It is my esteemed pleasure to welcome the Special Issue of the Wolverhampton Law Journal (WLJ), which has been prepared in celebration of Women in Law and Criminal Justice. At the start of 2019, the celebrations of the centenary of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 began. In April, Wolverhampton Law School hosted the Artwork celebrating the First 100 Years of women in law which has also featured at the Supreme Court and the Royal Courts of Justice. At the same time the Law School organised a PhD Conference under the same theme, where PhD researchers from the West Midlands Legal Doctoral Network shared their findings about the women who have most influenced their areas of the law. In October, the Law Research Centre organised the First 100 Years Colloquium, the report of which is referenced below. In order to continue the celebrations, and with the Law Research Centre’s home journal, we found the unique opportunity to publish select contributions on this theme in this Special Issue.

The time has passed for feminist theories of law to be placed at the back of a jurisprudence book. Equally, experts in international law would benefit greatly by expanding their theoretical approaches and methodologies, to include feminist expertise. In this edited research handbook,1 Edward Elgar introduces a much-needed collection of expert views on feminist engagement with international law, adding to some of the pre-existing literature. 2 With thirty chapters and an Afterword, 3 this edited volume is a welcome addition to the research literature on international law and feminist jurisprudence, to be read by experts and novices alike. For readers not yet familiar with feminist theories, this edited collection offers a glimpse to the possibilities (both theoretical and methodological) that feminist approaches offer in all areas of fragmented international law.

During the most rapid period of French colonial expansion (roughly 1880–1914) the French faced regular, often violent, resistance to the expansion of their imperial dominion over people in Africa and Southeast Asia. This article examines the changing terminology that French soldiers, officers and administrators used to describe the anticolonial movements they were called upon to suppress during the course of French conquest and ‘pacification’ operations. This terminology is gleaned both from archival sources, as well as from the so-called ‘grey literature’ of books, letters and pamphlets published by members of the French military, which do not exist in traditional libraries and holdings like the Bibliothèque Nationale. Taken as a whole this analysis grants us insight into how the French thought about themselves, their anticolonial opponents, how these conceptions changed over time, and how these conceptions translated into action and methodology.

Les forêts du Bassin du Congo constituent l’un des plus importants réservoirs de biodiversité dans le monde. Elles fournissent des moyens de subsistance à plus de 75 millions de personnes qui comptent sur les ressources naturelles locales. Mais à cause de la mauvaise gouvernance observée, cette richesse tend à disparaître au fil des temps, ce qui représente une menace pour la survie des populations qui y sont installées. De nombreuses initiatives ont vu le jour pour pallier cette situation parmi lesquelles la certification forestière, REDD+ et les APV-FLEGT. Les pays du bassin du Congo ont fait de la gouvernance forestière une priorité au sein de la Commission des Forêts d’Afrique Centrale (COMIFAC). Pour y parvenir, il est évident que toutes les parties prenantes à la gestion durable des forêts se sentent concernées et doivent s’impliquer. Dans cette perspective, le projet C4CV, cofinancé par l’Union européenne et le DFID a organisé le Forum régional sur la Gouvernance Forestière (FGF) en République du Congo. Ce projet est mis en œuvre au Cameroun, en République centrafricaine, en République démocratique du Congo, au Gabon et en République du Congo. Sous la direction du CIDT de l’université de Wolverhampton, les organisations partenaires dudit projet dans les cinq pays sont : le Centre pour l’Information Environnementale et le Développement Durable (CIEDD), le centre pour l’Environnement et le Développement (CED) et Forêts et développement Rural (FODER) au Cameroun ; l’Observatoire de la Gouvernance Forestière (OGF) en RDC ; Brainforest au Gabon ; le Cercle d’Appui à la Gestion Durable des Forêts (CAGDF) en République du Congo, y compris le Field Legality Advisory Group (FLAG) en tant que partenaire régional et le World Resources Institute (WRI) en tant que partenaire international. Calqué sur le modèle des réunions semestrielles de mise à jour sur l’exploitation illégale à Chatham House, le FGF vise à contribuer aux buts plus étendus du projet CV4C à travers le partage d’expériences et la sensibilisation, et en promouvant le profil des processus APV-FLEGT et REDD+. La 11ème édition du FGF a été organisée en collaboration avec le Partenariat pour les Forêts du Bassin du Congo (PFBC), en vue de la préparation de la Rencontre des Parties de haut niveau, prévue pour la semaine du 26 novembre 2018 à Bruxelles.

Le Bassin du Congo comprend environ 70 % de la couverture forestière de l’Afrique: sur les 530 millions d’hectares du bassin du Congo, 300 millions sont couverts par la forêt. Ces forêts hébergent quelques 30 millions de personnes et fournissent des moyens de subsistance à plus de 75 millions de personnes qui comptent sur les ressources naturelles locales. Bien que la déforestation et la dégradation des forêts soient restées à un niveau faible dans le bassin du Congo, elles ont toutes deux nettement accéléré au cours des dernières années.

