The Role of Courts in Contemporary Legal Orders aims to address the rising importance of courts in contemporary legal orders. It explores the role of courts on national, international, supranational and global level. The book provides for a multi-discursive analysis - theoretical and comparative, exemplified with case-studies. This book is a timely and topical analysis of pressing issues related to the enhanced role of courts in politics and the increased impact of politics on courts. It explores fundamental issues such as the legitimacy of courts, judicial activism, theory and philosophy of judicial decision-making, and the impact of politics, ethics, logic and technology on legal argumentation. It provides an analysis of the role of courts in supranational and global constitutionalism. Furthermore, the role of constitutional courts, administrative courts and criminal courts as well as the most important international and supranational courts is critically assessed. Special attention is devoted to the role of courts in the context of democratic backsliding, illiberal democracies and populist constitutionalism. Key issues related to the impact of courts on environmental and human rights' protection are also addressed. The book finishes with the provocative chapter on the alternatives to courts.

The book explores the WIPO journey so far and looks at how relevant the treaties are in contemporary world after 25 years of their existence. It revisits the WIPO Diplomatic Conference, narrates briefly how the Internet Treaties came into being, describes all the developments germane to the Internet Treaties over the last twenty-five years and examines at length how well these treaties withstood the creative gales of destruction having a bearing on the production, distribution and consumption of digital content. The retrospective consists of two parts. The first part looks back at the conference, its course of events, its negotiation dynamics, the doctrinal differences and sharply conflicting economic interests underlying the stands taken by the main parties to negotiations and the national and transnational interest groups that sought to influence the negotiation process and outcomes. The second part reflects on the outcomes and assesses with the wisdom of hindsight, how appropriate the outcomes were and how well they withstood the passage of time. This second aspect is the main focus of this book. The retrospective is limited to the digital agenda of DipCon; but for the digital agenda, the DipCon is convened so soon and the Internet Treaties concluded so fast. The book provides rich material for researchers studying the WIPO journey and also the practitioners by throwing light on discussions that led to a treaty that has in general withstood the trials of time.

This book argues that Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., helps us see the law through an Emersonian lens by the way in which he wrote his judicial dissents. Holmes's literary style mimics and enacts two characteristics of Ralph Waldo Emerson's thought: "superfluity" and the "poetics of transition," concepts ascribed to Emerson and developed by literary critic Richard Poirier. Using this aesthetic style borrowed from Emerson and carried out by later pragmatists, Holmes not only made it more likely that his dissents would remain alive for future judges or justices (because how they were written was itself memorable, whatever the value of their content), but also shaped our understanding of dissents and, in this, our understanding of law. By opening constitutional precedent to potential change, Holmes's dissents made room for future thought, moving our understanding of legal concepts in a more pragmatic direction and away from formalistic understandings of law. Included in this new understanding is the idea that the "canon" of judicial cases involves oppositional positions that must be sustained if the law is to serve pragmatic purposes. This process of precedent-making in a common-law system resembles the construction of the literary canon as it is conceived by Harold Bloom and Richard Posner.

This unique reference offers a discussion of the social and legal history behind the ongoing evolution versus creationism controversy. Evolution in the Courtroom: A Reference Guide chronicles the legal history of the evolution/creation debate sparked by Charles Darwin's publication On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859. The first seven chapters provide a detailed historical overview of the debate, reviewing all of the major court cases with particular emphasis on the infamous Scopes "Monkey Trial" which pitted fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan against ACLU defense attorney Clarence Darrow, and became the standard to which all subsequent evolution trails have been compared. Ensuing discussions of the rise and fall of creationism as a science and the failure of "balanced treatment" in public schools culminate in a summary of skirmishes over the last decade. Profiles of scientists, politicians, clergy, and other influential people from Galileo to Frank White, the Arkansas governor who signed the equal time law without ever reading it, reveal fascinating facts and perspectives on both sides of the controversy. Detailed chronology of the history of the debate from Aristotle in 310 B.C. to the U.S. Senate's adoption of "Sense of the Senate" in June 2002 Biographies of 172 key individuals on both sides of the controversy, including Leona Wilson, who initiated the first lawsuit by creationists An edited collection of the eight principal court decisions, including Mclean v. Arkansas and Segraves v. State of California Photographs and illustrations of influential people like Herbert Spencer, who coined the terms "evolution" and "survival of the fittest"

