Edinburgh Law School Legal Studies Research Paper Series - December 2025
Tue 9 December 2025
The latest in the Legal Studies Research Paper Series (Vol. 13, No. 5: December, 2025) from Edinburgh Law School is now available.
View the full Edinburgh Law School Legal Studies Research Paper Series on SSRN
Insolvency and EU Law
Emilie Ghio, Edinburgh Law School
Grigoris Bacharis, Edinburgh Law School
This chapter traces the evolution of insolvency law within the European Union (EU), charting its transformation from a marginally integrated field to a core component of the EU’s internal market agenda. It explores how EU law has progressively influenced insolvency frameworks through a dual strategy of procedural coordination and targeted substantive harmonisation. Beginning with Regulation 1346/2000 and culminating in more recent initiatives such as Directive 2019/1023 and the 2022 Proposal, the EU has introduced shared concepts, procedural safeguards, and normative standards that are reshaping national laws across the bloc. However, this process has not been linear or top-down. National legal innovations, such as the UK’s scheme of arrangement or France’s safeguard procedure, have served as blueprints for EU instruments, evidencing a dialogic, iterative model of harmonisation. The chapter examines the policy rationale for EU intervention, the legal and political challenges of harmonisation, and the role of actors such as the CJEU in driving convergence. It also analyses how soft law mechanisms, reform incentives, and transnational professional networks amplify the EU’s influence beyond binding legislation. Simultaneously, it demonstrates how member states, through domestic experimentation and procedural innovation, actively shape EU-level developments. The result is a dynamic and reciprocal relationship that balances functional convergence with national diversity. The chapter concludes by arguing that this model of mutual influence and pragmatic evolution offers a viable path forward for European insolvency law; one that reinforces market integration while respecting domestic autonomy.
Politics and Policing in Post-communist Europe
Andy Aydın-Aitchison, Edinburgh Law School
The chapter provides a review based on over 200 papers on police and politics in 25 European states that transitioned away from Communist rule in the 1980s and 90s. By examining these countries in three groups according to Freedom House classifications ('not free', 'partly free' and 'free') the paper demonstrates the parallels between political transformations and policing. State and police are inseparable, and changes in one are reflected in the other. In spite of deformations that take the place of transformation in less free states, there is evidence of creative public participation in policing oversight. The chapter supports further work in an active field of knowledge production, particularly comparative work within the post-communist world and between post-communist and other states to helps develop theory.
Guidance on the Environmental Conditions of Detention
Kasey L. McCall-Smith, Edinburgh School of Law
Morag Josephine Grant, University of Edinburgh
‘Environmental conditions’ refer in particular to the sensory environment in places of detention. Four aspects are discussed here: sound, light, temperature and air. ‘Detention’ means any situation in which people are deprived of their liberty. These environmental conditions of detention cover prisons, remand centres, and secure accommodation for children. They are also relevant for other sites of detention, such as asylum reception centres, hospitals and care homes when detention is mandated. This brief offers clarity on how existing rules of detention apply and explains why the environmental conditions of detention warrant further consideration.
Often, places of detention have been constructed without due consideration of the importance of our immediate environment, and this potential for harm. The combined impact of poor environmental conditions may in fact constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment as defined in international law. In addition, manipulation of environmental and sensory conditions has often been used intentionally as a method of torture. Poor environmental conditions can also exacerbate the impact of other methods of torture and ill-treatment.
Regulating for the Workforce of the Future: Addressing the Healthcare Workforce Crisis in Scotland and Ireland
Annie Sorbie, Edinburgh Law School
Mary-Elizabeth Tumelty, University College Cork - School of Law
The health workforce crisis is an international concern, but until recently there has been little focus in the academic literature on the role of professional regulation in addressing this issue. In this Policy Brief we report on themes that emerged from two research roundtables, held with key regulatory stakeholders in Ireland and Scotland. This project was jointly funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Irish Academy as an Ireland-Scotland Bilateral Network Grant and their support is gratefully acknowledged.
Key themes that emerged from our research were as follows: the multifaceted nature of the crisis; recognising and regulating new professions; remote and rural working; and the changing role of professional regulation. Although our focus was on the medical profession, it was clear that these themes also had resonance for other areas of the health workforce.
We found that the role of professional regulation is evolving. While it retains a focus on protecting the public, in the context of the healthcare workforce crisis, there is potential for regulatory stakeholders to take an increasingly proactive approach – one that, in collaboration with other stakeholders, contributes to shaping the cultural, educational, and organisational contexts in which healthcare professionals work. This is consistent with a wellbeing economy model that draws attention not just to metrics, such as the number of jobs available, but also to the quality and sustainability of these roles to meet the needs of healthcare professionals, patients and wider publics.
Patent Rights, the Right to Health, and the WTO Dispute Settlement System
Emmanuel Kolawole Oke, Edinburgh Law School
This chapter critically assesses the extent to which a WTO member can rely on its right-to-health obligations to justify the implementation of measures relating to patent rights that are designed to improve access to medicines and the local production of medicines and vaccines. Focusing specifically on local working requirements, the chapter is structured into three main sections. The first section examines the relationship between patent rights, TRIPS flexibilities, and the right-to-health obligations of states. The second section critically assesses the extent to which human rights law can play a role in WTO disputes. In light of this assessment, the third section evaluates what role, if any, the right to health can play in disputes involving patents and other intellectual property rights at the WTO.
Forthcoming in Lisa Biersay, Thomas Pogge, and Peter Yu (eds.), 'A Human-Centered Approach to Health Innovations: Reconciling Intellectual Property with Human Rights'.