How have national identities changed, developed and reacted in the wake of transition from communism to democracy in Central and Eastern Europe? Central and Eastern Europe After Transition defines and examines new autonomous differences adopted at the state and the supranational level in the post-transitional phase of the post-Communist area, and considers their impact on constitutions, democracy and legal culture. With representative contributions from older and newer EU members, the book provides a broad set of cultural points for reference. Its comparative and interdisciplinary approach includes a useful selection of bibliographical resources specifically devoted to the Central Eastern European countries' transitions.

It is increasingly held that international commercial arbitration is becoming colonized by litigation. This book addresses, in a range of ways and from various locations and sites, those aspects of arbitration practice that are considered crucial for its integrity as an institution and its independence as a professional practice. The chapters offer multiple perspectives on the major issues in play, highlighting challenges facing the institution of arbitration, and identifying opportunities available for its development as an institution. The evidence of arbitration practice presented is set against the background of practitioner perceptions and experience from more than 20 countries. The volume will serve as a useful resource for all scholars and practitioners interested in the institution of arbitration and its professional practices.

This book offers commentary and analysis on the catastrophic events which have recently confronted the international economy in the modern era and contrasts the current situation with other financial crises. It includes case studies on Lehman Brothers in the US, Babcock & Brown in Australia, and Northern Rock in the UK. Asking many pertinent questions about the causes of the crisis and its effects, the book explores fundamental themes such as: asset bubbles and speculation in the financial and non-financial markets, systemic risks and the role of regulation, and regulators. It also reviews the response of international institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank, the US Federal Reserve, the EU Central Bank and the G20. The book assesses the triggers of the crisis and evaluates rescue packages and policy responses as well as suggesting reform of regulatory and supervisory frameworks to maintain banking and modern financial systems in the future.

All European legal systems recognise a boundary between the domains of tort and contract. While there have been voices contending that this distinction is no longer valid or at least that there should be a unification of the two sets of rules in particular contexts, others claim that there is still a very important distinction to be maintained. In fact the boundary between the two areas is often blurred and whether it is drawn in one place or another varies from country to country, giving rise to the paradox that what is considered a matter of contractual liability in one legal system is governed exclusively by tort law in another.This volume explores how differences between tort and contract affect the foundations of liability, the nature and amount of the compensation, the extent of liability and whether defences and limitation periods corresponding to the distinct causes of action give rise to substantially different outcomes. It also analyses to what extent actions in tort and in contract exclude each other and, when this is the case, how their concurrence is organised. Lastly it devotes its attention to specific situations such as pre-contractual liability and the liability of professionals.

This book examines EU enlargement by studying how domestic constitutional evolution in the new member states contributes to European integration. In contrast to the usual top-down analytical pattern, it reverses the paradigm by looking at constitutional developments and dynamics from the bottom-up, studying how domestic constitutional evolution contributes to European integration. The authors analyze constitutional trends from the perspective of 'new Member States' as policy-makers and not strictly as policy-takers. The issue of conditionality is also explored in a discussion of the extent to which pre-2004 and 2007 conditionality has had lasting effects at the level of constitutionalization of different areas and norms and if so, of what kind. The exploration of Europeanization effects in recent Member States substantiates and demonstrates how enlargement has been an important driving-force for the effective export of EU legal rules in this region. The book utilizes a comparative approach to highlight the merits and obstacles created by the growing diversity in the constitutional rules and patterns of the new Member States. It also contains a section that places the CEE constitutionalizing map in a broader comparative European and global context, establishing links with similar transitional regimes in the continent and elsewhere.

Hernando de Soto is one of the world's leading public intellectuals. His books The Mystery of Capital and The Other Path have had a tremendous impact on debates about international development, but his work also has been controversial. One of de Soto's core ideas is that the institution of private property is necessary for the proper functioning of a market economy, yet even though many property scholars closely follow de Soto's work, his ideas have been neglected in property law scholarship and mature market economies like the United States. This new collection seeks to remedy this neglect, bringing together a diverse group of scholars to apply de Soto's work to a wide range of contemporary issues in property law and theory. The important contribution it makes to debates and controversies in property law, as well as in related economic fields, will appeal to scholars of both law and economics.

This volume examines the development of refugee law and policy in Japan. The book discusses systemic weaknesses and compares the evolution of law in other states to highlight problems in Japan's refugee determination system. Ultimately, the book calls for Japan to reform failing systems and take innovative action towards refugee protection.