Combines academic rigour with case studies and activities designed to aid learning Suitable for courses both in the UK and internationally, and it uses international examples

Lawyer, judge, banker, classics professor, and councilman, Thomas Mellon greatly influenced the fortunes of his hometown, Pittsburgh, throughout the nineteenth century. In the process, he became one of the city's most important business leaders, and he laid the foundation for a family that would contribute considerably to the city's growth and welfare for much of the next hundred years, becoming one of the world's most recognizable names in industry, innovation, and philanthropy. Through his in-depth examination of the extensive Mellon family archives, in "The Judge "James Mellon--a direct descendent of Thomas Mellon--has fashioned an incisive portrait of the elder Mellon that presents the man in full. Offering a singular and insightful characterization of the Scotch-Irish value system that governed the patriarch's work and life, James Mellon captures the judge's complexities and contradictions, revealing him as a truly human figure.

Among the recent biographies of Pittsburgh's famous businessmen, "The Judge" stands apart from the pack because of the author's unique perspective and his objective and scholarly approach to his subject.

Access to European Union not only provides a comprehensive overview of European integration but also offers a fresh insight with each revised edition. Thanks to its clear and systematic approach, this book guides the reader through the maze of European Union policies. It throws light upon the European institutions, their raison d'etre, their objectives and their experience, and explains EU measures, legal provisions and economic programmes. The book contains over 3000 references to the Official Journal of the European Communities and more than 500 bibliographic references, selected by topic so as to help the reader deepen the study of the subjects of his or her interest.

This book is a unique compilation of comprehensive works covering the potentials, challenges, and realities of geographical indications from an Indian perspective. The book encompasses critical studies on legal, regulatory, and institutional frameworks and debates surrounding geographical indications. The concept of geographical indication has not received paramount importance in India compared to the other forms of intellectual property rights like patents and trademarks, while GI is becoming critical in national and international discourses. It aims at presenting both national and international situations and discussions, which will appeal to readers worldwide. This book in its first part elaborately deals with the genesis of the GI Act, and then it goes on to analyze both substantive as well as procedural aspects of the registration under the Indian GI Act and tries to identify the discrepancy and gaps in the laws. Also, a comparative perspective has been built by analyzing the GI laws and regulations of some developed countries with that of India. The challenges in existing regulation for quality control and enforcement of GI products in the Indian GI Act have been dealt comprehensively by the authors which are critical in achieving the stated objectives of the Act. The book also focuses on the role of geographical indication in the socio-economic development of rural India. The authors have illustrated how the GI can act as an effective mechanism for employment generation and sustainable growth opportunities in different sectors like agriculture, food, and handicraft. The interaction of GI with traditional knowledge and biodiversity and their impact on society is also extensively covered. The book contains real-life case studies by the authors from different states of India highlighting the success stories and missed opportunities of different GIs and the way forward where the GI can function as an effective tool for the overall development of a country and promote international trade. The book will provide law students, scholars from legal and IP disciplines, legal practitioners, producers, and policymakers a factual and multidimensional insight into the GI system in India. This will further promote research in this area, particularly from an Asian perspective and enhance the real-life application of GI to varied products.

A distinguished group of noted criminal justice specialists here examines the impact of the new U.S. sentencing guidelines, imposed in 1987, on law enforcement, the prosecution and courts, and corrections. Although these guidelines were created with the expressed purpose of increasing judicial fairness and reducing prison overcrowding, the contributors argue that their long range effects will be to aggravate present overcrowding problems to intolerably high levels. To make their case, contributors address individually such issues as plea bargaining, the new role of parole and corrections officers, the likely effects of the scheduled abolition of the parole board in 1992, and more. Both students of criminal justice and practicing parole and corrections officers will find these chapters enlightening reading.

