The West's cherished dream of social harmony by numbers is today disrupting all our familiar legal frameworks - the state, democracy and law itself. Its scientistic vision shaped both Taylorism and Soviet Planning, and today, with 'globalisation', it is flourishing in the form of governance by numbers. Shunning the goal of governing by just laws, and empowered by the information and communication technologies, governance champions a new normative ideal of attaining measurable objectives. Programmes supplant legislation, and governance displaces government. However, management by objectives revives forms of law typical of economic vassalage. When a person is no longer protected by a law applying equally to all, the only solution is to pledge allegiance to someone stronger than oneself. Rule by law had already secured the principle of impersonal power, but in taking this principle to extremes, governance by numbers has paradoxically spawned a world ruled by ties of allegiance.

A series of laws passed in the 1970s promised the nation unprecedented transparency in government, a veritable "sunshine era." Though citizens enjoyed a new arsenal of secrecy-busting tools, officials developed a handy set of workarounds, from over classification to concealment, shredding, and burning. It is this dark side of the sunshine era that Jason Ross Arnold explores in the first comprehensive, comparative history of presidential resistance to the new legal regime, from Reagan-Bush to the first term of Obama-Biden.

After examining what makes a necessary and unnecessary secret, Arnold considers the causes of excessive secrecy, and why we observe variation across administrations. While some administrations deserve the scorn of critics for exceptional secrecy, the book shows excessive secrecy was a persistent problem well before 9/11, during Democratic and Republican administrations alike. Regardless of party, administrations have consistently worked to weaken the system's legal foundations.

The book reveals episode after episode of evasive maneuvers, rule bending, clever rhetorical gambits, and downright defiance; an army of secrecy workers in a dizzying array of institutions labels all manner of documents "top secret," while other government workers and agencies manage to suppress information with a "sensitive but unclassified" designation. For example, the health effects of Agent Orange, and antibiotic-resistant bacteria leaking out of Midwestern hog farms are considered too "sensitive" for public consumption. These examples and many more document how vast the secrecy system has grown during the sunshine era.

Rife with stories of vital scientific evidence withheld, justice eluded, legalities circumvented, and the public interest flouted, "Secrecy in the Sunshine Era" reveals how our information society has been kept in the dark in too many ways and for too long.

Title 14 presents regulations governing the activities of the Department of Transportation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the areas of aeronautics and space, including: aircraft, airmen, airspace, air traffic, certification of air carriers and operations, and airports. Additions and revisions to this section of the code are posted annually by January. Publication follows within six months.

A systematic and scholarly description of the principles of the Roman law regarding slavery. "So great is the care, skill, and accuracy with which his object has been carried out, we think it will be long before any other writer, either at home or abroad attempts to produce a rival work on this branch of law" (Marke 126). With appendices and a through index.

This book covers several areas of economic theory and political philosophy from the perspective of Austrian Economics and libertarianism. As such, it deals with Epistemology and Methodology, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Labor Economics, International Economics, Political Philosophy, Law and Public Policy, all from the Austro-libertarian perspective. Hence, this book offers an integrated view of libertarianism and Austrian economics in the light of recent debates in the areas of economic science and political philosophy. Moreover, it builds from the foundations of the Austrian approach (epistemology and methodology), while the latter material deals with its application to the individual from the microeconomic perspective, which in turn allows an exploration of subjects in macroeconomics. Additionally, this work applies Austro-libertarianism to law, politics, and public policy. Thus, it offers a unified view of the entire approach, in a logical progression, allowing the readers to judge this perspective in full. Futerman and Block say that their book is not a manual, which I suppose it is not. But it is a collection of highly pertinent essays, from which you can understand what is mistaken in the orthodoxy of economics, law, and politics. The central term of art in Austrian economics is that phrase "human action." It is the exercise of human will, not the blind bumping of one molecule against another or one organism against another, as in the physical sciences... Futerman and Block distinguish Austrian economics as a scientific enterprise based on liberty of the will from "libertarianism" as an advocacy based on policies implied by such liberty. "Although Austrian economics is positive and libertarianism is normative," they write, "this book shows how both are related; how each can support the other." Indeed they do. Deirdre N. McCloskey, PhD UIC Distinguished Professor of Economics and of History Emerita, Professor of English Emerita, Professor of Communication Emerita, University of Illinois at Chicago

Good Administration and the Council of Europe: Law, Principles, and Effectiveness examines the existence and effectiveness of written and unwritten standards of good administration developed within the framework of the Council of Europe (CoE) and in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. These standards - called 'pan- European general principles of good administration' - cover the entire range of general organizational, procedural, and substantive legal institutions meant to ensure a democratically legitimized, open, and transparent administration respecting the rule of law. They are about the 'limiting function' of administrative law: its function to protect individuals from arbitrary power, to legitimize administrative action, and to combat corruption. This book analyses the sources and functions of the pan-European general principles of good administration and seeks to uncover how deeply they are rooted in the domestic legal systems of the CoE Member States. It comprises 28 country reports dedicated to an in-depth exploration of the impact of these standards on the national legal systems of the Member States written by respective experts on these systems. It argues that the pan-European general principles of good administration lead to a certain harmonization of the legal orders of the Member States with regard to the limiting function of administrative law despite the many fundamental differences between their administrative and legal systems. It comes to the further conclusion that the pan-European general principles of good administration can be considered as a concretization of the founding values of the CoE and describes the 'administrative law obligations' a Member State entered into when joining the CoE.

