updated November 2022

Social egg freezing empowers women

INTRODUCTION The issue of social egg freezing has increasingly appeared in the news over the past decade as technological advances, celebrity endorsement and corporate cooperation make the procedure more widely known and available. Friends star Jennifer Aniston made headlines in late 2022 for confessing that she wished she had been told to freeze her eggs …

May 2022 Updated January 2022

Technological progress will not solve society’s environmental issues

INTRODUCTION Arguably, climate change, and the environmental problems that will occur as a result, are the most pressing issues that humankind faces. The outcome of the COP21 climate talks in Paris in 2015 was hailed as a momentous deal, in which countries pledged, among other things, to cap emissions, and seek to limit temperature rises …

June 2021

The government should impose a duty of support for free speech in universities

INTRODUCTION In May 2021, the government introduced the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill. The bill strengthens the legal duties on higher education providers in England to protect and promote freedom of speech and academic freedom [Ref: Department for Education]. The impetus for such measures is the belief that ‘cancel culture’ is undermining free speech within …

reviewed May 2022 updated March 2021 March 2021 March 2021

Universal basic income is not a solution to our social and economic problems

INTRODUCTION Government policies in response to the Covid-19 pandemic have reignited interest in the idea of a universal basic income (UBI). [Ref: France 24] The UK government has paid millions of workers 80 per cent of their wages when they are unable to work due to government-imposed restrictions. Yet this still left millions more people …

March 2021

Vaccine passports benefit society

This topic guide builds on a thread of Twitter posts by Adam Wagner, a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers and Visiting Professor of Law at Goldsmiths University. For the purposes of this debate, the term ‘vaccine passport’ means some form of immunity certificate, for use both domestically and for international travel. INTRODUCTION Almost as soon …

updated November 2020

In the digital age, we should not expect our online activities to remain private

Author: Kaja Molinksa INTRODUCTION Has the expectation of privacy become outdated? Over half the world’s population uses social media [Ref: Datareportal] and there are now many official ‘track and trace’ apps to combat coronavirus infections [Ref: The Atlantic]. Many today declare they are worried about privacy, but continue to use services that hoover up their data, a contradiction termed the …