One of the most important issues arising from the Human Rights Act 1998 is the degree of its applicability, if any, to relations between private individuals. While the wording of the Act itself provides no clear guidance on the matter, and a wide‐ranging spectrum of potential outcomes has been identified, there is an emerging academic consensus that the Act will have some horizontal effect ‐ but limited to enabling development of the existing common law, and not extending to provision of new actions and remedies. This paper seeks to challenge that consensus. Fidelity to the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights requires that the effect of the Act go beyond mere incremental development. There is clear authority that the legal systems of signatory states must provide remedies for infringement of individual rights by other individuals. Nothing in the Human Rights Act 1998 obstructs this interpretation. Further, the paper seeks to identify certain fatal errors in the arguments of the ‘developmental consensus’ .

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This chapter discusses tort law and how it applies to the risks posed by emerging technology. Tort law’s role here is significant. But how does tort adapt to injuries caused by technological innovations, and how should it react? With the increasing pace of technological advances, are the inherited conceptual structures of tort law sufficiently adaptable to both current and yet-unknown developments, or are novel statutory solutions required? We must also ask if tort liability is ultimately able to reconcile the competing demands of compensation, deterrence, and innovation. These questions are considered in various contexts including product liability, internet speech, and the prospect of ‘driverless cars’.

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As claimants used to be known, prior to their rebranding by Lord Woolf. 382 liable under any of the heads maintained, namely nuisance, Rylands v. Fletcher 7 and negligence. The Rylands v. Fletcher submission was founded on A.-G. v. Corke, 8 but foundered upon the doubtfulness of the same. In that case, caravan dwellers licensed to dwell upon D's land were held to have been a dangerous``thing'', and to have``escaped'' much as did the water from Rylands' reservoir. 9 The Vice-Chancellor brushed this precedent aside, remarking that in Corke, D might just as easily have been liable as the licensor of a nuisance. He also dealt swiftly with the submissions upon negligence, holding that in the well-regulated ®eld of duties between neighbouring landowners, there was no place for Lord Atkin's rather looser concept of neighbourhood, with all the far-reaching changes in the law which would inevitably follow. 10 However, such a peremptory exclusion of negligence is surely too wide, as shown by cases such as Miller v. Jackson. 11 Nevertheless (at least in England), Rylands and nuisance retain an important role in landowners' disputes. 12 The real interest of Smith v. Scott is on the question of nuisance. Here, Pennycuick V.-C. applied the rule in Harris v. James, i.e. that a landlord is not liable for the nuisance committed by a tenant unless, exceptionally, he can be said to have authorised it. 13 This has been held to mean either express authorisation, or (at the minimum) where the nuisance is virtually certain to result from the purposes for which the property is let. 14 Pennycuick V.-C. commented that the test was authorisation and not foresight, and so although the Council knew the Scotts were likely to cause a nuisance, that knowledge was insucient when the conditions of tenancy expressly prohibited the committing of a nuisance, thus confounding any possible argument of implied authority. 15