Category: News

TRUMAN BODDEN LAW SCHOOL LLM Course Leader Laura Panades’ research is in the spotlight.

The European PPP Law Review journal has published her paper on competition in British Overseas Territories.

Her research shows how to make public contracting more competitive.

Competition is a force for good. It dispels corruption and encourages local businesses to innovate. This makes sure that Cayman’s public money is well spent.

The study looks at publicity of laws, accessibility of open tenders, publication of contract awards, local economic preferences and ethics in Government.

The Cayman Islands scores best. The sample also includes Bermuda and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

This publication underwent a double-blind peer review.

An earlier version of this research was featured in the ‘Public Procurement: Global Revolution’ Conference. This is the leading event in the field. It took place at the University of Nottingham in June 2019.

Findings feed into the LLM in International Finance. The programme hosts a module on the Law of Public-Private Partnerships. In this course, students learn how Governments worldwide contract goods, works and services from the private sector.

Laura Panades, LLM course leader and author of the research, said:

“This new publication engages with Cayman and its sister nations of the British Overseas Territories.

“This conversation will lead to improvements all across the Caribbean region.”

Mitchell Davies, Law School Director, said:

“This publication strengthens the research profile of the Truman Bodden Law School.

“Laura’s research provides a further opportunity for TBLS students to access first hand, cutting edge, internationally leading research.”

FURTHER PRESS INFORMATION AVAILABLE FROM:

Laura Panades: laura.panades@gov.ky

Tel: 945 00 77 (ext. 229)

TBLS lecturers, Derek O’Brien and Rhian Minty, have recently had an article accepted by Public Law, the leading journal in its field in the UK. The title of the article is “The Challenges of Multi-layered Governance and the Fight for Same Sex Marriage in Bermuda and the Caribbean Overseas Territories”.

The article examines the two most recent judgments of the Bermudan and Cayman Courts of Appeal regarding the constitutionality of the prohibition on same sex marriage in each territory. The article adopts a contextual approach which takes account of the surrounding political, social and cultural forces that have informed the debate about the issue of same sex marriage in both jurisdictions. The article further considers the UK’s constitutional responsibility for the implementation of human rights norms in Bermuda and the Caribbean Overseas Territories. The article concludes by offering a critique of the UK Government’s response to the refusal of the governments of Bermuda and the Caribbean Overseas Territories to permit same sex marriage in their territories.

Further press information available from:

Derek O’Brien (Derek.O’Brien@gov.ky)

Rhian Minty (Rhian.Minty@gov.ky)

TBLS lecturer Marc Johnson’s article titled “Legislative Sovereignty: Moving from Jurisprudence Towards Metaphysics” has been published in “Jurisprudence: An International Journal of Legal and Political Thought”. TBLS students can access the online version through Taylor & Francis Online and HeinOnline via University of Liverpool. Publication in print is pending.

Abstract:
Legislative sovereignty is often discussed with one eye on the past and one eye on the procedural functions of law-making in the present. This limits the scope for a conceptual understanding of legislative sovereignty and hinders its theoretical progress. This article argues that legislative sovereignty contains within it the concept of an idol and that understanding the scope and impact of the idol of sovereignty is necessary for future development in this field. Theories from Kant, Nietzsche, von Mises and Derrida are used to offer a divergent critique of legislative sovereignty while the author calls for a move towards a nuanced view of legislative and Parliamentary Sovereignty to account for its idolism. The key factor preventing the development of a truly nuanced and reflective theory of sovereignty is the devotion to former idols which are inoperable and inconsistent with modern geopolitical, inter-state relationships. The author also argues that our knowledge of sovereignty is synthetic a priori and that development in this area can only be by reason, as knowledge derived experientially is subject to the Kantian Transcendental Idealism.

https://doi.org/10.1080/20403313.2020.1744990