The Ministry of Law in the Church Today provides practical guidance and rationale for the role of law in the Church for pastoral ministers who are accustomed to seeing canon law as a problem rather than a solution. This book will also appeal to laity who harbor a curiosity about the usefulness of Church law in everyday Christian life.

Moshe Koppel, an expert in the field of logic, draws on basic concepts of logic to analyze the dynamics and structure of Halakhah. the author poses age-old questions about the nature of Sinaitic revelation, as well as modern questions about the role of computers and the immutability of a law. Far from a dry philosophical work, this is a lively discussion about Halakhah that bears relevance on life today.

." . . a compelling historical account of natural rights. . . .That Tierney brings to his historical task a thorough acquaintance with major contemporary theories of moral and legal rights gives his work additional value for ethicists." - Religious Studies Review ." . . a tour de force of integration and learning. . . . It is a synthesis that will become the required starting point in all future efforts to write about the history of rights." - Studia canonica

As conflict resolution becomes increasingly important to urban and rural peoples around the globe, the value of this classic anthology of studies of process, structure, comparison, and perception of the law is acclaimed by policy makers as well as anthropologists throughout the world. The case studies include evidence from Africa, Europe, the Americas, and Oceania, and they reflect the important shift from a concern with what law is to what law does.

Gaius was a Roman jurist of the 2nd century AD. His Institutes is an important legal textbook covering all the elements of Roman law. This volume contains a useful Introduction, English translation and the Latin text of Seckel and Kuebler. Its aim is to make the Institutes, one of the seminal works of Roman law, accessible to students with little or no Latin.

Challenging the accounts of John Henry Wigmore and Leonard W. Levy, this history of the privilege against self-incrimination demonstrates that what has sometimes been taken to be an unchanging tenet of our legal system has actually encompassed many different legal consequences in a history that reaches back to the Middle Ages.
Each chapter of this definitive study uncovers what the privilege meant in practice. The authors trace the privilege from its origins in the medieval period to its first appearance in English common law, and from its translation to the American colonies to its development into an effective protection for criminal defendants in the nineteenth century. The authors show that the modern privilege--the right to remain silent--is far from being a basic civil liberty. Rather, it has evolved through halting and controversial steps. The book also questions how well an expansive notion of the privilege accords with commonly accepted principles of morality.
This book constitutes a major revision of our understanding of an important aspect of both criminal and constitutional law.

With Narrative and the Natural Law Pamela Hall brings Thomistic ethics into conversation with ongoing debates in contemporary moral philosophy, especially virtue theory and moral psychology, and with current trends in narrative theory and the philosophy of history. Pamela M. Hall's study offers a solid, challenging alternative to rigid, legalistic interpretations of the substantial discussion of law in Aquinas's Summa theologiae and defends Aquinas's ethics from charges of excessive legalism. Hall argues that Aquinas's characterization of the content and relationship of natural, human and divine law indicates that his understanding of the quest for the human good is practical, communal, and historical. Hall maintains that natural law, the ongoing inquiry into what is the human good, is narrative both in terms of its internal structure and its being informed by the specific story of Scripture. According to Aquinas the discovery of natural law is enacted historically and progressively within communities and by individuals through a process of practical reasoning. Hall then goes on to show how natural law requires articulation by human law, and how both are connected to divine law (salvation history) as Aquinas understands it. Aquinas represents inquiry into the human good as a kind of historical narrative or story with stages or "chapters"; thus knowledge of natural law requires time and experience, as well as sustained reflection by individuals and by whole communities. Such learning of natural law implies the operation of prudence and the assistance of the moral virtues.

Iraq, holding oil reserves second only to those of Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, is locked in a war with Iran whose outcome will affect Western energy supplies and the prospects for stability in the Arabian Gulf. Yet Iraq even now remains little known to Western governments and publics. This study is intended to enlarge understanding of Iraqi behavior and of the concerns that motivate its leaders. Some may find it unconventional. Rather than selecting issues of importance to other countries, the author focuses on the forces that influence policy formulation in Iraq and evokes the perspective from which the Iraqi government itself views its problems and sets its priorities. Part 1 examines the country's evolution into modern Iraq, explaining why problems that have recurred throughout Iraqi history have bedeviled all recent Iraqi governments and created tension between ""Iraq the nation"" and ""Iraq the state."" Part 2 discusses the Arab Ba'th Socialist party, which has dominated Iraqi political life since 1968. The author neither condemns nor praises this controversial party and its current leader, President Saddam Husain, but seeks to explain why they have adopted the positions and taken the actions that have characterized their rule. Part 3 analyzes the war between Iraq and Iran, its causes, and the decisions Iraq has made in light of its goals and its assumptions about Iran. The author finds that this is not simply ""a war over borders"" but a deeper conflict between Islamic conservatism and Arab nationalism. Looking beyond the war, the final chapter assesses Iraq's potential importance in the Middle East and to the world economy.

