This book explores the historical foundations of holding public authorities accountable for their acts, and discusses how and why the idea that the state should or should not be held liable became established in three significant jurisdictions. The issue of state liability for legislative acts is considered one of the most difficult and controversial problems in jurisprudence. This book analyses the development of concepts and institutions of liability for the acts of legislator pertaining to the general principles of state liability until the mid-20th century in the leading European legal systems: Germany, France and Great Britain. It is shown that, in contrast to the prevailing conviction, the lack of liability for law-making instruments was not an unassailable dogma, and that questions as to whether such liability was possible were being asked from the Middle Ages onwards. The book will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers in the areas of Constitutional Law, Public Law, History of Law, History of Legal and Political Thought, Philosophy of Law, and Comparative Legal Studies.

Environmental principles - from the polluter pays and precautionary principles to the principles of integration and sustainability - proliferate in domestic and international legal and policy discourse, reflecting key goals of environmental protection and sustainable development on which there is apparent political consensus. Environmental principles also have a high profile in environmental law, beyond their popularity as policy and political concepts, as ideas that might unify the subject and provide it with conceptual foundations or boost its delivery of environmental outcomes. However, environmental principles are elusive legal concepts. This book deepens the legal understanding of environmental principles in light of recent legal developments. It analyses the increasing legal effects of environmental principles in different jurisdictions and demonstrates how they are shaping and revealing innovative and evolving bodies of environmental law. This analysis is a step forward in understanding a key feature of modern environmental law and presents a robust methodology for dealing with novel legal concepts in the subject. It also makes a contribution to environmental policy debates and discussions internationally that rely heavily on environmental principles, including their supposed legal effects.

This book seeks to trace the main dimensions of recent conflicts between central departments of governments and local authorities and to reveal something of their significance. It does so by focusing on the role of law in shaping the central-local government relations which is neglected in many contemporary studies and yet is of vital importance in identifying the character of that relationship. Precisely why they should be so is not self-evident. The main objective of this introduction therefore is to highlight the importance of this dimension to the study of central-local relations and then to explain the way in which the key themes of the study are to be addressed.
One highly significant aspect of the study is the identification of a process of juridfication which is only gradually becoming clear. This has not only been a major undertaking, it has also been a highly complex, ambiguous, confusing, and frustrating activity. This has caused problems for government and for the judiciary and not surprisingly there have been expressions of discomfort on all sides. This book helps to explain where the process may have gone wrong and why ultimately it may be an objective which cannot be realised.
Ultimately what the book seeks to demonstrate is that the issues raised by the government of central-local relations transcend the institution of local government and are directly linked to our system of parliamentary democracy. Furthermore the author argues that the system of central-local government relations has evolved in such a way that it reveals a great deal about our tradition of public law. An examination of these issues through an explication of the themes of legality and locality therefore requires the reader to address basic questions about the nature of contemporary British government.

This book addresses the universal and topical question of solidarity across generations from a comparative perspective, with a particular focus on the legal issues concerning retirement pensions, the poverty in the elderly, long-term care, as well as state interventions and family support for those at risk. Drawing on insights from the interface between family law, administrative law and social law, it examines 13 countries on different continents, and also briefly covers a number of additional countries in the introduction. This book is a based on the discussions and exchanges at the 20th General Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law, in Fukuoka, Japan.

Through a comparison of the telecommunications sectors in four small EU-countries, an outstanding cast of contributors explore how regulatory authorities at international, EU-, national and regional level within and between sectors coordinate their regulatory decisions in order to provide coherent regulation of markets.

This book presents a comprehensive examination of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders and provides an analysis of the level of its reflection in regional human rights systems. The work explores the development of the role of the individual in human rights protection since the 1998 United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. It locates the nature, activities and need for protection of human rights defenders within the current international legal framework and outlines the place and scope for a specific right to promote and protect human rights. It traces the origins of the right and the main international instruments that define it, both at national and international level. Finally, it considers the impact that the right to defend human rights can have on constitutional and international law. The book will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers working in the areas of International Human Rights Law and Constitutional Law.

Should grandparents have rights in relation to their grandchildren? If so, what should the content of those rights be, both procedurally and substantively? And what is the appropriate role of the law in providing solutions to problems arising in the context of grandparents' rights? This book considers these questions from both a public and a private law perspective, and analyses the human rights implications for parties such as children, parents and grandparents. It also explores the topic of grandparents' rights in the context of the European Convention on Human Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as in other jurisdictions, such as Iran, France and Nepal. The book argues that grandparents' rights have so far received insufficient acknowledgement and, consequently, that relationships between grandparents and grandchildren have received insufficient protection. However, it is crucial that the protection of grandparents' rights is balanced with the rights of parents and the rights and welfare of children; the book considers how best to achieve this, for example in disputes on child arrangements (i.e. residence and contact), child protection matters and in adoption cases. The book is of particular interest to all academics seeking a clear framework for the protection of grandparents' rights in private and public law proceedings.

