The concept of 'organised crime' is constructed and mobilised by a milieu of complex factors and discourses including a politics of law and order, and international insecurity, combined with the vested interests and priorities of scholars, politicians, government officials, and policing authorities. This book challenges existing assumptions and accepted understandings of organised crime, and explores the ways in which it is amplified and reconstructed for political purposes. This book critiques how the constitution of the 'organised crime problem' in academic and political discourse provides the conditions necessary for the development of an extensive and international architecture of law, policing, surveillance and intelligence. It examines emerging challenges and future directions including the impact of technology on new problems, and for transnational policing, such as the ease with which the Internet enables crime to be committed across borders, and for electronic communications to be protected with strong encryption hampering interception. No other text presents an integrated and comprehensive study of both the politicisation and policing of organised crime, while questioning the outcomes for society at large. Drawing on international fieldwork and interviews with senior national and supranational policing personnel, this book compares and contrasts various narratives on organised crime. It will be of interest to students and researchers engaged in studies of criminology, criminal justice, organised crime, policing, and law.

This book analyses the institution and concept of dictatorship from a legal, historical and theoretical perspective, examining the different types of dictatorship, their relationship to the law, as well as the analytical value of the concept in contemporary world. In particular, it seeks to codify the main theories and conceptions of 'dictatorship', with the goal of unearthing their contradictions. The book's main premise is that the concept of dictatorship and the different types of the dictatorial form have to be assessed and can only be understood in their historical context. On this basis, the elaborations on dictatorship of such diverse thinkers as Carl Schmitt, Donoso Cortes, Karl Marx, Ernst Fraenkel, Franz Neumann, Nicos Poulantzas, and V. I. Lenin, are discussed in their historical context: 'classical and Caesaristic dictatorship' in ancient Rome, 'dictatorship' in revolutionary France of 1789 and counterrevolutionary France of 1848, 'fascist dictatorship' in Nazi Germany, and 'dictatorship of the proletariat' in Russia of 1917. The book contributes to the theory of dictatorship as it outlines the contradictions of the different typologies of the dictatorial form and seeks to explain them on the basis of the concept of 'class dictatorship'. The book's original claim is that the dictatorial form, as a modality of class rule that relies predominantly on violence and repression, has been essential to the reproduction of bourgeois rule and, consequently, of capitalist social relations. This function has given rise to different types and conceptualisations of dictatorship depending on the level of capitalist development. This book is addressed to anyone with an interest in law, political theory, political history and sociology. It can serve as core text for courses that seek to introduce students to the institution or theory of dictatorship. It may also serve as a reference text for post-graduate programs in law and politics, because of its interdisciplinary and critical approach.

This book is the first-ever comprehensive analysis of international law from Global South perspectives with specific reference to Bangladesh. The book not only sheds new light on classical international law concepts, such as statehood, citizenship, and self-determination, but also covers more current issues including Rohingya refugees, climate change, sustainable development, readymade garment workers and crimes against humanity. Written by area specialists, the book explores how international law shaped Bangladesh state practice over the last five decades; how Bangladesh in turn contributed to the development of international law; and the manner in which international law is also used as a hegemonic tool for marginalising less powerful countries like Bangladesh. By analysing stories of an ambivalent relationship between international law and post-colonial states, the book exposes the duality of international law as both a problem-solving tool and as a language of hegemony. Despite its focus on Bangladesh, the book deals with the more general problem of post-colonial states' problematic relationship with international law and so will be of interest to students and scholars of international law in general, as well as those interested in the Global South and South Asia in particular.

Legal problems abound in the information society. Electronic commerce, copyright, privacy, illegal and harmful content, taxes, wiretapping governments face an enormous challenge to meet the advent of the Internet and ICT with a flexible, up-to-date, and adequate legal framework. Yet one aspect makes this challenge even more daunting: internationalization. Law is still to a great extent based on nation states, but the information society is above all a borderless and global society. Territoriality and national sovereignty clash with the need for a global approach to address ICT-law issues. Should states leave everything to the global market, or should they intervene to protect vital national interests? If they create regulations, should these reflect the rules of the physical world? How can one enforce national rules in a world where acts take place somewhere in Cyberspace? This text presents the positions on these issues of the governments of the Netherlands, Germany, France, the UK, and the US, as well as of international organisations. How do they think about co-regulation, law enforcement, harmonization, international co-operation, and alternative dispute resolution? How do they deal with applicable law and online contracts, privacy, international liability of Internet providers, and electronic signatures? What are the implications of the European Electronic Commerce Directive and the draft Crime in Cyberspace convention? Any legal framework that is to fit the global information society must take into account internationalization. This volume shows to what extent governments are meeting this challenge.