Most of the women and men who practiced magic in Tudor England were not hanged or burned as witches, despite being active members of their communities. These everyday magicians responded to common human problems such as the vagaries of money, love, property, and influence, and they were essential to the smooth functioning of English society. This illuminating book tells their stories through the legal texts in which they are named and the magic books that record their practices. In legal terms, their magic fell into the category of sin or petty crime, the sort that appeared in the lower courts and most often in church courts. Despite their relatively lowly status, scripts for the sorts of magic they practiced were recorded in contemporary manuscripts. Juxtaposing and contextualizing the legal and magic manuscript records creates an unusually rich field to explore the social aspects of magic practice. Expertly constructed for both classroom use and independent study, this book presents in modern English the legal documents and magic texts relevant to ordinary forms of magic practiced in Tudor England. These are accompanied by scholarly introductions with original perspectives on the subjects. Topics covered include: the London cunning man Robert Allen; magic to identify thieves; love magic; magic for hunting, fishing and gambling, and magic for healing and protection.

This edited collection presents an interesting and original series of essays on the roles of principle and pragmatism in Roman private law. The book traverses key areas of Roman law to examine the explanatory power of - and delineate interactions between - abstract, doctrinal principle, and pragmatic, real-world problem-solving. Essays canvassing sources of law, property, succession, contracts and delicts sketch the varied roles of theoretical narratives - whether internal to Roman doctrine or derived from external influence - and of practical, policy-based solutions in the jurists' thought. Principled reasoning in Roman juristic argument ranges from safeguarding commerce, to the priority of acts or intentions in property transactions, to notions of pietas, to Platonic conceptions of the market. Pragmatism is discernible in myriad ways, from divergence between form and substance, to extension of legal rules for economic, social or political utility, to emphasis on what parties did rather than what they said. The distinctive contribution of the book is its survey of different manifestations of principle and pragmatism across Roman private law. The essays - by eminent as well as emerging academics - will stimulate debate about the roles principle and pragmatism play in juristic argument, and will be of interest to both scholars and students of Roman law.

This book examines the legal and regulatory aspects of cryptocurrency and blockchain and the emerging practical issues that these issues involve. The analysis covers a range of advanced economies across the world, in America, Europe and Asia. The book describes, explains and analyses the nature of cryptocurrencies and the blockchain systems they are constructed on in these major world economies and considers relevant law and regulation and their shortcomings. It will be of use and interest to academics, lawyers, regulators and anyone involved with cryptocurrencies and blockchain.

In 1803 in the colonial South American city of La Plata, Dona Martina Vilvado y Balverde presented herself to church and crown officials to denounce her husband of more than four years, Don Antonio Yta, as a "woman in disguise." Forced to submit to a medical inspection that revealed a woman's body, Don Antonio confessed to having been Maria Yta, but continued to assert his maleness and claimed to have a functional "member" that appeared, he said, when necessary. Passing to America is at once a historical biography and an in-depth examination of the sex/gender complex in an era before "gender" had been divorced from "sex." The book presents readers with the original court docket, including Don Antonio's extended confession, in which he tells his life story, and the equally extraordinary biographical sketch offered by Felipa Ybanez of her "son Maria," both in English translation and the original Spanish. Thomas A. Abercrombie's analysis not only grapples with how to understand the sex/gender system within the Spanish Atlantic empire at the turn of the nineteenth century but also explores what Antonio/Maria and contemporaries can teach us about the complexities of the relationship between sex and gender today. Passing to America brings to light a previously obscure case of gender transgression and puts Don Antonio's life into its social and historical context in order to explore the meaning of "trans" identity in Spain and its American colonies. This accessible and intriguing study provides new insight into historical and contemporary gender construction that will interest students and scholars of gender studies and colonial Spanish literature and history. This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem)-a collaboration of the Association of American Universities, the Association of University Presses and the Association of Research Libraries-and the generous support of New York University. Learn more at the TOME website: openmonographs.org.