This book examines the role played by domestic and international judges in the "flexibilization" of legal systems through general principles. It features revised papers that were presented at the Annual Conference of the European-American Consortium for Legal Education, held at the University of Parma, Italy, May 2014. This volume is organized in four sections, where the topic is mainly explored from a comparative perspective, and includes case studies. The first section covers theoretical issues. It offers an analysis of principles in shaping Dworkin's theories about international law, a reflection on the role of procedural principles in defining the role of the judiciary, a view on the role of general principles in transnational judicial communication, a study on the recognition of international law from formal criteria to substantive principles, and an inquiry from the viewpoint of neo-constitutionalism. The second section contains studies on the role of general principles in selected legal systems, including International Law, European Union Law as well as Common Law systems. The third section features an analysis of select legal principles in a comparative perspective, with a particular focus on the comparison between European and American experiences. The fourth and last section explores selected principles in given areas of law, including the misuse of the lex specialis principle in the relationship between international human rights law and international humanitarian law, the role of the judiciary in Poland as regards discrimination for sexual orientation, and the impact of the ECtHR case law on Italian criminal law with regard to the principle of legality. Overall, the book offers readers a thoughtful reflection on how the interpretation, application, and development of general principles of law by the judiciary contribute to the evolution of legal systems at both the domestic and international levels as well as further their reciprocal interactions.

This book examines the responsibility of judges of domestic courts following unconstitutional usurpation of power of government (coups d'etat). It explores judges' liability for failing to discharge their judicial duty independently and impartially, and the criminality of usurpers and their accomplices and collaborators for their violation of fundamental rights and freedoms or commission of crimes of international concern. Written by a highly regarded non-Western author, the book is coherent and meticulously researched, covering an approach to coups in an insightful and fascinating fashion. It includes a sophisticated and thorough analysis of the relevant comparative jurisprudence of domestic and international courts, with concrete examples of the best practices among decisions of domestic courts in countries that have experienced coups d'etat. With an increasing global interest in the phenomenon of coups, democratic backsliding and the place and role of the judiciary as the only hope to rein in acts of unconstitutional usurpation of power, the book will be essential reading for members of the legal profession, those cherishing democracy as well as students and researchers in constitutional law, law and political science, public international law, international human rights law, international criminal law, regime changes, transitional justice and international organizations.

This book examines the responsibility of judges of domestic courts following unconstitutional usurpation of power of government (coups d'etat). It explores judges' liability for failing to discharge their judicial duty independently and impartially, and the criminality of usurpers and their accomplices and collaborators for their violation of fundamental rights and freedoms or commission of crimes of international concern. Written by a highly regarded non-Western author, the book is coherent and meticulously researched, covering an approach to coups in an insightful and fascinating fashion. It includes a sophisticated and thorough analysis of the relevant comparative jurisprudence of domestic and international courts, with concrete examples of the best practices among decisions of domestic courts in countries that have experienced coups d'etat. With an increasing global interest in the phenomenon of coups, democratic backsliding and the place and role of the judiciary as the only hope to rein in acts of unconstitutional usurpation of power, the book will be essential reading for members of the legal profession, those cherishing democracy as well as students and researchers in constitutional law, law and political science, public international law, international human rights law, international criminal law, regime changes, transitional justice and international organizations.

Fully updated and revised to fit in with the new laws and structure in the Commonwealth Caribbean law and legal systems, this new edition examines the institutions, structures and processes of the law in the Commonwealth Caribbean.

The author explores:

- the court system and the new Caribbean Court of Justice which replaces appeals to the Privy Council

- the offshore financial legal sector

- Caribbean customary law and the rights of indigenous peoples

- the Constitutions of Commonwealth Caribbean jurisdictions and Human Rights

- the impact of the historical continuum to the region's jurisprudence including the question of reparations

- the complexities of judicial precedent for Caribbean peoples

- international law as a source of law

- alternative dispute mechanisms and the Ombudsman

Effortlessy combining discussions of traditional subjects with those on more innovative subject areas, this book is an exciting exposition of Caribbean law and legal systems for those studying comparative law.