What role does law play in post-communist societies? This book examines the law as a social institution in Eurasia, exploring how it is shaped in everyday interactions between state and society, organisations and individuals, and between law enforcement and other government entities. It bridges the gap between theoretically rich work on law-in-action and the empirical reality of Eurasia. The contributions in this volume include research on policing, the legal profession, public attitudes towards law, regime support and oppositional mobilisation, crime policy, and property rights, among others. The studies shift away from the common perception that, in Eurasia, the law exists only as a tool for the state to enforce order and suppress dissent. Instead, they show, through empirical analyses, that citizens evade, use, reinterpret and shape the law even in authoritarian contexts-sometimes containing state violence and challenging the regime, and other times reinforcing state capture from below. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Europe-Asia Studies.

Based on the Judicial Transparency Index Assessment (2019 and 2020) conducted in China by the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, this book summarizes and analyzes the current situation of judicial openness in China, using a sample of 218 courts across the country for the study. The book analyzes the ideological and institutional origins of judicial openness and examines the operation of judicial openness through the practical experience of role replacement. By analyzing evaluation data in the fields of audit information disclosure, trial information disclosure, judicial enforcement data disclosure, and judicial reform data disclosure, the book points out that the current judicial disclosure has made significant progress, but there are still problems such as unclear disclosure standards, insufficient rigidity in disclosure requirements, and the scope of disclosure still needs to be expanded. The book recommends accelerating the disclosure of judicial legislation, public standards, and strengthening assessment and accountability.

This book analyzes the specifics of corporate governance of China's State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and their assessment under EU merger control, which is reflected in the EU Commission's screening of the notified economic concentrations. Guided by the going global policy and the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese SOEs have expanded their global presence considerably. Driven by the need to acquire cutting edge technologies and other industrial policy considerations, Chinese SOEs have engaged in a series of corporate acquisitions in Europe. The main objective of this book is to demonstrate the conceptual and regulatory challenges of applying traditional merger assessment tools in cases involving Chinese SOEs due to the specifics in their corporate governance and the regulatory framework under which they operate in China. The book also explores the connection between the challenges experienced by the merger control regimes in the EU and the recent introduction of the EU foreign direct investment screening framework followed by a proposal concerning foreign subsidies. The book will be a useful guide for academics and researchers in the fields of law, international relations, political science, and political economy; legal practitioners dealing with cross-border mergers and acquisitions; national competition authorities and other public bodies carrying out merger control; policy makers, government officials, and diplomats in China and the EU engaged in bilateral economic relations.

This book discusses the designs and applications of the social systems theory (built by Niklas Luhmann, 1927-1998) in relation to empirical socio-legal studies. This is a sociological and legal theory known for its highly complex and abstract conceptual apparatus. But how to change its scale in order to study more localised phenomena, and to deal with empirical data, such as case law, statutes, constitutions and regulation? This is the concern of a wide variety of scholars from many regions engaged in this volume. It focuses on methodological discussions and empirical examples concerning the innovations and potentials that functional and systemic approaches can bring to the study of legal phenomena (institutions building, argumentation and dispute-settlement), in the interface with economy and regulation, and with politics and public policies. It also discusses connections and contrasts with other jurisprudential approaches - for instance, with critical theory, law and economics, and traditional empirical research in law. Two decades after Luhmann's death, the 21st century has brought countless transformations in technologies and institutions. These changes, resulting in a hyper-connected, ultra-interactive world society bring operational and reflective challenges to the functional systems of law, politics and economy, to social movements and protests, and to major organisational systems, such as courts and enterprises, parliaments and public administration. Pursuing an empirical approach, this book details the variable forms by which systems construct their own structures and semantics and 'irritate' each other. Engaging Luhmann's theoretical apparatus with empirical research in law, this book will be of interest to students and researchers in the field of socio-legal studies, the sociology of law, legal history and jurisprudence.