Tribal Criminal Law and Procedure examines complex Indian nations' tribal justice systems, analyzing tribal statutory law, tribal case law, and the cultural values of Native peoples. Using tribal court opinions and tribal codes, it reveals how tribal governments use a combination of oral and written law to dispense justice and strengthen their nations and people. Carrie E. Garrow and Sarah Deer discuss the histories, structures, and practices of tribal justice systems, comparisons of traditional tribal justice with American law and jurisdictions, elements of criminal law and procedure, and alternative sentencing and traditional sanctions. New features of the second edition include new chapters on: * The Tribal Law and Order Act's Enhanced Sentencing Provisions * The Violence Against Women Act's Special Domestic Violence Criminal Jurisdiction * Tribal-State Collaboration Tribal Criminal Law and Procedure is an invaluable resource for legal scholars and students. The book is published in cooperation with the Tribal Law and Policy Institute (visit them at www.tlpi.org).

This book is an important contribution to the current lively debate about the relationship between law and society in the Roman world. This debate, which was initiated by the work of John Crook in the 1960's, has had a profound impact upon the study of law and history and has created sharply divided opinions on the extent to which law may be said to be a product of the society that created it. This work is a modest attempt to provide a balanced assessment of the various points of view. The chapters within this book have been specifically arranged to represent the debate. It contains an introductory chapter by Alan Watson, whose views on the relationship between law and society have caused some controversy. In the remaining chapters a distinguished international group of scholars address this debate by focusing on studies of law and empire, codes and codification, death and economics, commerce and procedure. This book does not purport to provide a complete survey of Roman private law in light of Roman society. Its primary aim is to address specific areas of the law with a view to contributing to the larger debate.

The Selected Writings of Sir Edward Coke contains the most important works of the great English jurist-politician who set out to codify English common law. In his Reports, which are reports of court proceedings, and his Institutes, which state the law, Coke set down a view of English law that has had a powerful influence on lawyers, judges, and politicians through the present day. Liberty Fund's Selected Writings of Sir Edward Coke includes not only selections from the four volumes of the Institutes and cases from the Reports, but also several of Coke's speeches in Parliament, Coke's opinions from the bench, and opinions of Coke as recorded by others from official cases and court records. Taken together, these writings delineate the origin and nature of English law and indicate the profound interrelationship in the English tradition of custom, common law, authority (of both Crown and Commons), and individual liberty.

Much of our law is based on authoritative texts, such as constitutions and statutes. The common law, in contrast, is that part of the law that is established by the courts. Common law rules predominate in some areas of law, such as torts and contracts, and are extremely important in other areas, such as corporations. Nevertheless, it has been far from clear what principles courts use-or should use-in establishing common law rules. In this lucid yet subtly argued book, Melvin Eisenberg develops the principles that govern this process. The rules established in every common law case, he shows, are a product of the interplay between the rules announced in past precedents, on the one hand, and moral norms, policies, and experience, on the other. However, a court establishing a common law rule is not free, as a legislator would be, to employ those norms and policies it thinks best. Rather, it can properly employ only those that have a requisite degree of social support. More specifically, the common law should seek to satisfy three standards. First, it should correspond to the body of rules that would be arrived at by giving appropriate weight to all moral norms, policies, and experiential propositions that have the requisite support, and by making the best choices where norms, policies, and experience conflict. Second, all the rules that make up the body of the law should be consistent with one another. Third, the rules adopted in past precedents should be applied consistently over time. Often, these three standards point in the same direction. The central problems of legal reasoning arise when they do not. These problems are resolved by the principles of common law adjudication. With the general principles of common law adjudication as a background, the author then examines and explains the specific modes of common law reasoning, such as reasoning from precedent, reasoning by analogy, drawing distinctions, and overruling. Throughout the book, the analysis is fully illustrated by leading cases. This innovative and carefully worked out account of the common law will be of great interest to lawyers, law students, students in undergraduate legal studies programs, scholars interested in legal theory, and all those who want to understand the basic legal institutions of our society.

Mozambique has been hailed as a success story by the international community, which has watched it evolve through a series of violent political upheavals: from colonialism, through socialism, to its current democracy. As Juan Obarrio shows, however, this view neglects a crucial element in Mozambique's transition to the rule of law: the reestablishment of traditional chief-tanship and customs entangled within a history of colonial violence and civil war. Drawing on extensive historical records and ethnographic fieldwork, he examines the role of customary law in Mozambique to ask a larger question: what is the place of law in the neoliberal era, in which the juridical and the economic are deeply intertwined in an ongoing state of structural adjustment? Having made the transition from a people's republic to democratic rule in the 1990s, Mozambique offers a fascinating case of postwar reconstruction, economic opening, and transitional justice, one in which the customary has played a central role. Obarrio shows how its sovereignty has met countless ambiguities within the entanglements of local community, nation-state, and international structures. Ultimately, he looks toward local rituals and relations as producing an emergent kind of citizenship in Africa, which he dubs "customary citizenship," forming not a vestige of the past but a yet ill-defined political future.