The objective of this paper is to share lessons learnt from the Centre for International Development and Training’s (CIDT) five-year capacity building (CB) model for improving forest governance (FG). The model develops individual, organisational, and institutional capacities and creates “venues of accountability” that facilitate cross-country learning. The model operates at three levels: international, regional and national. The first component is a UK-based programme of training and mentoring that targets mid-level FG champions from government, private sector and civil society in 20+ countries/3 continents. This is complemented by a series of high-level regional Forest Governance Forums (FGFs) facilitated in selected countries (Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana and Liberia) and tailored national CB events co-delivered with local partners. Data is drawn from online surveys of international alumni, regional FGF participants and 80 face-to-face interviews with various stakeholders from 15 countries. Results show significant improvements in knowledge, skills, attitudes and confidence of course participants, with evidence of effective application of learning and multiplier effects on the ground. Additionally, the value of north-south and south-south exchanges is evidenced by the creation of networks and alliances of FG champions. The findings also demonstrate the innovativeness of FGFs as spaces of accountability and cross-country learning, notably because they ensure momentum on FG reforms is maintained at national, regional and international levels. The implications of this work to policy and practice are discussed.

The EU’s development of advanced instruments and processes of police cooperation on both policy and operational fronts presents new challenges and opportunities for conventional approaches to police accountability and transparency. Although no substantive mention is made of police accountability under Title V of the Lisbon Treaty 2009, it can be expected that the EU’s common transnational measures draw upon, reconcile and enhance Member State approaches to police accountability which are rooted in long-standing constitutional, legal and administrative traditions and values. This chapter will consider whether and to what extent various Member State norms on police accountability and transparency are informing the concept, design and operation of the EU policing regime and vice versa. More particularly, it will recommend the development of a new ethos of ‘transnational police accountability’ which should guide and shape EU policy-making in this area.

The fighting on the Western Front during the First World War was characterized by the mass use of artillery and, thanks to scholarship from recent decades, is now understood as a crucible for learning and innovation. This article follows the trajectory of French artillery capabilities, mental and mechanical, from the late 19th century through to 1916.

This paper will briefly chart how and why the Royal Navy chose not to develop coastal assault vessels—namely heavy-gunned, light-draught monitors specially designed to absorb damage from modern mines or torpedoes—until well after the First World War began. Churchill and Fisher envisaged these particular men-of-war as the floating equivalent of tanks, both ‘intended to restore to the stronger power an effective means of the offensive’. Only when they were finally launched and deployed in sufficient numbers could serious plans for projecting power directly against the German coastline be safely considered. So where were the monitors before the war?

When the Companies Act 71 of 2008 came into effect on 1 May 2011 it brought about a new era of corporate rescue for South African companies. Chapter 6 of the act provides for a new corporate rescue scheme known as business rescue. Business rescue replaces the previous South African rescue model, judicial management, contained in the Companies Act 61 of 1973. The key role player in the rescue scheme is the business rescue practitioner. The practitioner is afforded extensive powers and rights. He takes control of the management of the company and the duty to rescue the company rests on his shoulders. It is, however, possible for the purposes of chapter 6 to protect the interests of all stakeholders to be frustrated through the incompetence and carelessness of the practitioner. Section 140(3)(b) of the act states that the practitioner has the responsibilities, duties and liabilities of a director of the company for the duration of the rescue proceedings. The responsibilities, duties and liabilities of directors are set out in sections 75, 76 and 77. These sections contain the quasi-codified fiduciary duties of directors as well as the duty of care, skill and diligence and therefore make them applicable to the practitioner. The purpose of this article is to investigate the principles that underpin the test for negligence and the applicability thereof to the practitioner. The conclusion is that the practitioner’s conduct should be measured against that of a reasonable practitioner. This implies that it should be established whether he acted with the same degree of care, skill and diligence that may reasonably be expected of a reasonable practitioner in the same circumstances, having regard also to his personal attributes and qualifications and considering whether this necessitates an even higher standard to be met. At common law it is accepted that a director of a company needs no specific qualifications or even special business acumen to be appointed as such. The degree of care, skill and diligence expected of a director has therefore been determined by applying the notional reasonable person test. The director of a company is, however, held to a somewhat higher standard than the average person due to the fact that he is a fiduciary of the company and is responsible for another’s interests and property. Contrary to this, a business rescue practitioner will be appointed because of his knowledge and experience in the field of business and turnaround management. The notional reasonable person test can therefore not be utilised to evaluate negligent conduct by the practitioner. An argument can, however, be made for the application of the reasonable expert test, and even for the development of a new reasonable practitioner yardstick. The article focuses on an in-depth exploration of the objective and subjective elements of such a reasonable practitioner test and considers all the relevant facts and circumstances that will be of importance during business rescue proceedings. The influence of the business judgment rule as a means to review the fulfilment of the duty of care and the application thereof to the practitioner in the financial distress circumstances will also be investigated. Since the practitioner’s training will influence the consideration of whether he acted with the necessary degree of care, his qualifications, skills and experience will be considered and analysed. The Companies Act of 2008 and the regulations pursuant thereto provide for extensive qualification requirements to be met by a prospective practitioner. Furthermore, practitioners will be appointed as either junior, experienced or senior practitioners, depending on their levels of experience. This article also addresses the disparity between the liability provisions contained in sections 76 and 77 and those contained in chapter 6 of the act – the first requiring ordinary negligence and the latter gross negligence. This is of extreme importance since both provisions apply to the practitioner, but the standard thereof differs. The conclusion is that the yardstick for the practitioner’s liability should be ordinary negligence, that is what could be expected of a reasonable practitioner with the same qualifications and experience.