Beginning on 24 May an international conference will be held at the University of West Scotland in Paisley celebrating 80 years of the seminal case of Donoghue v Stevenson.

Institute Director Ken Oliphant will be delivering a lecture titled ' The Neighbour Principle as General Clause’ as part of a plenary session during the conference.

More details on the programme and registration options are available here.

It is with great sadness that the Institute has learned of the death of Mr Tony Weir who for 50 years had been a fellow of Trinity College Cambridge. A renowned tort lawyer, his translation of Zweigert and Kötz's An Introduction to Comparative Law introduced a generation of English lawyers to comparative law and remains the foundation of many courses. 

Institute Director Ken Oliphant said: 'The English academy has lost one of its iconic figures. His work - always stylishly written and erudite, frequently provocative - was an inspiration to me, as it was for many others, as well as being a great source of memorable quotations. Just one example, illustrating his aversion to normative theories of tort law: 'Tort is what is in the tort books, and the only thing holding it together is the binding' (Tort Law, 2002, ix). Though his writing was often prickly and outspoken in its criticism of others, he was in person an extremely kind man, and always willing to support younger colleagues who went to him for help. RIP.'

[UPDATE 11/01/12] An ongoing bibliography of Mr Weir's work is available here (http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/sln/blogentry.aspx?blogentryref=8825).

The European Tort Law Yearbook provides a comprehensive overview of the latest developments in tort law in Europe. It contains reports on most EU Member States and also provides contributions from Norway and Switzerland. Furthermore, an overview of the developments in the field of EU law is provided. In conclusion, a comparative summary reviews the essential aspects of all reports, which are written by scholars from the respective jurisdictions.

• H Koziol/BC Steininger (eds), European Tort Law 2010 (2011), ISBN 978-3-11-023941-6.

The Institute for European Tort Law of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ETL) supported by the European Centre of Tort and Insurance Law embarked in 2009 on a project dealing with Human Rights and Tort Law. The goal of this project was to provide a general overview and thorough analysis of how the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) deals with tort law issues such as damage, causation, wrongfulness and fault, the protective purpose of rules, the compensation of pecuniary and non-pecuniary loss, non-compensatory remedies, reduction of damages due to contributory negligence and reduction clauses - namely when applying Article 41 of the Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

These issues are examined on the basis of a comprehensive selection and detailed analysis of the Court's judgments and compared with general principles of EC Tort Law, the Principles of European Tort Law as well as the national tort law systems of Austria, Belgium, England and Wales, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Romania, Scandinavian Countries, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey. The study also contains five special reports on the following topics: 'Methodological Approaches to the Tort Law of the ECHR' (written by Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Franz Bydlinski, em. Vienna University), 'Human Rights and Tort Law' (by Prof. Dr. Walter Berka, Salzburg University), 'Just Satisfaction’ in Art 41 ECHR and Public International Law – Issues of Interpretation and Review of International Materials' (by Prof. Dr. Wolfram Karl, Salzburg University), 'Just Satisfaction under Art 41 ECHR: A Compromise in 1950 – Problematic Now' (by DDr. Elisabeth Steiner, Austrian Judge at the ECtHR in Strasbourg) and 'Can the Reparation Awarded to Victims of Violations under the ECHR be Considered as Real ‘Just’ Satisfaction?' (by Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Michel de Salvia, Professor at Cattolica del Sacro Cuore University, Milan, Vice-President of the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg and former Registrar and Jurisconsult at the ECtHR) (the contributions by Prof. Bydlinski and Prof. Berka are also be published in German). Concluding remarks are also included.

• Attila Fenyves/Ernst Karner/Helmut Koziol/Elisabeth Steiner (eds), Tort Law in the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (2011), ISBN 978-3-11-025966-7.

The increasing Europeanization of the law of delict/torts has produced textbooks, casebooks, monographs, and also sets of model rules of a genuinely European character. A major gap still existing today relates to the experiences gathered in the national legal systems over the past decades. The present work attempts to fill this gap for one key element of tort law: the notion of damage. It thus does what the previous volume in the ‘Digest of European Tort Law’ series did for another key element, ie natural causation. Once again, the publication contains a selection of the most important cases decided in 26 states across Europe as well as by the European Court of Justice. For each case the facts and the relevant court decision are presented, and the decision is analysed within the wider context of the development of the respective legal system. In addition, the editors provide comparative analyses of the case law reported in this volume concerning all the specific problems raised under the heading of damage. The publication also looks into how key cases would be resolved under the European model rules drafted in the field of tort law; and it also highlights cases from earlier periods of legal history.

The editors believe that the material gathered here may provide guidance for an organic convergence of the national legal systems in Europe. It constitutes the basis of an acquis commun that is infinitely richer (though also much more complex) than the rather bland and abstract concepts contained in national codifications, European legislation, and the modern model rules.

• B Winiger/H Koziol/BA Koch/R Zimmermann (eds), Digest of European Tort Law, Vol 2: Essential Cases on Damage (2011), ISBN 978-3-11-024848-7