A number of recent events in the last decade have renewed interest in Russian discourses on international law. This book evaluates and presents a contemporary analysis of Russian discourses on international law from various perspectives, including sociological, theoretical, political, and philosophical. The aim is to identify how Russia interacts with international law, the reasons behind such interactions, and how such interactions compare with the general practice of international law. It also examines whether legal culture and other phenomena can justify Russia's interaction in international law. Russian Discourses on International Law explains Russia's interpretation of international law through the lens of both leading western scholars and contemporary western-based Russian scholars. It will be of value to international law scholars looking for a better understanding of Russia's behavior in international legal relations, law and society, foreign policy, and domestic application of international law. Further, those in fields such as sociology, politics, philosophy, or general graduate students, lawyers, think tanks, government departments, and specialized Russian studies programs will find the book helpful.

The law relating to general defences is one of the most important areas in the criminal law, yet the current state of the law in the United Kingdom reveals significant problems in the adoption of a consistent approach to their doctrinal and theoretical underpinnings, as exemplified by a number of recent developments in legislation and case law. A coherent and joined-up approach is still missing. This volume provides an analysis of the main contentious areas in British law, and proposes ways forward for reform. The collection includes contributions from leading experts across various jurisdictions. Part I examines the law in the United Kingdom, with specialist contributions on Irish and Scottish law. Part II consists of contributions by authors from a number of foreign jurisdictions, all written to a common research grid for maximum comparability, which provide a wider background of how other legal systems treat problems relating to general defences in the context of the criminal law, and which may serve as points of reference for domestic law reform.

The right to self-determination has played a crucial role in the process of assisting oppressed people to put an end to colonial domination. Outside of the decolonization context, however, its relevance and application has constantly been challenged and debated. This book examines the role played by self-determination in international law with regard to post-conflict state building. It discusses the question of whether self-determination protects local populations from the intervention of international state-builders in domestic affairs. With a focus on the right as it applies to the people of an independent state, it explores how self-determination concerns that arise in the post-conflict period play out in relation to the reconstruction process. The book analyses the situation in Somalia as a means of drawing out the impact and significance of the legal principle of self-determination in the process of rebuilding post-conflict institutions. In so doing, it seeks to highlight how the relevance of self-determination is often overlooked in this context.

This volume deals with the domestic effects of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights as a challenge to the various levels of legal orders in Europe. The starting point is the divergent impact of the ECtHR's jurisdiction within the Convention States. The volume seeks new methods of orientation at the various legal levels, given the fact that the Strasbourg case law is increasingly important for most areas of society. Topical tendencies in the case law of the Court are highlighted and discussed against the background of the principle of subsidiarity. The book includes a detailed analysis of the scope, reach, consequences and implementation of the Court's judgments and of the issue of concomitant damages. At the same time the volume deals with the role of domestic jurisdictions in implementing the ECtHR's judgments. Distinguished Judges, legal academics and practitioners from various Council of Europe States are among the contributors to this volume, which succeeds in bringing divergent points of view into the discussion and in developing strategies for conflict resolution.

This volume presents a leading contribution to the substantive arena relating to consent in the criminal law. In broad terms, the ambit of legally valid consent in extant law is contestable and opaque, and reveals significant problems in adoption of consistent approaches to doctrinal and theoretical underpinnings of consent. This book seeks to provide a logical template to focus the debate. The overall concept addresses three specific elements within this arena, embracing an overarching synergy between them. This edifice engages in an examination of UK provisions, with specialist contributions on Irish and Scottish law, and in contrasting these provisions against alternative domestic jurisdictions as well as comparative contributions addressing a particularised research grid for consent. The comparative chapters provide a wider background of how other legal systems' treat a variety of specialised issues relating to consent in the context of the criminal law. The debate in relation to consent principles continues for academics, practitioners and within the criminal justice system. Having expert descriptions of the wider issues surrounding the particular discussion and of other legal systems' approaches serves to stimulate and inform that debate. This collection will be a major source of reference for future discussion.