This book examines how businesses manage their labour systems, and particularly how they manage the complex interaction of factors which give rise to instances of 'partnership' style relations between businesses and their employees. The book draws from the literature concerning 'Varieties of Capitalism' (VoC) and the different institutional and regulatory designs inherent in different types of political economy. The book is informed by a new and extensive set of empirical data from Australia that examines the activities of national and multinational business corporations, their outlooks and relationships with stakeholders, and relates these to new and evolving theoretical frameworks based in political economy and law. The book places the Australian regulatory model within this international debate, and assesses the extent to which the system does or does not fit into the general categorisation created in the VoC literature.

Effective protection of the marine and terrestrial environment increasingly requires cooperation between neighbouring States, international organizations, government entities and communities within States. This book analyses key aspects of transboundary environmental law and policy and their implementation in Asia, Australasia and Australian offshore territories, and surrounding areas beyond national jurisdiction including Antarctica. It discusses the potential for implementing key transboundary environmental mechanisms such as the 1991 Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (Espoo Convention) and its 1997 Protocol on Strategic Environmental Assessment (Kiev Protocol) in Australia and Asia drawing on experience from other regions and the potential application of these agreements to all UN member states. The book makes an innovative contribution to research in the area of transboundary environmental governance particularly as it applies to Asia, Australasia and international areas, supplementing similar research which has predominantly focused on Europe and North America.

This volume offers a critical analysis and illustration of the challenges and promises of 'stateless' law thought, pedagogy and approaches to governance - that is, understanding and conceptualizing law in a post-national condition. From common, civil and international law perspectives, the collection focuses on the definition and role of law as an academic discipline, and hybridity in the practice and production of law. With contributions by a diverse and international group of scholars, the collection includes fourteen chapters written in English and three in French. Confronting the 'transnational challenge' posed to the traditional theoretical and institutional structures that underlie the teaching and study of law in the university, the seventeen authors of Stateless Law: Evolving Boundaries of a Discipline bring new insight to the ongoing and crucial conversation about the future shape of legal scholarship, education and practice that is emblematic of the early twenty-first century. This collection is essential reading for academics, institutions and others involved in determining the future roles, responsibilities and education of jurists, as well as for academics interested in Law, Sociology, Political Science and Education.

Taking a cross-cultural perspective, this book explores how privatization and globalization impact contemporary feminist and social justice approaches to public responsibility. Feminist legal theorists have long problematized divisions between the private and the political, an issue with growing importance in a time when the welfare state is under threat in many parts of the world and private markets and corporations transcend national boundaries. Because vulnerability analysis emphasizes our interdependency within social institutions and the need for public responsibility for our shared vulnerability, it can highlight how neoliberal policies commodify human necessities, channeling unprofitable social relationships, such as caretaking, away from public responsibility and into the individual private family. This book uses comparative analyses to examine how these dynamics manifest across different legal cultures. By highlighting similarities and differences in legal responses to vulnerability, this book provides important insights and arguments against the privatization of social need and for a more responsive state.

Using her experience of living under apartheid and witnessing its downfall and the subsequent creation of new governments in South Africa, the author examines and compares gender inequality in societies undergoing political and economic transformation. By applying this process of legal transformation as a paradigm, the author applies this model to Afghanistan. These two societies serve as counterpoints through which the book engages, in a nuanced and novel way, with the many broader issues that flow from the attempts in newly democratic societies to give effect to the promise of gender equality. Developing the idea of 'conditional interdependence', the book suggests a new approach based on the communitarian values which underpin newly democratic societies and would allow women's rights to gain momentum and reap greater benefits. Broad in its thematic approach, the book generates challenging and complex questions about the achievement of gender equality. It will be of interest to academics interested in gender and human rights, international and comparative law.

Following on from her previous nine books on discrimination law, Anne-Marie Mooney Cotter now focuses on the goal of child equality. Examining issues of child labour and the relevant laws which are designed to protect the most vulnerable in our society, the book explores the primary role of legislation and the judicial system and its impact on the fight for child rights and the ultimate goal of the end of inequality. The book considers the major common law countries of Australia and New Zealand, Africa and South Africa, Canada, Mexico and the United States, and the United Kingdom and Ireland, as well as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the European Union Treaty in a historical and compelling analysis of discrimination worldwide. By providing a detailed examination of child rights and the law, it will be an important read for those concerned with equality and empowering those most vulnerable to discrimination, the children.