This book addresses historical issues of colonialism and race, which influenced the formation of multicultural society in Mauritius. During the 19th century, Mauritius was Britain's prime sugar-producing colony, yet, unlike the West Indies, its history has remained significantly under-researched. The modern demographic of multi-ethnic Mauritius is unusual as, in the absence of an indigenous people, descendants of colonists, slaves and indentured labourers constitute the majority of the island's population today. Thus, it may be said that the Mauritian nation was "assembled" during the period in question. This work draws on an in-depth examination of the two labour systems through which the island came to be populated: slavery and indenture. In studying the relevant laws, four legal events of historical importance within the context of these two labour systems are identified: the abolition of the slave trade, the abolition of slavery, private indentured labour migration and state-regulated indenture. This book is notable in that it presents a legal analysis of core historical events, thus straddling the line between two disciplines, and covers both slavery and indentured labour in Mauritian history. Mauritius, as an originally uninhabited island, presents a rare case study for inquiries into colonial legacies, multiculturalism and race consciousness. The book will be a valuable resource to scholars worldwide in the fields of slavery, indenture and the legal apparatus of forced labour.

Wealth can be transferred on death in a number of different ways, most commonly by will. Yet a person can also use a variety of other means to benefit someone on death. Examples include donationes mortis causa, joint tenancies, trusts, life-insurance contracts and nominations in pension and retirement plans. In the US, these modes of transfer are grouped under the category of 'will-substitutes' and are generally treated as testamentary dispositions. Much has been written about the effect of the use of will-substitutes in the US, but little is generally known about developments in other jurisdictions. For the first time, this collection of contributions looks at will-substitutes from a comparative perspective. It examines mechanisms that pass wealth on death across a number of common law, civil law and mixed legal jurisdictions, and explores the rationale behind their use. It analyses them from different viewpoints, including those of owners of businesses, investors, as well as creditors, family members and dependants. The aims of the volume are to show the complexity and dynamics of wealth transfers on death across jurisdictions, to identify patterns between jurisdictions, and to report the attitudes towards the different modes of transfer in light of their utility and the potential frictions they give rise to with policies and principles underpinning current laws.

This book explores the relationship between populism or populist regimes and constitutional interpretation used in those regimes. The volume discusses the question of whether contemporary populist governments and movements have developed, or encouraged new and specific constitutional theories, doctrines and methods of interpretation, or whether their constitutional and other high courts continue to use the old, traditional interpretative tools in constitutional adjudication. The book is divided into four parts. Part I contains three chapters elaborating the theoretical basis for the discussion. Part II examines the topic from a comparative perspective, representing those European countries where populism is most prevalent, including Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Part III extends the focus to the United States, reflecting how American jurisprudence and academia have produced the most important contributions to the theory of constitutional interpretation, and how recent political developments in that country might challenge the traditional understanding of judicial review. This section also includes a general overview on Latin America, where there are also some populist governments and strong populist movements. Finally, the editors' closing study analyses the outcomes of the comparative research, summarizing the conclusions of the book. Written by renowned national constitutional scholars, the book will be essential reading for students, academics and researchers working in Constitutional Law and Politics.

This book presents a range of insights on the relationship between food and law. Over time, religions have multiplied food prohibitions and prescriptions, customs have redistributed land, shared its occupancy in creative ways, or favoured communal property so that everyone could have access to food. In turn, laws have multiplied to facilitate food trade, security, safety, traceability, and also to promote and protect food and wine production, using trademarks and geographical denominations. This volume brings a comparative and interdisciplinary approach to examine some of the most heavily debated issues in the interaction between food, in all forms, and the law. Topics covered include food security, food safety, food quality, intellectual property, and consumer protection. As well as highlighting current issues, the work also points to new challenges in this field. The book will be a valuable resource for researchers and policy-makers working in the area of Food Law and Comparative Law.

This book reconsiders the use of food metaphors and the relationship between law and food in an interdisciplinary perspective to examine how food related topics can be used to describe or identify rules, norms, or prescriptions of all kinds. The links between law and food are as old as the concept of law. Many authors have been using such links in creative ways to express specific features of law. This is because the language of food and cooking offers legal thinkers and teachers mouth-watering metaphors, comparing rules to recipes, and their combination to culinary processes. This collection focuses on this relationship between law and food and takes us far beyond their mere interaction, to explore different ways of using these two apparently so diverse elements to describe different phenomena of the legal reality. The authors use the link between food and law to describe different aspects of the legal landscape in different areas and jurisdictions. Bringing together metaphors and indirect correlations between law and food, the book explores different models of approaching legal issues and considering different legal challenges from a completely new perspective, in line with the multidisciplinary approach that leads comparative legal studies today and, to a certain extent, revisiting and enriching it. With contributions in English and French, the book will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the areas of law and food, law and language, and comparative legal studies.