Negotiating religious diversity, as well as negotiating different forms and degrees of commitment to religious belief and identity, constitutes a major challenge for all societies. Recent developments such as the 'de-secularisation' of the world, the transformation and globalisation of religion and the attacks of September 11 have made religious claims and religious actors much more visible in the public sphere. This volume provides multiple perspectives on the processes through which religious communities create or defend their place in a given society, both in history and in our world today. Offering a critical, cross-disciplinary investigation into processes of negotiating religion and religious diversity, the contributors present new insights on the meaning and substance of negotiation itself. This volume draws on diverse historical, sociological, geographic, legal and political theoretical approaches to take a close look at the religious and political agents involved in such processes as well as the political, social and cultural context in which they take place. Its focus on the European experiences that have shaped not only the history of 'negotiating religion' in this region but also around the world, provides new perspectives for critical inquiries into the way in which contemporary societies engage with religion. This study will be of interest to academics, lawyers and scholars in law and religion, sociology, politics and religious history.

The interaction of faith and the community is a fundamental of modern society. The first country to adopt Presbyterianism in its national church, Scotland adopted a system of church government, which is now in world-wide use. This book examines the development and current state of Scots law. Drawing on previous material as well as discussing current topical issues, this book makes some comparisons between Scotland and other legal and religious jurisdictions. The study first considers the Church of Scotland, its 'Disruption' and statutorily recognised reconstitution and then the position of other denominations before assessing the interaction of religion and law and the impact of Human Rights and various discrimination laws within this distinctive Presbyterian country. This unique book will be of interest to both students and lecturers in constitutional and civil law, as well as historians and ecclesiastics.

Going beyond the more usual focus on Jerusalem as a sacred place, this book presents legal perspectives on the most important sacred places of the Mediterranean. The first part of the book discusses the notion of sacred places in anthropological, sociological and legal studies and provides an overview of existing legal approaches to the protection of sacred places in order to develop and define a new legal framework. The second part introduces the meaning of sacred places in Jewish, Christian and Islamic thought and focuses on the significance and role that sacred places have in the three major monotheistic religions and how best to preserve their religious nature whilst designing a new international statute. The final part of the book is a detailed analysis of the legal status of key sacred places and holy cities in the Mediterranean area and identifies a set of legal principles to support a general framework within which specific legal measures can be implemented. The book concludes with a useful appendix for the protection of sacred places in the Mediterranean region. Including contributions from leading law and religion scholars, this interesting book will be valuable to those in the fields of international law, as well as religion and heritage studies.

At a time of global and domestic economic crisis, the financial aspects of domestic and familial relationships are more important and more strained than ever before. The focus of this book is on the distribution of wealth and poverty in traditional and non-traditional familial relationships. The volume takes an interdisciplinary approach to explore the way in which money matters are structured and governed within close personal relationships and the extent to which they have an impact on the nature and economic dynamics of relationships. As such, the key areas of investigation are the extent to which participation in the labour market, unpaid caregiving, inheritance, pensions and welfare reform have an impact on familial relationships. The authors also explore governmental and legal responses by investigating the privileging of certain types of domestic relationships, through fiscal and non-fiscal measures, and the differential provision on relationship breakdown. The impact of budget and welfare cuts is also examined for their effect on equality in domestic relationships.

This book introduces and develops the paradigm of the organisational contract in European contract law. Suggesting that a more radical distinction should be made between contracts which regulate single or spot exchanges and contracts that organize complex economic activities without creating a new legal entity, the book argues that this distinction goes beyond that between spot and relational contracts because it focuses on the organizational dimension of contracting and its governance features. Divided into six parts, the volume brings together a group of internationally renowned experts to examine the structure of long-term contractual cooperation; networks of contracts; knowledge exchange in long-term contractual cooperation; remedies and specific governance rules in long-term relationships; and the move towards legislation. The book will be of value to academics and researchers in the areas of private law, economic theory and sociology of law, and organizational theory. It will also be a useful resource for practitioners working in international contract law and international business transaction law.

