{"title":"Profitable insecurities: trade mark law, misleading advertising, and body image perceptions in the United Kingdom","authors":"LUMINITA OLTEANU","doi":"10.1111/jols.70025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70025","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article critically examines how brand names, slogans, and logos registered as United Kingdom (UK) trade marks for weight management solutions, health-boosting supplements, and cosmetics are used in marketing communications to influence consumer behaviour. The analysis addresses concerns that these trade signs potentially mislead consumers or negatively impact their body image perception through a comprehensive examination of consumer protection legislation, advertising rules, and the trade mark law provisions dealing with marketing communications in the UK. The article argues that there are compelling reasons why trade mark law should align with advertising regulations when evaluating the registrability of potentially deceptive, offensive, or illegal trade marks for health and beauty products. Otherwise, by preserving the status quo, which allows the registration of promotional content that exploits body image insecurities, trade mark law risks becoming part of the problem rather than a potential remedy against harmful body image rhetoric.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"52 4","pages":"705-729"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jols.70025","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145698849","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Law and Film: Critical Reflections on a Field in Motion Edited by Vittoria Becci, Alexia Katsiginis, and Edward Daalen, London: Routledge, 2025, 202 pp., £135.00","authors":"PETER GOODRICH","doi":"10.1111/jols.70024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70024","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"52 4","pages":"742-746"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145698965","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Inducing Intimacy: Deception, Consent and the Law By Chloë Kennedy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025, 276 pp., £29.99","authors":"TSACHI KEREN-PAZ","doi":"10.1111/jols.70023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70023","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"52 4","pages":"730-735"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145699050","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Visibilizing the accountability web: ordinary courts, informal justice efforts, and alternative approaches for addressing mass human rights violations in Syria","authors":"BRIGITTE HERREMANS, TINE DESTROOPER","doi":"10.1111/jols.70022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70022","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Accountability mechanisms are often perceived as the Achilles’ heel of human rights practice. As classic human rights institutions rarely provide adequate guarantees of accountability, justice actors are increasingly turning to alternative spaces to advance accountability. This is, for example, the case in the Syrian context, where various justice actors are engaging in judicial and non-judicial initiatives. These include extraterritorial jurisdiction cases, often before ordinary courts at the sub-national level, as well as informal initiatives. An empirical analysis of two cases, the al-Khatib and Dabbagh trials, shows that these spaces cannot replace the accountability provided by domestic or international proceedings. However, the analysis also underlines these spaces’ contribution to the struggle for thick accountability – that is, an accountability outcome that is perceived as meaningful by those involved. We propose the notion of an accountability web as a lens for the theorization of often overlooked spaces and processes for seeking accountability.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"52 4","pages":"556-579"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jols.70022","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145699009","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CLAUDIO NOVELLI, LUCIANO FLORIDI, GIOVANNI SARTOR, GUNTHER TEUBNER
{"title":"AI as legal persons: past, patterns, and prospects","authors":"CLAUDIO NOVELLI, LUCIANO FLORIDI, GIOVANNI SARTOR, GUNTHER TEUBNER","doi":"10.1111/jols.70021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70021","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article advances an explanatory model of the academic and policy debate on artificial intelligence (AI) systems as legal persons over time. It argues that the scientific and regulatory debate on such systems as legal persons undergoes periods of relative stability, interrupted by rapid paradigm shifts. Three interrelated factors primarily influence these oscillations: (1) competing theories of legal personhood (clustered versus singularist); (2) the capability, embodiment, and commercial reach of AI technology; and (3) AI's integration within socio-digital institutions. Two additional forces modulate the depth and durability of any shift: (4) the overlap and internal consistency of cross‑domain legal regimes (data protection, agency, liability, and cybersecurity); and (5) the body of judicial precedents (or their scarcity) on extending personhood. Specific convergences of these factors create pressure for status reconsideration; absent them, equilibrium returns. The article concludes by assessing the short-, mid-, and long‑term prospects, highlighting conditional pathways rather than deterministic trajectories.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"52 4","pages":"533-555"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145698989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"SLSA E-Newsletter","authors":"","doi":"10.1111/jols.70019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70019","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"52 S1","pages":"E1-E16"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145196429","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Journal of Law and Society at 50/The Centre of Law and Society at 10: An introduction to the series of academic events at Cardiff University in the 2023/24 academic year","authors":"JIŘÍ PŘIBÁŇ, PHIL THOMAS","doi":"10.1111/jols.70001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70001","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"52 S1","pages":"S3-S6"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145196439","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Sociology of Post-Imperial Constitutions: Suppressed Civil War and Colonized Citizens By Chris Thornhill, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024, 450 pp., £135.00","authors":"MARTIN RAMSTEDT","doi":"10.1111/jols.70020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70020","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"52 4","pages":"736-741"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145698961","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CHRISTIAN BOULANGER, NAOMI CREUTZFELDT, JENNIFER HENDRY
{"title":"The Journal of Law and Society in context: A bibliometric analysis","authors":"CHRISTIAN BOULANGER, NAOMI CREUTZFELDT, JENNIFER HENDRY","doi":"10.1111/jols.70007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70007","url":null,"abstract":"<p>On this, the occasion of its 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary, we employ a quantitative analysis of the <i>Journal of Law and Society</i> (<i>JLS</i>) to chart empirically the evolution of socio-legal studies in the United Kingdom (UK). By tracing the influence(s) of the <i>JLS</i> upon the development of UK socio-legal research, not only do we demonstrate a new mode of exploring knowledge production in the field of socio-legal studies, but we also illustrate how computational methods can augment hermeneutical approaches to mapping socio-legal trends. Through (a blend of) three different analytical approaches – descriptive analyses of bibliographic metadata, text-linguistic analyses of a corpus of full-text articles, and network analyses of citation graphs – we generate comparative information about the <i>JLS</i> since its inception in 1974. We then employ this data to interrogate the <i>JLS</i>’ own narratives; using predictions, ambitions, and statements of intent made by Editor-in-Chief Phil Thomas published either within or regarding the <i>JLS</i>, we present a map of the journal's role within, impact upon, and enduring contribution to UK socio-legal studies. Finally, we discuss our results and propose future directions of the field.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"52 S1","pages":"S7-S31"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jols.70007","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145196919","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Environmental protest, contention, and the law: conceptualizing the Public Order Act 2023","authors":"RICHARD MARTIN","doi":"10.1111/jols.70009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70009","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Peaceful protesters across Europe are facing increasingly punitive and intolerant legal frameworks. Why has the law become more repressive? How are new offences reshaping the boundaries of democratic participation and state control? Beyond their overt function of maintaining order, what do these laws reveal about power, politics, and contested civic values in liberal democracies? This article attends to these questions. Taking the Public Order Act 2023 as its focus – a statute frequently cited as emblematic of protest criminalization but not yet given close scholarly examination – the article conceptualizes the Act as emerging from, and integral to, what sociologists term a ‘cycle of contention’. Through this lens, the article identifies and develops two complementary accounts of law's relationship with protest, power, and contention: (1) functional and (2) deliberative. This analysis reveals protest law not simply as a tool of demobilization, but as a deeply expressive means through which competing visions of ‘public wrongs’ are defined, justified, and constituted within a political community.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"52 3","pages":"363-389"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jols.70009","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144832770","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}