Following an introductory overview that puts the U.S. sentencing guidelines in perspective, two chapters discuss their impact on law enforcement, officer discretion, and crime control and deterrence. Turning to an exploration of the courts, the contributors address prosecutorial discretion in plea bargaining, judicial discretion and sentencing disparities, case processing and sentencing alternatives, and how predictions of dangerousness affect the sentencing process. In their analysis of the relationship between the sentencing guidelines and corrections trends, the contributors examine issues such as community-based corrections and privatization, inmate litigation and constitutional issues, and recidivism. Finally, editor Dean Champion offers a perceptive synthesis of the volume by summarizing the serious problems posed by imposition of the U.S. sentencing guidelines. Four appendices provide additional related information for the student and researcher.

Series Information:
Routledge Research in Gender and Society

Communities are finding that the excess of low-level crime, such as soliciting prostitution, is affecting quality of life. New York City created The Midtown Community Court to combat these problems in an efficient and reasonable manner and to address the concerns and needs of citizens outside of the traditional court system. The Midtown Community Court is a pilot project implemented in New York by the National Center for Courts, the Center for Court Innovation, and John Jay College of Criminal Justice to identify how the court system could resolve many of the problems that plagued the Midtown community. This book shows the significant impact and success that can be accomplished when courts are designed to meet the needs of the community regardless of traditional proceedings. The presentation of this unique approach marks the way for courts and ancillary justice agencies of all sizes to work together to build community confidence and assure not only quality of life but quality of justice.

In a world governed by speed, where the Internet plays a growing role in many of today's innovations, the resolution of disputes using electronic means of communication may soon be part of everyday legal practice. This book offers solutions to the salient issues of this new field of practice, and even spells out proposed legislative and conventional amendments as well as specific provisions in arbitration rules. Among the topics covered are the following:
- the different methods of ODR;
- fields of use;
- ways to bring parties to online dispute resolution;
- validity and effects of clauses entered into online and providing for online mediation or arbitration;
- issues surrounding electronic communications and evidence in arbitration; and,
- enforcement of online dispute resolution outcomes, both through court proceedings and built-in enforcement mechanisms.

A great resource both for new law students and for more established law students looking to develop their skills; The new author team have thoroughly revised the book, with a streamlined structure, new 'how to use this book' section and glossary of terms, and a host of additional tables, flowcharts, figures, charts, screenshots, outline boxes and online source links.

- Provides new Law students with a step-by-step guide to answering a key form of assessment. - Accessibly written so will suit both domestic and international students studying Law for the first time. - Includes extensive pedagogical assistance with tasks to reinforce learning at each step in the process.

The burgeoning of court litigation and the resulting logjams in the judicial system have spawned new ways for attorneys and their clients to resolve disputes quickly and at a lower cost. Alternative dispute resolution is one important way of doing this. Editors Nagel and Mills, along with their contributors, explore the theory and practice of this technique. They demonstrate how to clarify, understand and develop the various options available under alternative dispute resolution, and how to evaluate the probable outcomes. Among the tools available to facilitate dispute resolution are microcomputer-based, rule-based expert systems and, for specific fields of dispute, decision-aiding software.

The editors delineate several ways in which participants in a dispute win or lose. The most desirable are the super-optimum solutions in which all sides come out ahead of their best expectations. They point out that win-win solutions are not as desirable as would seem at first glance since parties only come out ahead relative to their worst expectations. Subject matter for resolution methods include disputes involving family members, neighborhoods, merchants-consumer, management-labor, legislation and foreign countries. Scholars, lawyers and policy-makers will find this book a valuable resource.

A valuable new reference work for students of the Spanish Empire, this dictionary presents biographies of the 172 men who served on the Council of the Indies--the supreme judicial tribunal for Spain's colonial empire--from the time of Philip V's reforms in 1717 to the French invasion in 1808. Based on the extensive documentation contained in Spanish archives and on various secondary sources, it offers a wealth of historical detail on a period that is important both to Spanish history and to the development of the New World.