Business networks are an important economic phenomenon of increasing practical importance throughout Europe. This volume examines business networks from an interdisciplinary perspective, with many contributions dealing with a certain form of business network, the so-called cooperative or non-hierarchical. With regard to this specific form of cooperation the volume presents new economic findings, proposes a definition and discusses the governance structure of those networks.Moreover, this book explores whether the research results can also be applied to hierarchical, centralized business networks. With medium-sized companies and all the more with large companies, business networks also pose the question of the compatibility with anti-trust law. This collection dedicates three contributions to this important question. They are complemented by chapters on liability of the network and its members towards third parties and contributions discussing duties of loyalty and the interpretation of agreements. Drawing on new research from Italy, Spain, Germany and Norway, this work illustrates the European legal perspective on business networks.

One of the most important EU consumer protection directives of the past decade, the 2005 Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, or UCPD, is brought under examination in this stimulating volume. Bringing together leading experts in the comparative law and consumer law domain, the book discusses the impact of the Directive and whether the many possible issues identified at its inception have been borne out in practice. Divided into four parts of 'Implementation, Approximation and Harmonization', 'Vulnerability', 'The UCP Directive and Other Regimes', and finally 'Enforcement', the volume examines the various policy developments, the growing body of case law, the decisions of relevant national enforcement authorities, as well as the legislative debates which have surrounded the implementation of the UCPD in Member States. This book provides a valuable assessment of the impact of a major EU directive almost ten years after its adoption, and as such will be of interest to academics, legal practitioners and the judiciary working in the areas of European and Consumer law.

This edited collection provides a comprehensive, insightful, and detailed study of a vital area of public policy debate as it is currently occurring in countries across the world from India to South Africa and the United Kingdom to Australia. Bringing together academics and experts from a variety of jurisdictions, it reflects upon the impact on human rights of the application of more than a decade of the "War on Terror" as enunciated soon after 9/11. The volume identifies and critically examines the principal and enduring resonances of the concept of the "War on Terror". The examination covers not only the obvious impacts but also the more insidious and enduring changes within domestic laws. The rationale for this collection is therefore not just to plot how the "War on Terror" has operated within the folds of the cloak of liberal democracy, but how they render that cloak ragged, especially in the sight of those sections of society who pay the heaviest price in terms of their human rights. This book engages with the public policy strand of the last decade that has arguably most shaped perceptions of human rights and engendered debates about their worth and meaning. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, practitioners, and students in the fields of human rights law, criminal justice, criminology, politics, and international studies.

Whilst advances in biotechnology and information technology have undoubtedly resulted in better quality of life for mankind, they can also bring about global problems. The legal response to the challenges caused by the rapid progress of technological change has been slow and the question of how international human rights should be protected and promoted with respect to science and technology remains unexplored. The contributors to this book explore the political discourse and power relations of technological growth and human rights issues between the Global South and the Global North and uncover the different perspectives of both regions. They investigate the conflict between technology and human rights and the perpetuation of inequality and subjection of the South to the North. With emerging economies such as Brazil playing a major role in trade, investment and financial law, the book examines how human rights are affected in Southern countries and identifies significant challenges to reform in the areas of international law and policy.

