The ignorance of law rule, embodied in the maxim ignorantia juris non excusat, occasionally conflicts with the fundamental tenet of the criminal law that the morally innocent should not be penalised. It is argued that this rule needs to be reformulated so that reasonable ignorance of law is not excluded as a relevant consideration in criminal matters. A comparative approach is adopted and the discussion is primarily based on the laws of Australia and England with some reference to Canadian and United States jurisprudence. The Penal Code's apparent unequivocal rejection of ignorance of law as a defence has the consequence that local courts have had almost no opportunity to consider the ignorance of law rule and possible exceptions thereto, apart from merely reaffirming that mistake of law is not a defence. The comparative analysis suggests that the ignorance of law rule, while still applicable, has been whittled by several exceptions, the broad thrust of which is that a person who is reasonably ignorant of the law is in fact morally innocent and not deserving of criminal punishment.

Virtual worlds such as Second Life have become increasingly significant in terms of both time and money for their users. As such, it is important to analyse how the law may apply to and resolve disputes that originate in these virtual worlds. This article will focus on the virtual world Second Life, and in particular, the legal concept of land in Second Life which has come into the international legal limelight because of the Bragg litigation against Linden in the United States. Although the dispute was settled, the Bragg litigation raised the issue of the legal status of items in virtual worlds and whether these virtual items can indeed be recognised as property under the Western legal tradition. This is an issue separate from and independent of the question of intellectual property protection. This article will argue that land ownership in Second Life is very much like owning a modified form of leasehold property. Just like in the real world where more than one type of property right can subsist in a given item, this should also be the case in Second Life.

Trade mark law is motivated in part by the goal of protecting certain consumer understandings. But courts typically treat such consumer understanding as a pre-determined, relatively fixed, fact to which the template of trade mark law can be applied and from which answers to the relevant legal questions thus inevitably flow. Prof Dinwoodie challenges this approach as descriptively incomplete and prescriptively harmful. He argues that trade mark law should be less fixated on ascertaining, acting upon, and declaring, empirical realities of consumer association and confusion. Instead, courts need more openly – and more fully – to understand trade mark law as a normative project. In this climate, efforts to enhance the quality of factual input to particular trade mark disputes should be a lower priority for trade mark law. And, if over-emphasised in ways that downplay the normative character of trade mark law, such well-intentioned efforts at improved empiricism may even be counterproductive.

The sangam (confluence) of foreign investment, multinational corporations (MNCs) and human rights raises new challenges for the developing countries in Asia. Though development is the underlying current behind this sangam, there is a fundamental tension in how the three streams intermingle. For example, the trend of investment-driven development often compels developing countries to allure foreign investments by MNCs, even if it brings negative effects on human rights realisation and development of the majority. A "race to the bottom" for securing foreign investment amongst developing countries further reduces their bargaining position vis-à-vis MNCs. Taking India as an example of developing countries of Asia, this article explores the individual and collective strategies that developing countries could employ to exercise a control over the flow and direction of foreign investment. It argues that developing countries should realise their place in an interdependent world, be guided by an approach of "diversified integration", rely on human rights norms, and foster alliances with civil society organs in order to control the flow and direction of foreign investment.

This article considers the dilemma that constitutional judicial review presents to the most wellmeaning of judges—that of navigating the narrow and difficult road between parliamentary supremacy and judicial oligarchy. It examines the Singapore Court of Appeal's delineation of legal and extra-legal considerations in view of Ronald Dworkin's theory of adjudication in determining the constitutionality of s 377A of the Penal Code in Lim Meng Suang v Attorney-General [2015] 1 SLR 26 (CA). It proposes an alternative natural law approach to constitutional judicial review based on Radbruch's formula, which helps courts to avoid the pitfalls of judicial idiosyncrasies and usurpation of legislative mandate while staying true to constitutionalism.

This article argues that an agreement on the proper law of a contract is not a free-standing promissory term but merely has the effect of a presumption that the express choice is the proper law. If this iskept firmly in view, there are more similarities than differences between the nature of the proper law of a possibly unformed contract, the floating proper law, and the changing proper law. In all cases,reliance may be placed on an express choice of law unless it would be substantially unjust to thenon-relying party or would occasion him substantial hardship.

The narrative of this piece is a simple one: the IP journey of NUS Law closely mirrors the IP journey of Singapore. If IP teaching barely featured at NUS Law for almost the first half of its history, this was when IP was unimportant in the old economy of Singapore and in fact the political leaders were even suspicious about IP rights. If IP teaching started at NUS Law in 1985, this coincided with Singapore shifting gears in the 1980s to move up the value chain into higher-technology sectors where IP rights matter. If NUS Law broadened and deepened its IP curriculum over the next three decades, this was in tandem with Singapore's construction of an increasingly sophisticated IP infrastructure that is needed for a new knowledge-based economy. This narrative is a tale of how a national law school_x000D_ played a supportive role in nation building.