Judicial responses to violations of the emotional, physical, psychological and sexual integrity of the child.

This article examines the use of limitation laws in the context of civil law claims under English law and Scots law brought by adult claimants in relation to allegations of historical abuse in childhood. Using case law as a barometer of judicial attitudes towards such claimants and, by extension, towards the child victims of abuse themselves, differences in judicial approach between the two jurisdictions are critically assessed, entailing some weighing and evaluation of the argumentative coherence and persuasive force of the judicial decision-making in question. Key aspects of the discussion are framed in terms of recurrent issues that have arisen in relevant case law. The overall aim is to inform a wider debate about the success or failure of civil law mechanisms of redress in rendering justice to those whose right to emotional, physical, psychological or sexual integrity has been violated in childhood

CRC general comment 14 on the right of the child to have his or her best interests taken as a primary consideration.

In May 2013, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (“CRC”) published General Comment 14 which had been adopted at its 62nd session. General Comment 14 relates to the right of the child to have his or her best interests taken as a primary consideration. It is proposed in this article to give attention to this the most recent General Comment to emerge from the CRC

A Sociological Analysis of the Jural Relation, Volume II

Abstract Not Provided

Surveillance, (dis)trust and teaching with plagiarism detection technology

Key dimensions of digital education practices are shaped by instrumental goals such as quality, efficiency and transparency. These goals are often addressed through high-level technology decisions which should be understood in terms of visibility and surveillance. Monitoring technology is deployed for multiple purposes in the contemporary university, in contexts from learning analytics to attendance tracking. This paper is a theoretical exploration of how the technologically-mediated practice of plagiarism detection, in the context of surveillance and distrust, might affect relationships amongst teachers, students and institutions. Drawing on Lyon's (2017) concept of 'surveillance culture', it examines the types of participation that are enacted in relation to managing student writing. It critiques the assumption that automated plagiarism detection is a neutral technology which can be used benevolently (guiding students gently towards 'good academic practice'). Instead, it suggests that this technology acts with and on already problematic conditions of digital visibility which are also seen in the wider digital culture beyond the university, and which require critical and thoughtful responses from within the academy. Logics of surveillance are strongly at work in practices which attempt to regulate student behaviour through the exposure of their writing to algorithmic scanning and monitoring. These logics frame students as in need of careful monitoring to ensure learning and teaching runs smoothly, and framing academic writing as a space of dishonesty which is both rampant and solvable through technology. Routines of plagiarism detection intervene negatively in one of the central facets of student-teacher relationships: the production and assessment of student work. Where these relationships become risk-averse and mutually suspicious, trust is blocked or lost and not easily regained. Effective strategies of resistance require finding ways to re-sensitise ourselves and our students to the values we want to prioritise in our classrooms, and offering means by which students can voice their responses to surveillance cultures in higher education; and addressing issues at strategic levels within our institutions and the sector more widely by developing robust mechanisms for engaging in critical debate, discussion about and review of  technology platforms and practices

Making distance visible: assembling nearness in an online distance learning programme

Online distance learners are in a particularly complex relationship with the educational institutions they belong to (Bayne, Gallagher, & Lamb, 2012). For part-time distance students, arrivals and departures can be multiple and invisible as students take courses, take breaks, move into independent study phases of a programme, find work or family commitments overtaking their study time, experience personal upheaval or loss, and find alignments between their professional and academic work. These comings and goings indicate a fluid and temporary assemblage of engagement, not a permanent or stable state of either “presence” or “distance”. This paper draws from interview data from the “New Geographies of Learning” project, a research project exploring the notions of space and institution for the MSc in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh, and from literature on distance learning and online community. The concept of nearness emerged from the data analyzing the comings and goings of students on a fully online programme. It proposes that “nearness” to a distance programme is a temporary assemblage of people, circumstances, and technologies. This state is difficult to establish and impossible to sustain in an uninterrupted way over the long period of time that many are engaged in part-time study. Interruptions and subsequent returns should therefore be seen as normal in the practice of studying as an online distance learner, and teachers and institutions should work to help students develop resilience in negotiating various states of nearness. Four strategies for increasing this resilience are proposed: recognising nearness as effortful; identifying affinities; valuing perspective shifts; and designing openings

Protecting the wrongdoer: civil limitation laws in historical childhood abuse claims.

This article examines the appropriateness of applying civil limitation and related laws to adult claims in historical child abuse cases, focusing on moral and policy issues attending the use of such laws highlighted in a case that is frequently cited as the classic statement of reasons of legal policy justifying their use - the Australian case of Brisbane South Regional Health Authority v Taylor (opinion of McHugh J). It is argued that for a number of reasons unique to the position of adult claimants in historical childhood abuse cases, civil limitation and related laws are inappropriate when applied to such cases. It is maintained that ultimately such laws often give primacy to the interests of alleged wrongdoers and to the need to protect alleged wrongdoers from civil law redress in a context in which the ordinary justification for such laws is weak when weighed (among other things) against the enormity of the injury caused by the abuses complained of and the unique and acute difficulties victims often face in pursuing timely enforcement action in respect of the childhood rights allegedly violated. The article contains a review of recent developments in the law, and law reform, in several jurisdictions

The last glaciation of Shetland

Evidence of the last glaciation of the Shetland Islands, UK, is re-examined and combined with new data on terrestrial glacigenic deposits and recent offshore data from the continental shelf to produce a dynamic, integrated model of the history of the whole ice cap. It is shown that evidence which has previously been attributed to last glacial, or earlier, Scandinavian ice incursion, might be explained by the eastwards migration of local ice sheds. At its maximum, the ice sheet reached the continental shelf edge to the west of the islands, at least 75 km east, at least 50 km north and might be seen as a peninsular extension of the Scottish ice sheet to the south. The changing patterns of ice flow during deglaciation are reconstructed, implying an early phase of deglaciation at the west and northwest margins (possibly accounting for the suggested eastern migration of the ice shed), followed by retreat at more northern, then eastern, then southern margins. It is suggested that the above pattern reflects tidewater calving controlled by bathymmetric variation around the ice sheet. During a later phase of deglaciation, the margin of the ice cap may have grounded at around the current -100m bathymmetric contour and from there retreated terrestrially. The importance of topographic control on patterns of deglaciation as ice retreated towards the island group is clearly established. Some minor moraines in parts of Shetland are due to active ice margins but their age is unknown. Radiocarbon dates reported here show that the last glaciation was Late Weichselian and that the maximum northern extent was at least 50 km north of the islands. The concepts of an eastwards migrating ice shed and an early, extensive ice cap retreating to a grounding point, could have parallels elsewhere in Scotland during the last glaciation. The methodology applied in this study of Shetland - integrating onshore and offshore data, and developing a dynamic picture of the whole ice cap - needs to be applied to the last Scottish ice sheet also