How should constitutional design respond to the opportunities and challenges raised by ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural differences, and do so in ways that promote democracy, social justice, peace and stability? This is one of the most difficult questions facing societies in the world today.
There are two schools of thought on how to answer this question. Under the heading of "accommodation," some have argued for the need to recognize, institutionalize and empower differences. There are a range of constitutional instruments available to achieve this goal, such as multinational federalism and administrative decentralization, legal pluralism (e.g. religious personal law), other forms of non-territorial minority rights (e.g. minority language and religious education rights), consociationalism, affirmative action, legislative quotas, etc. But others have countered that such practices may entrench, perpetuate and exacerbate the very divisions they are designed to manage. They propose a range of alternative strategies that fall under the rubric of "integration" that will blur, transcend and cross-cut differences. Such strategies include bills of rights enshrining universal human rights enforced by judicial review, policies of disestablishment (religious and ethnocultural), federalism and electoral systems designed specifically to include members of different groups within the same political unit and to disperse members of the same group across different units, are some examples.
In this volume, leading scholars of constitutional law, comparative politics and political theory address the debate at a conceptual level, as well as through numerous country case-studies, through an interdisciplinary lens, but with a legal and institutional focus.

This book uses a comparative approach to examine and explain the contemporary nature and meaning of federalism and federation. The author provides both a detailed theoretical study and empirical case studies on contemporary federations.
The study of federalism can be problematic and this book seeks to overcome some of the obstacles by distinguishing between federation, a particular kind of state, and federalism, the recommendation and promotion of support for federation. Written in a clear and accessible style, the author:
- Analyzes the conceptual bases of federalism and federation through the evolution of the intellectual debate on federalism; the American Federal experience; the origins of federal states; and the relationship between state-building and national integration.
- Explores comparative federalism and federation, looking at five main pathways into comparative analysis with empirical studies on the US, Canada, Australia, India, Malaysia, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the EU.
- Explores the pathology of federations, looking failures and successes, the impact of globalisation and concludes with an assessment of federal theory.
This book will be of interest to students and researchers of federalism, devolution and comparative politics and government.

Exploring the advantages and disadvantages of codifying contract law, this book considers the question from the perspectives of both civil and common law systems, referring in detail to issues of international and consumer law. With contributions from leading international scholars, the chapters present a range of opinions on the virtues of codification, encouraging further debate on this topic. The book commences with a discussion on the internationalization imperative for codification of contract law. It then turns to regional issues, exploring first codification attempts in the European Union and Japan, and then issues relevant to codification in the common law jurisdictions of Australia, New Zealand and the United States. The collection concludes with two chapters which consider the need to draw upon both private and comparative international law perspectives to inform any codification reforms. This book will be of interest to international and comparative contract law academics, as well as regulators and policy-makers.

Drastic increases in the use of imprisonment; the introduction of 'three strikes' laws and mandatory sentences; restrictions on parole - all of these developments appear to signify a new, harsher era or 'punitive turn'. Yet these features of criminal justice are not universally present in all Western countries. Drawing on empirical data, Hamilton examines the prevalence of harsher penal policies in Ireland, Scotland and New Zealand, thereby demonstrating the utility of viewing criminal justice from the perspective of smaller jurisdictions. This highly innovative book is thoroughly critical of the way in which punitiveness is currently measured by leading criminologists. It is essential reading for students and scholars of criminology, penology, criminal justice and socio-legal studies, as well as criminal lawyers and practitioners.

This book examines the diverse use of Indigenous customary rights in modern landscapes from a multidisciplinary perspective. Divided into two parts, the first deals explicitly with Sami customary rights in relation to nature conservation in the Nordic countries and Russia from a legal and historical perspective. The authors investigate how longstanding Sami customary territorial rights have been reassessed in the context of new kinds of legislation regarding Indigenous people. They also look at the ideas behind the historical models of nature conservation. The second part deals with the ideas and implementation of new kinds of postcolonial models of nature conservation. The case of the Sami is compared with other Indigenous people internationally with cases from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and India. The work investigates how the governance of protected areas has been influenced by the principles of equality and positive discrimination, and how it has affected the possibilities of establishing adaptive co-management arrangements for specific areas. How the legal situation of Indigenous peoples has been recognised in an international context is also investigated. The volume provides a multidisciplinary analysis of how the customary livelihood of Indigenous people has adapted to modern industrialised landscapes and also how postcolonial approaches have contributed to global changes of Indigenous rights and nature conservation models.

