We are delighted to announce the first issue of the LSE Law Working Paper Series for 2020.
In this issue, Igor Stramignoni (WPS 1/2020) offers an insight into what may be called a history of the visual in law, turning to early modern “images of law” to highlight certain alternative ways of approaching artefacts to do with law and discover how these often resist our analyses or interpretations forcing us to engage with them in novel ways; Ian Roxan (WPS 2/2020) uses an illustration of how VAT can impose a burden on corporations, arising from a series of cases before the European Court of Justice, to throw light not only on the nature of VAT but also on the incidence of corporate income tax in the context of globalisation; Alexander Somek and Michael Wilkinson (WPS 3/2020) seek to re-establish the link between popular sovereignty and collective action by examining sovereignty's emancipatory telos, its majoritarian mode of operation and its dependence on political citizenship, in light of strands of contemporary constitutional theory having taken leave of popular sovereignty understood as a mode of collective action; (WPS 4/2020) explores how, since the 1970s, human rights have allowed penal power to move and expand around the globe, while contending that the assumptions underlying the idea that human rights require criminal accountability remain unexplored and unchallenged; Richard Ekins and Grégoire Webber (WPS 5/2020) offer a reply to critics of Legislated Rights: Security Human Rights through Legislation by reviewing the central case method; rights protection in the United States in comparative perspective; legislated rights and constitutional structure; scepticism about judicial review, oppressive 'rights' legislation; and legislated rights and common law; David Murphy (WPS 6/2020) introduces mandatory clearing of over-the-counter derivatives as a case study in the review of post-crisis regulation, using insights from regulatory theory to suggest some criteria which should inform the review of financial regulation.