This book investigates the role of Islam and religious freedom in the constitutional transitions of six North African and Middle Eastern countries, namely Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, and Palestine. In particular, the book, with an interdisciplinary approach, investigates the role of Islam as a political, institutional and societal force. Issues covered include: the role played by Islam as a constitutional reference - a "static force" able to strengthen and legitimize the entire constitutional order; Islam as a political reference used by some political parties in their struggle to acquire political power; and Islam as a specific religion that, like other religions in the area, embodies diverse perspectives on the nature and role of religious freedom in society. The volume provides insight about the political dimension of Islam, as used by political forces, as well as the religious dimension of Islam. This provides a new and wider perspective able to take into account the increasing social pluralism of the South-Mediterranean region. By analyzing three different topics - Islam and constitutionalism, religious political parties, and religious freedom - the book offers a dynamic picture of the role played by Islam and religious freedom in the process of state-building in a globalized age in which human rights and pluralism are crucial dimensions.

This book explores the recent trend of enhancing the role of the people in constitutional change. It traces the reasons underlying this tendency, the new ways in which it takes form, the possibilities of success and failure of such ventures as well as the risks and benefits it carries. To do so, it examines the theoretical aspects of public participation in constitutional decision-making, offers an analysis of the benefits gained and the problems encountered in countries with long-standing experience in the practice of constitutional referendums, discusses the recent innovative constitution-making processes employed in Iceland and Ireland in the post financial crisis context and probes the use of public participation in the EU context. New modes of deliberation are juxtaposed to traditional direct-democratic processes, while the reasons behind this re-emergence of public involvement narratives are discussed from the aspect of comparative constitutional design. The synthetic chapter offers an overview of the emerging normative and comparative issues and provides a holistic approach of the role of the people in constitutional change in an attempt to answer when, where and how this role may be successfully enhanced. The work consists of material specifically written for this volume, and authored by prominent constitutional scholars and experts in public participation and deliberative processes.

This major collection contains selected papers from the second Public Law Conference, an international conference hosted by the University of Cambridge in September 2016. The collection includes contributions by leading academics and judges from across the common law world, including senior judges from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK. The contributions engage with the theme of unity (and disunity) from a number of perspectives, offering a rich panoply of insights into public law which significantly carry forward public law thinking across common law jurisdictions, setting the agenda for future research and legal development. Part 1 of the volume contains chapters which offer doctrinal and theoretical perspectives. Some chapters seek to articulate a unifying framework for understanding public law, while others seek to demonstrate the plurality of public law through the method of legal taxonomy. A number of chapters analyse whether different fields such as human rights and administrative law are merging, with others considering specific unifying themes or concepts in public law. The chapters in Part 2 offer comparative perspectives, charting and analysing convergence and divergence across common law systems. Specific topics include standing, proportionality, human rights, remedies, use of foreign precedents, legal transplants, and disunity and unity among subnational jurisdictions. The collection will be of great interest to those working in public law.

Controversies in Innocence Cases in America brings together leading experts on the investigation, litigation, and scholarly analysis of innocence cases in America, from legal, political and ethical perspectives. The contributors, many of whom work on these cases daily, investigate contemporary issues presented by innocence cases and the exoneration movement as a whole. These issues include the challenges faced by the movement, causes of wrongful convictions, problems associated with investigating, proving, and defining 'innocence', and theories of reform. Each issue is placed within a multi-disciplinary perspective to provide cogent observations and recommendations for the effective handling of these cases, and for what changes should be adopted in order to improve the American criminal justice system when it is faced with its most harrowing sight: an innocent defendant.

The focus of the essays in this book is on the relationship between compensation culture, social values and tort damages for personal injuries. A central concern of the public and political perception of personal injuries claims is the high cost of tort claims to society, reflected in insurance premiums, often accompanied by an assumption that tort law and practice is flawed and improperly raising such costs. The aims of this collection are to first clarify the relationship between tort damages for personal injuries and the social values that the law seeks to reflect and to balance, then to critically assess tort reforms, including both proposals for reform and actual implemented reforms, in light of how they advance or hinder those values. Reforms of substantive and procedural law in respect of personal injury damages are analysed, with perspectives from England and Wales, Canada, Australia, Ireland and continental Europe. The essays offer valuable insights to anyone interested in the reform of tort law or the tort process in respect of personal injuries.

This study explores the reasons behind the different responses of the legal systems of Europe, Japan and the USA in coping with BSE, one of the major food safety crises in recent years. Making reference to the most recent advances on risk perception that cognitive and social sciences, such as legal anthropology and sociology of law, have experimented with, Risk Perception, Culture, and Legal Change examines the role that culture plays in moulding the process of legal change. Attention is focused on the regulative frameworks implemented to guarantee the safety of the food chain against the BSE menace and on the liability responses sketched to compensate the victims of mad cow disease, showing how both these elements have been influenced by the cultural context within which they are situated.