This book discusses how the plurality of legal norms operating in the European Union can be balanced to produce a functioning, sustainable and legitimate legal system. Presenting a conceptual framework for assessing and comparing transformations of national judicial systems in the context of EU membership, the book contributes to the EU legal theoretical debate on the relationship between 'authority' and 'coherence'. The author develops an original analytical framework of coherence to assess the application of EU law by national courts and uses interdisciplinary scientific methods and research design that combine legal doctrinal and social science methodology to the study of 'classical' legal questions. Providing an extensive database of 2004-2009 national judgments of national courts in Latvia and Estonia, the book offers an extensive comparative review of the jurisprudence of constitutional and supreme courts, as well as providing insight into the jurisprudence of ordinary national courts. It will appeal to legal scholars and political scientists studying courts and jurisprudence.

This volume investigates advances in the field of legal translation both from a theoretical and practical perspective, with professional and academic insights from leading experts in the field. Part I of the collection focuses on the exploration of legal translatability from a theoretical angle. Covering fundamental issues such as equivalence in legal translation, approaches to legal translation and the interaction between judicial interpretation and legal translation, the authors offer contributions from philosophical, rhetorical, terminological and lexicographical perspectives. Part II focuses on the analysis of legal translation from a practical perspective among different jurisdictions such as China, the EU and Japan, offering multiple and pluralistic viewpoints. This book presents a collection of studies in legal translation which not only provide the latest international research findings among academics and practitioners, but also furnish us with a new approach to, and new insights into, the phenomena and nature of legal translation and legal transfer. The collection provides an invaluable reference for researchers, practitioners, academics and students specialising in law and legal translation, philosophy, sociology, linguistics and semiotics.

Human development is not simply about wealth and economic well-being, it is also dependent upon shared values that cherish the sanctity of human life. Using comparative methods, archival research and quantitative findings, this book explores the historical and cultural background of the death penalty in Africa, analysing the law and practice of the death penalty under European and Asian laws in Africa before independence. Showing progressive attitudes to punishment rooted in both traditional and modern concepts of human dignity, Aime Muyoboke Karimunda assesses the ground on which the death penalty is retained today. Providing a full and balanced appraisal of the arguments, the book presents a clear and compelling case for the total abolition of the death penalty throughout Africa. This book is essential reading for human rights lawyers, legal anthropologists, historians, political analysts and anyone else interested in promoting democracy and the protection of fundamental human rights in Africa.

The Logic of Innovation examines not merely the supposed problem of the efficacy and relevance of intellectual property, and the nature of innovation and creativity in a digital environment, but also the very circumstances of that inquiry itself. Social life has itself become a sphere of production, but how might that be understood within the cultural and structural transformation of creativity, innovation and property? Through a highly original interlocutory and therapeutic approach to the issues in play, the author addresses the concepts of innovation and the digital by means of an investigation through literature and the imagination of new scenarios for language, business and legal reform. The book undertakes a complex inquiry into innovation and property through the wonder of Alice's journeys in Wonderland and through the Looking-glass. The author presents a new theory of familiar production to account for the kinship that has emerged in both informal and commercial modes of innovation, and foregrounds the value of use as crucial to the articulation of intellectual property within contemporary models of production and commercialization in the digital.

Following significant changes in the legal profession since the 1980s, how do new organizational forms and actors at the edge of the law impact upon our understanding of the changing nature of the core values of mainstream legal professionalism? This methodological approach brings together a series of case studies built on original empirical research and focuses on those operating at the margins of legal professionalism in England and Wales. Also including comparative material on the US and Canada, the issues discussed are relevant for common law countries more generally and the analysis reveals the ways in which an increasingly fluid, fragmented and heterogeneous legal profession is responding to the challenges it faces in the early twenty-first century.

This book analyzes the position of the ICC in relation to national court systems. The research illustrates that what seemed to be a straight forward relationship between the ICC and national courts under the complementarity mechanism, proves to be much more complex in practice. Using the referrals of Uganda and Darfur, the book demonstrates ways in which it might be possible to prosecute for crimes currently not prosecuted by the ICC and brings to light possible solutions to overcome the gaps in law and practice in the jurisdictional relation between the ICC and national systems. It will be of value to academics, students and policy-makers working in the area of international law, international organizations, and human rights.