Since the passage of the ASEAN Charter in 2008, ASEAN has transformed itself from a loose economic cooperation, into a formal intergovernmental organization designed to create an "ASEAN Community" forged together in three pillar communities - the ASEAN Political-Security Community, ASEAN Economic Community, and tASEAN Socio-Cultural Community. Forty years of pre-Charter ASEAN practices, coupled with over ten years of post-Charter ASEAN practices thus far, has witnessed the conclusion of hundreds of legally binding regional treaties and similarly binding international instruments in all areas of economic, political-security, and socio-cultural concerns for Southeast Asia to achieve ASEAN's rule of law-based development objective. Pre-Charter and post-Charter ASEAN Law is variably implemented under a hybrid governance system that depends heavily on ASEAN Member State national implementation alongside ASEAN's evolving regional institutions. The result is not a model of deep integration as in the case of the European Union, but a particular paradigm of horizontal embeddedness of ASEAN Law - in all its norms and operational practices - contingent on the capacities and compliance of national government bureaucracies in Southeast Asia. This edited collection is a concise authoritative volume covering the practical, doctrinal, legal, and policy aspects of the new regime of ASEAN Law and its consequences for realizing rule of law-based development in Southeast Asia's emerging single market and production base. Drawing together contributions from a range of key thinkers in the field, the editors present the legal and policy-making issues implicated in the practical implementation of Southeast Asia's single market and its regime for the free movement of goods, services, foreign investment, and cross-border labor. The book also examines the nature of regional law-making under ASEAN before and after the commencement of regional integration in 2015, the nature of ASEAN's economic regulators, as well as the evolving structure for enforcement and harmonization of "ASEAN Law" through the array of Southeast Asian national courts, arbitral tribunals, and incipient mechanisms for inter-State, intra-regional, and individual-State conflict management and dispute resolution. This book is highly relevant to students, scholars, and policy-makers with an interest in ASEAN Law and regional policy, and to Southeast Asian studies in general.

This book explores fundamental topics concerning the functioning of the judiciary. The authors - class scholars, international judges and jurists from a diverse range of countries - address general theoretical issues in connection with judicial power, the role and functioning of international courts, international standards concerning the organization of national judiciaries, and the role of domestic courts in international relations, as well as alternative means of settling disputes. The book contributes a novel and valuable global perspective on burning issues, especially on judicial power and independence in a time in which illiberal and authoritarian regimes are constantly seeking to diminish the role of the judiciary.

This book offers a comparative study of the management of legal pluralism. The authors describe and analyse the way state and non-state legal systems acknowledge legal pluralism - defined as the coexistence of a state and non-state legal systems in the same space in respect of the same subject matter for the same population - and determine its consequences for their own purposes. The book sheds light on the management processes deployed by legal systems in Africa, Canada, Central Europe and the South Pacific, the multitudinous factors circumscribing the action of systems and individuals with respect to legal pluralism, and the effects of management strategies and processes on systems as well as on individuals. The book offers fresh practical and analytical insight on applied legal pluralism, a fast-growing field of scholarship and professional practice. Drawing from a wealth of original empirical data collected in several countries by a multilingual and multidisciplinary team, it provides a thorough account of the intricate patterns of state and non-state practices with respect to legal pluralism. As the book's non-prescriptive approach helps to uncover and evaluate several biases or assumptions on the part of policy makers, scholars and development agencies regarding the nature and the consequences of legal pluralism, it will appeal to a wide range of scholars and practitioners in law, development studies, political science and social sciences.

How does moral change happen? What leads to the overthrow or gradual transformation of moral beliefs, ideals, and values? Change is one of the most striking features of morality, yet it is poorly understood. In this book, Cecilie Eriksen provides an illuminating map of the dynamics, structure, and normativity of moral change. Through eight narratives inspired by the legal domain and in dialogue with modern moral philosophy, Eriksen discusses moral bias, conflict, progress, and revolutions. She develops a context-sensitive understanding of ethics and shows how we can harvest a knowledge of the past that will enable us to build a better future.

This book examines the attainment of complete free movement of civil judgments across EU member states from the perspective of its conformity with the fundamental right to a fair trial. In the integrated legal order of the European Union, it is essential that litigants can rely on a judgment no matter where in the EU it was delivered. Effective mechanisms for cross-border recognition and the enforcement of judgments provide both debtors and creditors with the security that their rights, including their right to a fair trial, will be protected. In recent years the attainment of complete free movement of civil judgments, through simplification or abolition of these mechanisms, has become a priority for the European legislator. The text uniquely combines a thorough discussion of EU legislation with an in-depth and critical examination of its interplay with fundamental rights. It contains an over-view and comparison of both ECtHR and CJEU case law on the right to a fair trial, and provides a great number of specific recommendations for current and future legislation. With its critical discussion of EU Regulations from both a practical and a theoretical standpoint, this book is particularly relevant to legislators and policymakers working in this field. Because of the extensive overview of the functioning of the EU's mechanisms and of relevant case law it provides, the book is also highly relevant to academics and practitioners. Monique Hazelhorst is Judicial Assistant at the Supreme Court of the Netherlands. She studied Law and Legal Research at Utrecht University and holds a Ph.D. in Law from the Erasmus School of Law at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