An exploration of how and why the Constitution's plan for independent courts has failed to protect individuals' constitutional rights, while advancing regressive and reactionary barriers to progressive regulation. Just recently, the Supreme Court rejected an argument by plaintiffs that police officers should no longer be protected by the doctrine of "qualified immunity" when they shoot or brutalize an innocent civilian. "Qualified immunity" is but one of several judicial inventions that shields state violence and thwarts the vindication of our rights. But aren't courts supposed to be protectors of individual rights? As Aziz Huq shows in The Collapse of Constitutional Remedies, history reveals a much more tangled relationship between the Constitution's system of independent courts and the protection of constitutional rights. While doctrines such as "qualified immunity" may seem abstract, their real-world harms are anything but. A highway patrol officer stops a person's car in violation of the Fourth Amendment, violently yanked the person out and threw him to the ground, causing brain damage. A municipal agency fires a person for testifying in a legal proceeding involving her boss's family-and then laughed in her face when she demanded her job back. In all these cases, state defendants walked away with the most minor of penalties (if any at all). Ultimately, we may have rights when challenging the state, but no remedies. In fact, federal courts have long been fickle and unreliable guardians of individual rights. To be sure, through the mid-twentieth century, the courts positioned themselves as the ultimate protector of citizens suffering the state's infringement of their rights. But they have more recently abandoned, and even aggressively repudiated, a role as the protector of individual rights in the face of abuses by the state. Ironically, this collapse highlights the position that the Framers took when setting up federal courts in the first place. A powerful historical account of the how the expansion of the immunity principle generated yawning gap between rights and remedies in contemporary America, The Collapse of Constitutional Remedies will reshape our understanding of why it has become so difficult to effectively challenge crimes committed by the state.

This book is about law, but it is not a law book. It is aimed at all interested contemporaries, lawyers and non-lawyers alike. Richly seasoned with personal memories and anecdotes, it offers unique insights into how European courts actually work. It is generally assumed that independence is part and parcel of the role and function of a judge. Nevertheless, European judges sometimes face difficulties in this regard. Owing to their being nominated by a government, their limited term of appointment, and the possibility of being reappointed or not, their judicial independence can be jeopardized. Certain governments have a track record of choosing candidates who they believe they can keep on a leash. When this happens, private parties are at risk of losing out. The EFTA Court is under even more pressure, since the EEA/EFTA states Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway essentially constitute a pond with one big fish (Norway) and two minnows. For quite some time now, certain Norwegian protagonists have sought to effectively transform the EEA into a bilateral agreement with the EU. This attitude has led to political implications that have affected the author himself. The independence of the EFTA Court is also endangered by the fact that it operates alongside a large sister court, the Court of Justice of the European Union. And yet the EFTA Court has established its own line of jurisprudence and its own judicial style. It has remained faithful to specific EFTA values, such as the belief in free trade and open markets, efficiency, and a modern view of mankind. During the first 24 years of its existence, it has even had an over-proportionate influence on ECJ case law. Since EEA Single Market law is economic law, the importance of economics, an often-overlooked aspect, is also addressed. In closing, the book explores Switzerland's complicated relationship with, and Britain's impending departure from, the EU. In this regard, it argues that the EFTA pillar should be expanded into a second European structure under British leadership and with Swiss participation.

This comprehensive publication analyzes numerous aspects of the relationship between judicature and the fair trial principle in a comparative perspective. In addition, it examines the manifestation of some of the most significant elements inherent to the fair trial concept in different legal systems. Along with expansion of judicial power during the past century and with the strengthening of judicial independence, the fair trial requirement has appeared more often, especially in different international agreements and national constitutions, as the summarizing principle of what were formerly constitutional principles pertaining to judicature. Despite its generality and supranational application, the methods of interpreting this clause vary significantly among particular legal systems. This book assumes that the substantive content of this term conveys relevance to the organizational independence of judicial power, the selection of judges, and the mutual relationship between the branches of power. The comparative studies included in this collection offer readers a widespread understanding of the aforementioned correlations and will ultimately contribute to their mastery of the concept of fair trial.