With increasing recognition of the international market in health professionals and the impact of globalism on regulation, the governance of the health workforce is moving towards greater public engagement and increased transparency. This book discusses the challenges posed by these processes such as improved access to health services and how structures can be reformed so that good practice is upheld and quality of service and patient safety are ensured. With contributions from regulators, academics, lawyers and health professionals, this book presents arguments from multiple perspectives. Of global relevance, it brings together concerns about access, quality and safety within the framework of the health workforce governance continuum and will be of interest to policy makers, regulators, health professionals, academics legal practitioners, insurers, students and researchers.

This comprehensive study examines the development and changing characteristics of the judicial system and reform process over the past three decades in China. As the role of courts in society has increased so too has the amount of public complaints about the judiciary. At the same time, political control over the judiciary has retained its tight-grip. The shortcomings of the contemporary system, such as institutional deficiencies, shocking cases of injustice and cases of serious judicial corruption, are deemed quite appalling by an international audience. Using a combination of traditional modes of legal analysis, case studies, and empirical research, this study reflects upon the complex progress that China has made, and continues to make, towards the modernisation of its judicial system. Li offers a better understanding on how the judicial system has transformed and what challenges lay ahead for further enhancement. This book is unique in providing both the breadth of coverage and yet the substantive details of the most fundamental as well as controversial subjects concerning the operation of the courts in China.

Administrative litigation systems are a rapidly developing legal field in many countries. This book provides a comparative study of the administrative litigation systems in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao, as well as a number of selected European countries that covers both states with an advanced rule of law and new democracies. Despite the different historical backgrounds and the broader context which has cultivated each individual system, this collective work illustrates the common characteristics of the rapid development of administrative litigation systems since the 1990s as a consequence of the advancement of the rule of law at a global level. All of the contributors have addressed a wide array of key issues in their particular jurisdiction, including court jurisdiction, the scope of judicial review, grounds of litigation claims and mediation in judicial process. Whilst pointing out the shortcomings and challenges which are faced by each jurisdiction, the book offers both ideas and inspiration on how the systems can learn from, and influence each other. This book is essential reading for those studying Chinese law, administrative litigation and comparative law, as well as judges and lawyers specialising in administrative litigation, and administrative courts.

In the world of law enforcement art and antiquity crime has in the past usually assumed a place of low interest and priority. That situation has now slowly begun to change on both the local and international level as criminals, encouraged in part by the record sums now being paid for art treasures, are now seeking to exploit the art market more systematically by means of theft, fraud and looting. In this collection academics and practitioners from Australasia, Europe and North America combine to examine the challenges presented to the criminal justice system by these developments. Best practice methods of detecting, investigating, prosecuting and preventing such crimes are explored. This book will be of interest and use to academics and practitioners alike in the areas of law, crime and justice.

Advancing legal scholarship in the area of mixed legal systems, as well as comparative law more generally, this book expands the comparative study of the world's legal families to those of jurisdictions containing not only mixtures of common and civil law, but also to those mixing Islamic and/or traditional legal systems with those derived from common and/or civil law traditions. With contributions from leading experts in their fields, the book takes us far beyond the usual focus of comparative law with analysis of a broad range of countries, including relatively neglected and under-researched areas. The discussion is situated within the broader context of the ongoing development and evolution of mixed legal systems against the continuing tides of globalization on the one hand, and on the other hand the emergence of Islamic governments in some parts of the Middle East, the calls for a legal status for Islamic law in some European countries, and the increasing focus on traditional and customary norms of governance in post-colonial contexts. This book will be an invaluable source for students and researchers working in the areas of comparative law, legal pluralism, the evolution of mixed legal systems, and the impact of colonialism on contemporary legal systems. It will also be an important resource for policy-makers and analysts.

In considering diffusion from a global perspective, this book provides timely new insights into its application in a variety of fields and at many levels of both legal and non-legal orderings. This collection contributes to the wider theoretical debate concerning the movement of law and legal norms by engaging with concrete examples of legal diffusion, in jurisdictions as diverse as Albania, the Czech Republic, Poland and Kuwait. These examples, taken together, provide a comprehensive illustration of the theoretical debates concerning the diffusion of laws and norms in terms of both process and form. This international, multi-disciplinary and multi-methodological volume brings together scholars from law and social science with experience in mixed and hybrid jurisdictions, and advances the conversation about legal and normative diffusion across the academy. It represents a robust challenge to many preconceived ideas about legal movement and, as such, will be of interest to academics and students working in the fields of Law, Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science, Legal Education and comparative method.