It has been over 50 years since the beginning of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. It is estimated that there are over 600,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and they are supported, protected, and maintained by the Israeli state. This book discusses whether international criminal law could apply to those responsible for allowing and promoting this growth, and examines what this application would reveal about the operation of international criminal law. It provides a comprehensive analysis of how the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court could apply to the settlements in the West Bank through a close examination of the potential operation of two relevant Statute crimes: first, the war crime of transfer of population; and second, the war crime of unlawful appropriation of property. It also addresses the threshold question of whether the law of occupation applies to the West Bank, and how the principles of individual criminal responsibility might operate in this context. It explores the relevance and coherence of the legal arguments relied on by Israel in defence of the legality of the settlements and considers how these arguments might apply in the context of the Rome Statute. The work also has wider aims, raising questions about the Rome Statute's capacity to meet its aim of establishing a coherent and legally effective system of international criminal justice.

Almost two decades ago, the fall of the Santer Commission against a background of allegations of maladministration and nepotism had the effect of placing accountability on the political agenda of the EU institutions. More recently, the non-ratification of the Constitutional Treaty, the difficulties of the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and the current financial crisis have increased the calls for accountability in the EU. This book investigates whether any progress towards more accountability and transparency has been made in the post-Lisbon era by taking a holistic approach to the subject. Marios Costa argues that currently the EU institutions and the Member States are not in a position to hold the so-called independent agencies as well as the various committees and expert groups accountable. Despite recent progress, the EU still needs to put forward an acceptable constitutional framework which will truly secure accountability at the EU level of governance.

Recent confrontations between constitutional courts and parliamentary majorities, for example in Poland and Hungary, have attracted international interest in the relationship between the judiciary and the legislature in Central and Eastern European countries. Several political actors have argued that courts have assumed too much power after the democratic transformation process in 1989/1990. These claims are explicitly or implicitly connected to the charge that courts have constrained the room for manoeuvre of the legislatures too heavily and that they have entered the field of politics. Nevertheless, the question to what extent has this aggregation of power constrained the dominant political actors has never been examined accurately and systematically in the literature. The present volume fills this gap by applying an innovative research methodology to quantify the impact and effect of court's decisions on legislation and legislators, and measure the strength of judicial decisions in six CEE countries.

How has Russia's political elite struggled to build a federal system of government out of the rubble of the Soviet empire?  This ground-breaking book examines the public debates, official documents, and political deals that built Russia's federal house, and analyzes the strength of its troubled foundation.

This volume presents a combination of practical, empirical research data and theoretical reflection to provide a comparative view of language and discourse in the courtroom. The work explores how the various disciplines of law and linguistics can help us understand the nature of "Power and Control" - both oral and written - and how it might be clarified to unravel linguistic representation of legal reality. It presents and examines the most recent research and theories at national and international levels. The book represents a valuable contribution to the study and analysis of courtroom discourse and courtroom cultures more generally. It will be of interest to students and researchers working in the areas of language and law, legal theory, interpretation, and semiotics of law.

This edited collection gathers together the principal findings of the three-year RELIGARE project, which dealt with the question of religious and philosophical diversity in European law. Specifically, it covers four spheres of public policy and legislation where the pressure to accommodate religious diversity has been most strongly felt in Europe: employment, family life, use of public space and state support mechanisms. Embracing a forward-looking approach, the final RELIGARE report provides recommendations to governance units at the local, national and European levels regarding issues of religious pluralism and secularism. This volume adds context and critique to those recommendations and more generally opens an intellectual discussion on the topic of religion in the European Union. The book consists of two main parts: the first includes the principal findings of the RELIGARE research project, while the second is a compilation of 28 short contributions from influential scholars, legal practitioners, policy makers and activists who respond to the report and offer their views on the sensitive issue of religious diversity and the law in Europe.