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.

Paul Maharg presents a critical inquiry into the identity and possibilities of legal education, and an exploration of transformational alternatives to our current theories and practices of teaching and learning the law. His work takes the view that bodies of interdisciplinary theory and knowledge of the history of legal education are important to all stages of legal education. He also argues that new learning designs - such as transactional learning - need to be developed to help students, educators and lawyers deal with the transitions and challenges facing them now and in the foreseeable future. Throughout, discussions of theory are spliced with case studies of academic and professional legal learning, particularly in the field of technology-enhanced learning. The content of the book will be updated in a community of practice wiki at http://www.transforming.org.uk, which will also allow readers to comment and expand on the book's final chapter.

'Rough sex' has been at the forefront of criminal law in recent years following several high-profile murders of women killed during alleged consensual sex 'gone wrong', leading to widespread calls for reform to prevent the use of what has been termed the 'rough sex defence.' Situated in a global context in which violence against women is one of the leading preventable contributors to death and illness for women aged 18-44 worldwide, this timely collection examines the rough sex defence and responds to some of the wider debates around sex and the law. Drawing on a range of empirical and theoretical standpoints, chapters delve into a range of topics including the female experience of 'unwanted' slapping, choking and spitting during sex, the BDSM community, the impacts of pornography, the normalization and sexualization of violence against women, early depictions of BDSM involving the eroticization of non-consensual relations, problematic perceptions of BDSM as inherently violent, and more. Bows and Herring expertly collate a wide-reaching mix of perspectives to contribute to a powerful feminist investigation of this critical issue. It is a compelling read for scholars interested in the intersection of sex, the law, and the criminal justice system.

Debates surrounding the concept of law are not new. For a wide variety of reasons and in a wide variety of ways, the meaning of 'law' has long been an important part of Western thought, both within legal scholarship and beyond. The contributors to Concepts of Law are international experts from the fields of comparative law, legal philosophy, and the social sciences. Combining theoretical analyses with case studies, they explore various legal concepts and contexts from diverse national and disciplinary perspectives. Legal and normative pluralism is a theme throughout. Some chapters discuss the development of state law and legal systems. Others wrestle with law's rhetoric and the potential utility of alternative vocabularies, e.g., 'governance' and 'governmentality'. Others reveal the rich polyjurality of the present, from the local to the global. The result is a rich picture of both present scholarship on laws and norms and the state of contemporary legal complexity, each crossing traditional boundaries.

Written by distinguished legal and linguistic scholars and practitioners from the EU institutions, the contributions in this volume provide multidisciplinary perspectives on the vital role of language and culture as key forces shaping the dynamics of EU law. The broad spectrum of topics sheds light on major Europeanization processes at work: the gradual creation of a neutralized EU legal language with uniform concepts, for example, in the DCFR and CESL, and the emergence of a European legal culture. The main focus is on EU multilingual lawmaking, with special emphasis on problems of legal translation and term formation in the multilingual and multicultural European context, including comparative law aspects and an analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of translating from a lingua franca. Of equal importance are issues relating to the multilingual interpretation of EU legislation and case law by the national courts and interpretative techniques of the CJEU, as well as the viability of the autonomy of EU legal concepts and the need for the professionalization of court interpreters Union-wide in response to Directive 2010/64/EU. Offering a good mix of theory and practice, this book is intended for scholars, practitioners and students with a special interest in the legal-linguistic aspects of EU law and their impact on old and new Member States and candidate countries as well.

European integration is an open-ended, ongoing process which has been deeply challenged by integral world capitalism. This study explores the present EU foundational dilemma, looking at the problematic relationship between the ideal model of integration and the reality of the 21st century. Including contributions from leading theorists, this volume explores the ways and extent to which the present European crisis could create a politico-legal space for new possibilities and opportunities for action. The authors discuss the current role of the EU, and whether it aspires to be a democratic polity or a functional organization based on inter-governmental bargaining. The chapters question whether the future of European integration after the crisis will be paved by decisions which conflict with its Treaty basis, and how it might come up with alternatives which would do more than echo the compulsions of the global market. Issues are analysed from a historical perspective to see what can be learnt from its past and to explore the options for the future. With contributions from prominent international legal and political scholars, the book will be of interest to academics, students and policy-makers working in these areas.

This volume presents an analysis of controversial events and issues shaping a rapidly changing international legal, political, and social landscape. Leading scholars and experts in law, religious studies and international relations, thoughtfully consider issues and tensions arising in contemporary debates over religion and equality in many parts of the world. The book is in two parts. The first section focuses on the anti-discrimination dimension of religious freedom norms, examining the developing law on equality and human rights and how it operates at international and national levels. The second section provides a series of case studies exploring the contemporary issue of same-sex marriage and how it affects religious groups and believers. This collection will be of interest to academics and scholars of law, religious studies, political science, and sociology, as well as policymakers and legal practitioners.

