which equalize opportunities, if not entirely, then at least to a degree.

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Policy Brief

Are Populists Friends or Foes of Constitutionalism?

In this policy brief, Cas Mudde of the University of Georgia sets out a definition for populism and argues that, contrary to claims by the Tea Party and other populist movements around the world, populism is in fact theoretically opposed to constitutionalism.

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Report

Patent Policy in Genomics and Human Genetics: A Public Health Perspective

This report presents the findings of a workshop in which key figures from the UK Department of Health, academic experts, and lawyers discussed the patenting of human DNA sequencing, to find the best balance between developing incentives for commercial research and development, whilst safeguarding tangible benefits to public health services.

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Policy Brief

Alibaba and the Threat to China's Banking Sector

In 2014, Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba became the world’s largest e-commerce platform with 307 million customers, bigger than Amazon and eBay combined, and the second largest internet company in the world, behind Google.

Alibaba's success in unlocking the potential of the Chinese consumer marketplace is largely due to the ‘guarantee’ it offers consumers via its Alipay payment service. Thanks to Alipay, the Alibaba conglomerate is not only a vigorous opponent of

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SAD Cases in the Coroners’ Courts

This report presents the views of a number of leading medical and legal experts on the complex evidential issues arising at inquests into sudden adult deaths. Participants include Michael Burgess OBE (HM Coroner of the Royal Household and Legal Secretary of the Coroners’ Society of England & Wales) and Professor Hugh Watkins (an expert in molecular genetics and molecular biology of heart muscle disease).

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Killing by Drones: Legality under International Law

In this policy brief, lawyers from the New York City Bar Association Committee on International Law outline the key findings of an eighteen-month investigation into the legality of the use of drones by the US to conduct targeted killings in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere.

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Reforming the EU Consumer ADR Landscape: Implementation and its Issues

This report describes the discussions at the Third Oxford Consumer ADR conference, which brought together policy officials, regulators, ombudsmen, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) bodies, consumers, businesspeople, and academics interested in ADR to examine the major topical issues arising out of the implementation of the European Parliament Directive 2013/11/EU on Consumer ADR (CDR).

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An Informed Dialogue Supporting Safe Innovation in Medical Technology

What do we want from medical technology, and how can we get it?

The complexity of the regulatory framework and the impact of a small number of high-profile failures, notably the PIP breast implant scandal, have led to widespread misunderstanding among heath-care professionals and patients alike regarding the regulation of medical devices. This policy brief addresses a series of interrelated questions on how regulatory reform in the European Medical Devices sector should proceed.

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Report

CDR Mechanism for Consumer Dispute Resolution

A report in Chinese on the use of alternative dispute resolution methods to resolve consumer disputes.

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Report

The Status of Public and Private Enforcement of Law in the EU: Innovation and Transformation

This report examines the significant changes to the European legal system in recent years – including the increasing role of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), Consumer ADR (CDR), ombudsmen, and regulatory redress as alternatives to litigation and collective actions – and assesses to what degree these approaches could be adopted in China.

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Policy Brief

Harmonizing the Ombudsman Landscape

Chief Ombudsman of the Ombudsman Service Lewis Shand Smith assesses the major shifts being felt across the civil justice landscape in the UK, in this policy brief published in association with Ombudsman Services.

The policy brief explores the implications of the recent European Commission Directive 2013/11/EU, due for implementation before the next UK general election in 2015, which requires Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) entities to be available for all business-to-consumer disputes.

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