This book is an examination and critique of the methods employed by the United Nations in adopting human rights instruments. Three of the major instruments - the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights - are selected for detailed study. The author concludes that the present system of law-making is inadequate and points to many examples of unclear provisions and of overlap and conflict within a single instrument or between instruments. In order that this important function of the organized international community, that of protecting human rights, can work effectively, improvements in law-making techniques are necessary, and Professor Meron concludes with some suggestions for reforms both of the institutions and of the process itself.

This book explores the challenge that the commons present to the private-public dichotomy in a wide variety of national legal systems representing the West European legal tradition as well as post-socialist and post-colonial experiences. It presents national reports from 13 jurisdictions, ranging from Belgium and the South Africa to the US. Constituting the outcome of the 20th General Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law, held in Fukuoka, Japan in July 2018, it offers a valuable and unique resource for the study of comparative law.

This handbook provides comprehensive and expert analysis of the impact of the Brexit process and the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union on existing and future EU-UK relations within the context of both EU and international law. Examining the wider international law implications, it additionally assesses the complex legal consequences of Brexit for both the EU and the UK in their dealings with third states and other international organizations. With contributions from renowned specialists in the field of EU external action, each chapter will analyse specific policy areas to address key challenges arising from the Brexit process for the EU and the UK and propose solutions to overcome these problems. The handbook aims to fill a gap in research by assessing the consequences of Brexit under EU external relations law and international law. As such, it is hoped it will set the research agenda for coming years on the international dimension of Brexit. The Routledge Handbook on the International Dimension of Brexit is an authoritative and essential reference text for scholars and students of international and European/EU law and policy, EU politics, and British Politics and Brexit, as well as of key relevance to legal practitioners involved in Brexit, governments, policy-makers, civil society organizations, think tanks, practitioners, national parliaments and the Court of Justice.

World Climate Change: The Role of International Law and Institutions is a collection of papers on global climate problems prepared for a two-day conferences held in 1980 at the University of Denver College of Law. The papers describe and evaluate the present state if our efforts to reduce or adapt to manmade stresses on the global environment.

Territorial issues have historically assumed a central role in international relations. Despite considerations relating to, for example, human rights and economic and social cooperation, the territorially-based view of international law remains the fundamental model and is subscribed to by third world states. The acquisition of territory in Africa by the European powers in the nineteenth century involved the characterization of the status of the various African communities. They were accepted as holding title to their territory, but not apparently regarded as full subjects of international law. Cession was the primary technique used in the colonization of Africa. The present study analyses the colonial acquisition of African territory with particular reference to the evolution of the principles of self-determination and its impact upon the law relating to territory. The first full-length treatment of its subject, this book makes an important contribution to the understanding of one of the crucial areas of international law.

This book presents a comparative study on access to public information in the context of the main legal orders worldwide(inter alia China,France,Germany,Japan,Russia,Sweden,United States).The international team of authors analyzes the Transparency- and Freedom-to-Information legislation with regard to the scope of the right to access, limitations of this right inherent in the respective national laws, the procedure, the relationship with domestic legislation on administrative procedure, as well as judicial protection. It particularly focuses on the Brazilian law establishing the right of access to information, which is interpreted as a benchmark for regulations in other Latin-American states.

The present collection of essays offers the reader a broad range of original perspectives on democracy and the rule of law in the European Union, approaching the existing policy area from new points of view. Leading experts from different countries and backgrounds focus on how democracy and the rule of law are related to topics like security, pension rights, judicial cooperation and human rights protection. Their expert views are based on a combination of theory and knowledge acquired in their practice as academics or practitioners in the field of European integration.. The issue of the rule of law and democracy is close to the heart of Professor Jaap de Zwaan, a true European, building bridges between countries and peoples. He has written extensively on the subject of European integration. Therefore, this collection of expert views is not only an original and valuable contribution to the literature and discussion on the development and enlargement of the European Union, but at the same time it is a tribute to Jaap de Zwaan, whose academic and diplomatic career can be characterized as always serving "an ever closer Union". Flora Goudappel is Jean Monnet Professor of EU Trade Law in the Overseas Territories at the Erasmus University Rotterdam and a consultant on European Union law Ernst Hirsch Ballin is Professor of Dutch and European Constitutional Law at Tilburg University and Professor of Human Rights Law at the University of Amsterdam.