This book looks at responsible government under the Australian Constitution. It undertakes a detailed examination of the history leading to the incorporation of responsible government into the Constitution, examining the political history and constitutional ideas which informed the framers’ views. It draws on this history to develop a theory of responsible government and explore its implications for the interpretation of the Constitution and the structure of modern government in Australia. The book fills a major gap in our knowledge of the intellectual background of the Australian Constitution by explaining the constitutional ideas that have shaped the text and structure of the Australian Constitution. It contributes to worldwide debates about constitutional interpretation by showing how rigorous use of history can lead to novel interpretations of constitutions without being tied to the 'dead hands of the founders'.

This book contributes to a critical reflection of current legislative and jurisprudential developments in Non-Discrimination Law, focusing on the European Union. The book is focused on intersectionality between gender, race and disability and the question of whether, and to what extent, this intersection can be adequately addressed in (EU) law. The discussion rests on two basic assumptions. First, the multiplication of 'discrimination grounds' in EU law and other legal regimes should not result in a dilution of the demands of equality law. Accordingly, the book focuses on the three key grounds - race, gender and disability. These constitute nodes around which other discrimination grounds can be grouped. Second, any multi-ground non-discrimination law framework needs to engage with the question of discrimination on several grounds. This book provides a critical evaluation of some of the problems presented by such intersectionality and an opportunity to explore the issues in depth. This collection offers some new proposals relating to the regrouping of identity categories and to the general approach to socio-legal research in the field. It also contains a comparative section, which expands on practical experiences with intersectionality and law, and a section dedicated to juridical responses to intersectionality. The book will be a valuable resource for researchers, academics and those working in the area of EU non-discrimination law and policy.

This groundbreaking book contributes to, and refocuses, public debates about the incorporation of plural approaches into the English legal system. The book specifically advances the recent, largely theoretical, discussions of Sharia legal practice by examining a secular method of dispute resolution as practised by the Kurdish Peace Committee in London. Following migration to the West, many Kurds still adhere to traditional values and norms. Building on these, they have adapted their customary legal practices to create unofficial legal courts and other forms of legal hybridisation. These practical solutions to the challenges of a pluralistic life are seen by Kurdish communities in the UK as applicable not only to British and transnational daily life, but also as a training ground for institutions in a possible future Kurdish state. The study provides a substantive evidence base using extensive ethnographic data about the workings of the Kurdish Peace Committee, examining detailed case studies in the context of the customs and practices of the Kurdish community. Based on an ethnographic and interdisciplinary approach, this book will be of interest to policy makers, socio-legal professionals, students and scholars of legal anthropology, ethnic minority law, transnationalism, diaspora, Kurdish, Turkish and Middle Eastern studies.

The Routledge Handbook of Corporate Law provides an accessible overview of current research in the field, from an international and comparative perspective. In recent years there has been an explosion of corporate law research, as this area of law continues to develop rapidly throughout the world. Traditionally, Anglo-American corporate law theory has dominated debates and publications; however, this handbook readdresses the balance by exploring the treatment of corporate law in both Europe and Asia, as well developments in the US and UK. Bringing together a wide range of key thinkers in the field, this volume is divided into three main parts: Thinking about corporate law Corporate law principles and governance Some cross-cultural comparisons Providing up-to-date and authoritative articles covering all the key aspects of corporate law, this reference work is essential reading for advanced students, scholars and practitioners in the field.

This book investigates the dynamic intertwinement of law and morality, with a focus on new and developing fields of law. Taking as its starting point the debates and mutual misunderstandings between proponents of different philosophical traditions, it argues that this theoretical pluralism is better explained once law is accepted as an essentially ambiguous concept. Continuing on, the book develops a robust theory of law that increases our grasp on global legal pluralism and the dynamics of law. This theory of legal interactionism, inspired by the work of Lon Fuller and Philip Selznick, also helps us to understand apparent anomalies of modern law, such as international law, the law of the European Convention on Human Rights and horizontal interactive legislation. In an ecumenical approach, legal interactionism does justice to the valuable core of truth in natural law and legal positivism. Shedding new light on familiar debates between authors such as Fuller, Hart and Dworkin, this book is of value to academics and students interested in legal theory, jurisprudence, legal sociology and moral philosophy.