Many of Carl Schmitt's major works have by now been translated, with two notable exceptions: Schmitt's two early monographs Statute and Judgment (first published in 1912) and The Value of the State and the Significance of the Individual (first published in 1914). In these two works Schmitt presents a theory of adjudication as well as an account of the state's role in the realization of the rule of law, which together form the theoretical basis on which Schmitt later developed his political and constitutional theory. This new book makes these two key texts available in English translation for the first time, together with an introduction that relates the texts to their historical context, to Schmitt's other works, and to contemporary discussions in legal and constitutional theory.

"The Lisbon Treaty states that national Parliaments shall contribute to a better functioning of the EU. Can they really do it and therefore enrich the European democracy? How far can they extend their original sovereignty without distorting political responsibilities that should be geared upon the European Parliament? The authors analyze the experience of the Italian Parliament under the light of these crucial questions and their exhaustive answers are greatly helpful to the readers of all over Europe." Giuliano Amato, Judge of the Italian Constitutional Court. This important new collection explores the role of the Italian Parliament in the Euro-national parliamentary system as an example of an increased role for national parliaments within the composite European constitutional order. It illustrates how parliamentary interactions within the European Union are highly systematic, with integrated procedures and mutual interdependence between the various institutions and stakeholders. The book argues that this dynamic is vital for both the functioning and the future equilibrium of democracy in the EU. This is significant, particularly given the challenges posed to democracy within the EU institutions and the Member States. Notwithstanding its peculiarities (a symmetrical bicameral system in which both Houses are directly elected, hold the same powers and are linked through a confidence relationship with the government), the Italian Parliament deserves specific attention as a lively active player of the European polity. The grid for its analysis proposed by this collection may also be applied to other national parliaments, so contributing to the development of comparative research in this field.

This book provides unique insights into the practice of democratic constitutionalism in one of the world's most legally and politically significant regions. It combines contributions from leading Latin American and global scholars to provide 'bottom up' and 'top down' insights about the lessons to be drawn from the distinctive constitutional experiences of countries in Latin America. In doing so, it also draws on a rich array of legal and interdisciplinary perspectives. Ultimately, it shows both the promise of democratic constitutions as a vehicle for social, economic and political change, and the variation in the actual constitutional experiences of different countries on the ground - or the limits to constitutions as a locus for broader social change. This book presents new perspectives on recurrent topics and debates that enrich comparative constitutional law in other regions of the world, both in the Global South and the Global North. The fine-tuned, in-depth approach of the contributors brings rigorous scholarship to this institutionally diverse and significant region, illuminating the under-explored relationship between constitutionalism, politics, ideology and leadership. This unique and challenging study will prove to be an indispensable tool, not only for academics interested in Latin America but for comparative constitutional law scholars across the globe. Contributors include: C. Bernal, J.l. Colon-Rios, J. Couso, R. Dixon, Z. Elkins, H.A. Garcia, R. Gargarella, T. Ginsburg, A. Huneeus, D. Landau, J. Lemaitre, L. Lixinski, G.L. Negretto, R.A. Sanchez-Urribarri, M. Tushnet, O. Vilhena Vieira

The last couple of years have witnessed an unprecedented battle within Europe between values and pragmatism, and between states' interests and individuals' rights. This book examines humanitarian considerations and immigration control from two perspectives; one broader and more philosophical, the other more practical. The impetus to show compassion for certain categories of persons with vulnerabilities can depend on religious, philosophical and political thought. Manifestation of this compassion can vary from the notion of a charitable act to aid 'the wretched' in their home country, to humanitarian assistance for the 'distant needy' in foreign lands and, finally, to immigration policies deciding who to admit or expel from the country. The domestic practice of humanitarian protection has increasingly drawn in transnational law through the expansion of the EU acquis on asylum, and the interpretation of the European Court of Human Rights.

To defend its citizens from harm, must the government have unfettered access to all information? Or, must personal privacy be defended at all costs from the encroachment of a surveillance state? And, doesn't the Constitution already protect us from such intrusions? When the topic of discussion is intelligence-gathering, privacy, or Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure, the result is usually more heat than light. Anthony Gregory challenges such simplifications, offering a nuanced history and analysis of these difficult issues. He highlights the complexity of the relationship between the gathering of intelligence for national security and countervailing efforts to safeguard individual privacy. The Fourth Amendment prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures offers no panacea, he finds, in combating assaults on privacy-whether by the NSA, the FBI, local police, or more mundane administrative agencies. Given the growth of technology, together with the ambiguities and practical problems of enforcing the Fourth Amendment, advocates for privacy protections need to work on multiple policy fronts.

This book presents a comprehensive review of fundamental rights issues that are currently in the spotlight. The first part explores why the question of whether or not fundamental rights have horizontal effect is a topic of endless debate. The second part focuses on human rights and the rule of law. It begins by arguing that the hitherto valid model of the rule of law is now outdated, and then goes on to outline the importance of the judicial dimension in countering threats to the independence of the judiciary. Lastly, the third part addresses a classic issue in the field of human rights: states' margin of appreciation, highlighting two aspects: (i) the elements used by the ECJ to determine the scope of the margin of appreciation, which varies depending on the subject matter, the nature of the right in question, as well as the severity and the purpose of the interference; and (ii) the margin of appreciation enjoyed by national courts when interpreting the law. Exploring current issues concerning a topic of eternal interest, the book will appeal to scholars and practitioners alike. Written by formidable intellectual talents, committed to the study of fundamental rights, it rigorously analyses the most recent judgments of both the ECJ and the ECHR.