Maritime boundary disputes in the South China have existed for centuries, and researchers from a variety of countries have analysed the situation from a great many points of view. Yet, and despite its status as one of the major countries in the region, Chinese perspectives have often been absent from the international literature. This book redresses that balance. Bringing together scholarship from history and international law, this book provides a lens through which maritime territorial disputes in the South China Sea can be interrogated. Not only does it detail the historical and jurisprudential evidence that support maritime boundaries in the South China Sea for different stakeholders, but it also clarifies some misconceptions related to China's nine-dash lines by referring to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Moreover, the book offers in-depth discussion and observation on the most recent developments in the South China Sea. This book is an essential resource for researchers, teachers and students who specialize in Southeast Asian Studies, China maritime studies, and the international law of the sea.

This book investigates the extent to which traditional international law regulating foreign interventions in internal conflicts has been affected by the human rights paradigm. Since the adoption of the Charter of the United Nations, foreign armed interventions in internal conflicts have turned into a common practice. At first sight, it might seem that state practice has developed in a chaotic fashion, however on closer examination, specific patterns emerge. The book charts these patterns by examining the traditional doctrines of intervention and testing them against state practise. The book has two aims. Firstly, it seeks to clarify the current legal framework regulating interventions in internal conflicts. Secondly, it plots the emergence of new trends and investigates whether they are becoming part of positive international law. By taking this dual focus, it offers the first truly comprehensive examination of foreign interventions in internal conflicts.

This book compares the evolution of the legal systems of Central Asia, Europe, and East Asia, under the impact of economic factors, both structural and crisis-inspired. The COVID-19, one of the severest challenges faced by humanity, alters the social order and the way people think. Already, changes impact the socio-economic and political-legal spheres. Geopolitical and geoeconomic shifts affect the place of states and regions in the world order. The UK's withdrawal from the EU, superimposed onto the pandemic, inflicted not only political and socio-economic losses but reputational losses as well. It signaled the limits of regional integration if the world's most successful economic grouping needed to revise its own development. This book analyses three salient international political/legal problems for states and regions of Eurasia: trade and financial issues, regional and interregional issues, industrial and socioeconomic issues. It also looks at the US trade policy towards Eurasia and China, the US military presence in South Korea, the EU experience for the EAEU, as well as WTO issues, etc. It follows Le regionalisme et ses limites (2016), Mutations de societe et reponses du droit (2017), On the European and Asian origins of legal and political systems (2018) and The Challenge of change in the legal and political systems of Eurasia and the New Silk Road (2020).

This volume includes guiding cases of the Supreme People's Court, cases deliberated on by the Judicial Council/Committee of the Supreme People's Court, and cases discussed at the Joint Meetings of Presiding Judges from the various tribunals. This book is divided into four sections, including Cases by Justices, Selected Judicial Opinion(s), "Hot Cases" and "Typical Cases", which will introduce readers to Chinese legal processes, legal methodologies and ideology in an intuitive, clear, and accurate manner.This volume presents cases selected by the trial departments of the Supreme People's Court of China from their concluded cases. In order to give full weight to the legal value and social functions of cases from the Supreme People's Court, and to achieve the goal of "serving the trial practices, serving economic and social development, serving legal education and legal scholarship, serving international legal exchanges among Chinese and foreign legal communities and serving the rule of law in China", the China Institute of Applied Jurisprudence, with the approval of the Supreme People's Court, opted to publish "Selected Cases from the Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China" in both Chinese and English, for domestic and overseas distribution.

This book shows how, with the increasing interaction between jurisdictions spearheaded by globalization, it is gradually becoming impossible to confine transactions to a single jurisdiction. Presented in the form of a compendium of essays by eminent academics and practitioners in the field, it provides a detailed overview of private, international law practice in South Asian nations, addressing contemporary discourse within this knowledge domain. Conflict of laws/private international law arises from the universal acknowledgment that it is difficult to govern human transactions solely by the local law. The research presented addresses the three major threads of private international law - jurisdiction, choice of law and enforcement - within each of the South Asian countries in the areas of family law and commercial law. The research in family law domain includes traditional areas such as marriage, divorce and maintenance, as well as some of the contemporary concerns in this region - inter-country child retrieval, surrogacy, and the country statement on accession to the Hague Conventions related to this domain. In commercial law the research explores the concerns raised with regard to choice of law issues in transnational contracts, and also enforcement of foreign judgment/arbitral awards in the nations of this region.