This book explores developments in international law regarding the relationship between human rights law and international humanitarian law and their coapplicability in armed conflict situations. The work examines the jurisprudence of the international human rights courts and looks at the Inter-American and European Courts of Human Rights case law in dealing with new emergencies in armed conflicts. It argues that a new interpretation and application of the law is required to deal with current needs while remaining faithful to moral commitments made in the international arena. In this way, the book deals with recent cases and their rationale to build a new understanding of law and international policy that complies with the globalization process and progress towards an enhancement of the international community's legal framework. Combining the emergencies in armed conflicts with the mutual enforcement of human rights law and humanitarian law, this book holistically develops concepts and theories to present a pragmatic solution to moral quandaries over the targeting of civilians during armed conflict situations. The book will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers and policy-makers in the areas of international human rights and international humanitarian law.

This collection adopts a distinctive method and structure to introduce the work of Italian constitutional law scholars into the Anglophone dialogue while also bringing a number of prominent non-Italian constitutional law scholars to study and write about constitutional justice in a global context. The work presents six distinct areas of particular interest from a comparative constitutional perspective: first, the role of legal scholarship in the work of constitutional courts; second, structures and processes that contribute to more "open" or "closed" styles of constitutional adjudication; third, pros and cons of collegiality in the work of constitutional courts; fourth, forms of access by individuals to constitutional justice; fifth, methods of constitutional interpretation; and sixth, the relationship between national constitutional adjudication and the transnational context. In each of these six areas, the volume sets up a new and genuine constitutional dialogue between an Italian scholar presenting a discussion and critical assessment of the specific topic, and a non-Italian scholar who responds elaborating the issue as seen from constitutional law beyond the Italian system. The resulting six such dialogues thus provide a dynamic, in-depth, multidimensional, national and transnational/comparative examination of these areas in which the `Italian style' of constitutional adjudication has a distinctive contribution to make to comparative constitutional law in general. Fostering a deeper knowledge of the Italian Constitutional Court within the comparative global space and advancing a creative and fruitful methodological approach, the book will be fascinating reading for academics and researchers in comparative constitutional law.

Thirty years after the adoption of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, this book provides diverse perspectives from countries and regions across the globe on its implementation, critique and potential for reform. The book revolves around key issues including progress in implementing the CRC worldwide; how to include children in legal proceedings; how to uphold children's various civil rights; how to best assist children at risk; and discussions surrounding children's identity rights in a changing familial order. Discussion of the CRC is both compelling and polarizing and the book portrays the enthusiasm around these topics through contrasting and comparative opinions on a range of topics. The work provides varying perspectives from many different countries and regions, offering a wealth of insight on topics that will be of significant interest to scholars and practitioners working in the areas of children's rights and justice.

This book offers a multi-discursive analysis of the constitutional foundations for peaceful coexistence, the constitutional background for discontent and the impact of discontent, and the consequences of conflict and revolution on the constitutional order of a democratic society which may lead to its implosion. The volume provides the reader with a multi-discursive analysis of the constitutional foundations of peace, discontent and revolution. It explores the capacity of the constitutional order to serve as a reliable framework for peaceful co-existence while allowing for reasonable and legitimate discontent. It outlines the main factors contributing to rising pressure on constitutional order which may produce an implosion of constitutionalism and constitutional democracy as we have come to know it. The collection presents a wide range of views on the ongoing implosion of the liberal-democratic constitutional consensus which predetermined the constitutional axiology, the institutional design, the constitutional mythology and the functioning of the constitutional orders since the last decades of the 20th century. The constitutional perspective is supplemented with perspectives from financial, EU, labour and social security law, administrative law, migration and religious law. Liberal viewpoints encounter radical democratic and critical legal viewpoints. The work thus allows for a plurality of viewpoints, theoretical preferences and thematic discourses offering a pluralist scientific account of the key challenges to peaceful coexistence within the current constitutional framework. The book provides a valuable resource for academics, researchers and policy-makers working in the areas of constitutional law and politics.

Though recently improved, Chinese legislation on environmental permits is still weak and urgent measures are needed to help the country in moving towards an effective permitting system. This book examines this legislation gap and presents a contribution to solving China's pollution problems. By analysing the deficiencies of current Chinese provisions on permitting in light of EU legislation, and its Italian application, the book determines which permitting legislative structure and approach China should embrace in practice in order to build more comprehensive legislation on emission permitting. It is argued that a set of ad hoc legislative measures should be implemented so as to strengthen China's environmental protection and efficiently tackle pollution. The book will be a valuable resource for researchers, academics and policy-makers working in the areas of international environmental law and comparative law.