Democracy in the Courts examines lay participation in the administration of justice and how it reflects certain democratic principles. An international comparative perspective is taken for exploring how lay people are involved in the trial of criminal cases in European countries and how this impacts on their perspectives of the national legal systems. Comparisons between countries are made regarding how and to what extent lay participation takes place and the relation between lay participation and the legal system's legitimacy is analyzed. Presenting the results of interviews with both professional judges and lay participants in a number of European countries regarding their views on the involvement of lay people in the legal system, this book explores the ways in which judges and lay people interact while trying cases, examining the characteristics of both professional and lay judging of cases. Providing an important analysis of practice, this book will be of interest to academics, legal scholars and practitioners alike.

This volume presents a comparison of the experiences of NGOs in China and Europe. The chapters on China contain the most comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of various types of NGOs currently active in the country. The contributions on foreign NGOs in China, non-governmental think tanks, public interest legal organizations, labour related NGOs and charity organizations, are the first in English to discuss successful experiences as well as the difficulties they face in the post-Mao era. The European studies draw examples from countries where the experiences of NGOs are at various stages of development. The section on NGOs in Central and Eastern Europe examines the rapid expansion of civil society and their pivotal role in promoting political change and building democracy in a transitional society, as well as the challenges they confront in advancing a strong civil society. Those chapters on NGOs' experiences in Western European countries, especially in the Netherlands and the UK, provide insightful information and examination of the most contentious issues concerning NGOs' accountability, governance and relationship with the government.

Are pregnant women entitled to the same rights of self-determination and bodily integrity as other adults? This is the fundamental question underlying recent high-profile legal interventions in situations when pregnant women and healthcare staff do not agree on management options or appropriate behaviour. Courts on both sides of the Atlantic have sometimes answered that they are not, and the law has at times been manipulated to enforce compliance with medical recommendations. This is the first book of its kind to offer a comprehensive assessment of healthcare law as applied to the unique situation of pregnancy. Drawing on case material from both the UK and the USA, it describes the trend towards 'policing pregnancy' and explores the emergence of the concept of 'maternal-foetal conflict' - and why, in the author's view, this would be more appropriately labelled 'obstetric conflict'. Suggestions are made for alternative approaches that better safeguard the overall well-being of pregnant women and their future children.

Global Perspectives on Subsidiarity is the first book of its kind exclusively devoted to the principle of subsidiarity. It sheds new light on the principle and explores and develops the many applications of the principle of subsidiarity. The book provides a comprehensive overview of the principle in all its facets, from its philosophical origins in the writings of Aristotle and Aquinas, to its development in Catholic social doctrine, and its emergence as a key principle in European Union Law. This book explores the relationship between subsidiarity and concepts such as sphere sovereignty and social pluralism. It analyses subsidiarity in light of globalisation, federalism, democracy, individual rights and welfare, and discusses subsidiarity and the Australian, Brazilian and German Constitutions.

Enacted in 1860, the Indian Penal Code is the longest serving and one of the most influential criminal codes in the common law world. This book commemorates its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary and honours the law reform legacy of Thomas Macaulay, the principal drafter of the Code. The book comprises chapters which examine the general principles of criminal responsibility from the perspective of Macaulay, and from more recent accounts by lawmakers and reformers. These are framed by chapters that examine the history and conceptual underpinnings of Macaulay's Code, consider the need to revitalize the Indian Penal Code, and review the current challenges of principled criminal law reform and codification. This book is a valuable reference on the Indian Penal Code, and current debates about general principles of criminal law for legal academics, judges, legal practitioners and criminal law reformers. It also promises to have wider scholarly appeal, of interest to legal theorists, historians and policy specialists.

This book provides a contextual and authoritative overview of the principles, doctrines and institutions that underpin the Czech constitution. The book explores key topics including; the Czech pluralist constitution, constitutional principles, the interaction between the legislature, executive and the judiciary, the role of local governance and application of fundamental rights in practice. It also covers the morphing of Czech constitutionalism as a result of personal politics, conventions, informal institutions and constitutional narratives and sentiments. This informative study allows students and scholars of law and politics to develop an informed view of how Czech democracy actually works and what its main challenges are.

This handbook provides a comprehensive and authoritative state-of-the-art review of the current and emerging research and policy on disability law. Bringing together a team of respected and experienced experts, the handbook offers a range of jurisdictional and multidisciplinary perspectives. The authors consider historical and contemporary, as well as comparative perspectives of disability law. Divided into three parts, the contributors provide a comprehensive reference to the theoretical underpinnings, ongoing debates and emerging fields within the subject. The study provides a strong basis for consideration of contemporary disability law, its research foundations, and progressive developments in the area. The book incorporates interdisciplinary and comparative country perspectives to capture the breadth of current discourse on disability law. This handbook provides a valuable resource for a wide range of scholars, public and private researchers, NGOs, and practitioners working in the area of disability law, and across national and transnational disability schemes. The work will be of important interest to those in the fields of sociology, history, psychology, economics, political science, rehabilitation sciences, medicine, technology, and law, among others.