How do ordinary people access justice? This book offers a novel socio-legal approach to access to justice, alternative dispute resolution, vulnerability and energy poverty. It poses an access to justice challenge and rethinks it through a lens that accommodates all affected people, especially those who are currently falling through the system. It raises broader questions about alternative dispute resolution, the need for reform to include more collective approaches, a stronger recognition of the needs of vulnerable people, and a stronger emphasis on delivering social justice. The authors use energy poverty as a site of vulnerability and examine the barriers to justice facing this excluded group. The book assembles the findings of an interdisciplinary research project studying access to justice and its barriers in the UK, Italy, France, Bulgaria and Spain (Catalonia). In-depth interviews with regulators, ombuds, energy companies, third-sector organisations and vulnerable people provide a rich dataset through which to understand the phenomenon. The book provides theoretical and empirical insights which shed new light on these issues and sets out new directions of inquiry for research, policy and practice. It will be of interest to researchers, students and policymakers working on access to justice, consumer vulnerability, energy poverty, and the complex intersection between these fields. The book includes contributions by Cosmo Graham (UK), Sarah Supino and Benedetta Voltaggio (Italy), Marine Cornelis (France), Anais Varo and Enric Bartlett (Catalonia) and Teodora Peneva (Bulgaria).

This book explores the shortcomings of the criminal justice system's response to sexual violence. Despite a plethora of legal and policy reforms, concerns remain regarding the conviction rates for rape and the extent to which cases fall out of the system. Ample research has highlighted the ongoing impact of 'rape myths' and the presence of an 'implementation gap' whereby policies, provisions and measures - proposed in order to improve the system's response - are frequently not brought into practice, nor utilised as expected. Rape and the Criminal Trial proposes a move beyond representational theory and towards New Materialism and affects, a school of thought which emphasises the importance of embodiment and the ontological intensive regime as necessary in order to generate radical new approaches for understanding this problematic status quo, and in order to move forward to the production of more effective solutions.

Against the background of Lord Woolf's interim report "Access to Justice", this text includes accounts of tactical matters and practical litigation "tips", as well as descriptions of the procedures involved. Litigation is often conducted by companies who do not have much practical experience of the processes that might be expected of them. The same applies to others who become involved in litigation without actually having to conduct the procudure as lawyers. This book is intended to give a brief, clear and comprehensive overview of litigation, arbitration and ADR in England. Intended as a comprehensive overview of litigation, arbitration and ADR in England, this guide is aimed at clients and firms who are involved in, or assist cases, who would like to understand the process better in a non-technical way but do not want to see every statement supported by authority.

A comprehensive review of the practical implications of the numerous recent cases on swaps and derivatives.

A fresh and provocative perspective on the judicial process and the transmission of ideas into law. Professors McIntosh and Cates demonstrate, through the actions and writings of such diverse jurists as Louis Brandeis, Sandra Day O'Connor, Jerome Frank, and Hans Linde, how judges' pet intellectual projects become the fodder for new ideas in the law.

Through a series of case studies, Professors McIntosh and Cates argue for the assessment of judicial activity from a fresh perspective. They focus on the appellate system and those judges who help to move the law-i.e., entrepreneurs. Appeals court judges are in a unique position in that they are presented with real opportunities to influence the shape and meaning of law.

Jurists have special interests, some areas of the law that particularly attract them. When questions arise in these fields, jurists are likely to seize the moment, allowing them to express their expertise and be creative. This is not only a natural course for highly motivated individuals, but also a mode of operation that is important to the development of our law. Through an examination of the actions and writings of such diverse jurists as Louis Brandeis, Sandra Day O'Connor, Jerome Frank, and Hans Linde, the authors explore this concept of entrepreneurship, in which judges take on and promote their pet projects. Of great interest to scholars and researchers in political science and law, and those concerned with judicial process and behavior, and court policymaking.