This collection brings together a carefully curated selection of researchers from law, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, history, social ontology and international relations, in order to examine how law and custom interact within specific material and spatial contexts. Normativity develops within these contexts, while also shaping them. This complex relationship exists within all physical places from traditional agrarian spaces to the modern shifting post-industrial workplace. The contributions gathered together in this volume explore numerous examples of such spaces from different disciplinary perspectives to interrogate the dynamic relationship between custom and law, and the material spaces they inhabit. While there are a dynamic series of conclusions regarding this relationship in different material realities, a common theme is pursued throughout: a proper understanding of law and custom stems from their material locatedness within the power dynamics of particular spaces, which, in turn, are reflexively shaped by that same normativity. The book thus generates an account of the locatedness of law and custom, and, indeed, of custom as a source of law. In this way, it provides a series of linked explorations of normative spaces, but, more fundamentally, it also furnishes a cross-disciplinary toolkit of concepts and critical tools for understanding law and custom, and their relationship. As the diversity of the contributors indicates, this book will be of great interest to legal theorists of different traditions, also legal historians and anthropologists, as well as sociologists, historians, geographers and developmental economists.

This book takes an innovative approach to provide a mirror perspective of the legal systems of the UK and the EU in contemporary institutional scenarios. At the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, the legal systems of the EU and the UK are facing challenges of epic proportions. Never before have the two legal orders been confronted with the simultaneous impact of a series of events. First, the effect of the "divorce" between the two regulatory systems caused by the UK's withdrawal from the EU. The Negotiating Documents and the Draft Texts being discussed and aimed at leading to a `New Partnership' are examined in the book. Second, the book discusses the impact of the coronavirus shock in all European economies leading to a substantial change of political perspective in the EU legal order implying innovative debt instruments. Third, it explores the consequences of the judicial activism of the German Constitutional Court undermining the strategic role of the European Central Bank and the primacy of the European Union Court of Justice. The book questions the effects deriving from the legacy, i.e. the foundations of the two legal systems, on handling the issues of our time, the impact on market regulation of the striking contemporary events and the unsettled consequences on policy of the current convulsing political and financial landscape. The book will be essential reading for those working in the areas of European public regulatory law.

Currently, some 2,500 civilian experts work across Europe, Africa, and Asia in ten ongoing civilian missions launched under the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Mandates cover a broad range of multidimensional tasks, such as rule of law support, law enforcement capacity building, or security sector reform. Numerous (recent) incidents from the field underscore that there are serious institutional as well as procedural weaknesses and irregularities tied to accountability in these EU peacebuilding missions. This title offers a comprehensive legal analysis and empirical study of accountability concerning the Union's peacebuilding endeavours, also referred to as civilian crisis management. Along with examining the governance credentials of EU peacebuilding, the monograph thoroughly scrutinizes de jure and de facto accountability arrangements of political, legal, and administrative nature existing in the domestic sphere, at EU level, and across levels. With a view to providing for a nuanced picture, the assessment further distinguishes between different accountability finalities and evaluates the appropriateness of existing accountability arrangements in civilian crisis management based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative criteria.

This book analyses the governance foundations of innovation, brands, inventions, secrets and expression, which are the keys to a century based on knowledge. They are reflected in legal rights that have been fermenting over centuries of national policy deliberations on intellectual property rights, constantly in flux in the face of new advances in science, but overall a trend towards greater protectionism. As countries are challenged by the strictures of international agreements, often extorted through imbalanced power relationships, they seek their own national means for beneficial differentiation from the new global norms, whilst complying with international obligations. This book deals with the outcomes of regional governance of intellectual property, which often creates ripples in the search for harmony in the laws that form the basis for the future of intellectual property. The work has contributions that come from developing and developed nations, showing a common theme of the struggle to find the balance in an area of law that often does not provide clearcut solutions to real world environments. There are many intellectual property struggles illustrated in this work: patent at the boundaries of nature and invention, the need for drug development, which is driven by profit based on the patent monopoly; copyright, the expression of original thought, seeking to maximise exposure facilitated by the internet, but a system that facilitates rampant copying; trade marks, supporting company branding, seeks to exploit global branding through naming domains names; and other areas concomitant to the globalisation of intellectual property governance, such as foreign direct investment. This book holds up a mirror to the issues of world governance of intellectual property rights in this century, asking whether the direction we are currently following is in the best interest of global citizens, and showing the divergence that constraints are stimulating on a national level.