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NLJ this week: Neuro-marketing & neuro-politics: are our thoughts our own?

14 February 2025
Issue: 8104 / Categories: Legal News , Technology , Human rights , Health
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Welcome to the brave new world of neuropolitics! In this week’s NLJ, Harry Lambert, Outer Temple Chambers, continues his fascinating series on the fast-emerging area of neurorights with a look at free will, our sense of self, individual agency and freedom of thought.

Neuro-marketing and neuro-politics use strategies that sway us subconsciously without overt awareness. How do we regulate to protect the individual and wider society? The ‘capacity to manipulate consumer behaviour by exploiting subconscious responses’ threatens the ability to make informed choices.

Lambert, founder and head of the Centre for Neurotechnology & Law, writes: ‘Every interaction we have with the world is via the medium of the electrical impulses we refer to as “thought”. For that reason, we need to tread very carefully before we add a silicone intermediary in that process—one that has worked pretty well for hydrocarbon-based life for a few million years.’ 

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Muckle LLP—Stacey Brown

Muckle LLP—Stacey Brown

Corporate governance and company law specialist joins the team

Excello Law—Heather Horsewood & Darren Barwick

Excello Law—Heather Horsewood & Darren Barwick

North west team expands with senior private client and property hires

Ward Hadaway—Paul Wigham

Ward Hadaway—Paul Wigham

Firm boosts corporate team in Newcastle to support high-growth technology businesses

NEWS

NOTICE UNDER THE TRUSTEE ACT 1925

HERBERT SMITH STAFF PENSION SCHEME (THE “SCHEME”)

NOTICE TO CREDITORS AND BENEFICIARIES UNDER SECTION 27 OF THE TRUSTEE ACT 1925
Law firm HFW is offering clients lawyers on call for dawn raids, sanctions issues and other regulatory emergencies
From gender-critical speech to notice periods and incapability dismissals, employment law continues to turn on fine distinctions. In his latest employment law brief for NLJ, Ian Smith of Norwich Law School reviews a cluster of recent decisions, led by Bailey v Stonewall, where the Court of Appeal clarified the limits of third-party liability under the Equality Act
Non-molestation orders are meant to be the frontline defence against domestic abuse, yet their enforcement often falls short. Writing in NLJ this week, Jeni Kavanagh, Jessica Mortimer and Oliver Kavanagh analyse why the criminalisation of breach has failed to deliver consistent protection
Assisted dying remains one of the most fraught fault lines in English law, where compassion and criminal liability sit uncomfortably close. Writing in NLJ this week, Julie Gowland and Barny Croft of Birketts examine how acts motivated by care—booking travel, completing paperwork, or offering emotional support—can still fall within the wide reach of the Suicide Act 1961
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