The Routledge Handbook of Law and the Anthropocene provides a critical survey into the function of law and governance during a time period when humans have power to impact the Earth system. The Anthropocene is a 'crisis of the earth system'. This book addresses its implications for law and legal thinking in the 21st century. Unpacking the challenges of the Anthropocene for advocates of ecological law and politics, this handbook pursues a range of approaches to the scientific fact of anthropocentrism, with contributions from lawyers, philosophers, geographers and environmental and political scientists. Rather than adopting a hubristic normativity, the contributors engage methods, concepts and legal instruments in a way that underscores the importance of humility and an expansive ethical worldview. Contributors to this volume are the leading scholars and future leaders in the field. Rather than upholding orthodoxy, the handbook also problematizes received wisdom and is grounded in the conviction that the ideas we have inherited from the Holocene must all be open to question. Engaging such issues as the Capitalocene, Gaia theory, the rights of nature, posthumanism, the commons, geoengineering and civil disobedience, this handbook will be of enormous interest to academics, students and others with interests in ecological law and the current environmental crisis.

This book studies the relevance of dowry as a customary practice in Indian marriages. It examines the historical articulation between traditional cultural texts and modern statutory law to understand how daughters are valued, and how dowry as a custom defines this value. The author creates a conceptual link between modern, medieval, and ancient marriage rites that formulate and embed dowry behaviour and practice within Indian society. The book also provides a critique of the cultural textual tradition of India and South Asia. It asserts for the first time, that Vedic materialism is at the core of an adequate understanding of how dowry as wealth comes to occupy such a central position in the field of marriage. An important study into the custom and tradition of South Asia, this book will be indispensable for students and researchers of cultural studies, women’s studies, gender studies, religion, history, law, and South Asian studies.

How is the world organized politically? How should it be organized? What forms of political organization are required to deal with such global challenges as climate change, terrorism, or nuclear proliferation? Drawing on work in international law, international relations and global governance, this book provides a clear and wide-ranging introduction to the analysis of global political order - how patterns of governance and institutionalization in world politics have already changed; what the most important challenges are; and what the way forward might look like. The first section develops three analytical frameworks: a world of sovereign states capable of only limited cooperation; a world of ever-denser international institutions embodying the idea of an international community; and a world in which global governance moves beyond the state and into the realms of markets, civil society and networks. Part II examines five of the most important issues facing contemporary international society: nationalism and the politics of identity; human rights and democracy; war, violence and collective security; the ecological challenge; and the management of economic globalization in a highly unequal world. Part III considers the idea of an emerging multi-regional system; and the picture of global order built around US empire. The conclusion looks at the normative implications. If international society has indeed been changing in the ways discussed in this book, what ought we to do? And, still more crucially, who is the 'we' that is to be at the centre of this drive to create a morally better world? This book is concerned with the fate of international society in an era of globalization and the ability of the inherited society of sovereign states to provide a practically viable and normatively acceptable framework for global political order. It lays particular emphasis on the different forms of global inequality and the problems of legitimacy that these create and on the challenges posed by cultural diversity and value conflict.

In this book, the protection of personal data is compared for eight EU member states,namely France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Romania, Italy, Sweden andthe Netherlands. The comparison of the countries is focused on government policiesfor the protection of personal data, the applicable laws and regulations, implementationof those laws and regulations, and supervision and enforcement. Although the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) harmonizes the protectionof personal data across the EU as of May 2018, its open norms in combination withcultural differences between countries result in differences in the practical implementation,interpretation and enforcement of personal data protection. With its focus on data protection law in practice, this book provides indepth insightsinto how different countries deal with data protection issues. The knowledge and bestpractices from these countries provide highly relevant material for legal professionals,data protection officers, policymakers, data protection authorities and academicsacross Europe. Bart Custers is Associate Professor and Director of Research at the Center for Law andDigital Technologies of the Leiden Law School at Leiden University, the Netherlands.Alan M. Sears, Francien Dechesne, Ilina Georgieva and Tommaso Tani are all affiliated tothat same organization, of which Professor Simone van der Hof is the General Director.

According to the European Commission, Europe is facing a transversal crisis that obliges the rethinking and redefinition of its narrative. As a result of the economic crisis that has affected Europe during the past years, Europe has in turn faced a structural crisis that forces the reconsideration of its own existence. The foundation of the European project, the promises of Democracy and Human Dignity, need to be assessed. The internal crisis and global challenges require a paradigm shift to establish a new foundation upon which to keep those promises alive. This crisis is multidimensional: environmental, cultural, political, social, economic, etc. and the European Union should tackle it as such. The book aims at contributing to that debate by offering a new conceptual approach to the core ideas of European integration process (sovereignty, diversity, common challenges, etc). By doing so, the edited volume settles the ground for some institutional and legal transformations that may reflect this new narrative for a new Europe.

This book explores the work of the European Ombudsman and her or his contribution to holding the EU institutions, bodies, offices and agencies to account, through examination of complaints on maladministration, own-initiative inquiries and other proactive efforts. It considers the Ombudsman's current institutional and constitutional position and her or his 'method' of dealing with complaints, and unravels the depth of subject matters that fall under the Ombudsman's remit. A separate chapter focuses on transparency and access to documents. The last part of the book critically reflects upon the present mandate and practice of the Ombudsman, and discusses a number of possible proposals for improvement. This work has interdisciplinary appeal and will engage scholars in law, political science and public administration, as well as EU and national policy-makers.

This book offers a provocative retelling of Palestinian political history through an examination of the international commissions that have investigated political violence and human rights violations. More than twenty commissions have been convened over the last century, yet no significant change has resulted from these inquiries. The findings of the very first, the 1919 King-Crane Commission, were suppressed. The Mitchell Committee, convened in the heat of the Second Intifada, urged Palestinians to listen more sympathetically to the feelings of their occupiers. And factfinders returning from a shell-shocked Gaza Strip in 2008 registered their horror at the scale of the destruction, but Gazans have continued to live under a crippling blockade. Drawing on debates in the press, previously unexamined UN reports, historical archives, and ethnographic research, Lori Allen explores six key investigative commissions over the last century. She highlights how Palestinians' persistent demands for independence have been routinely translated into the numb language of reports and resolutions. These commissions, Allen argues, operating as technologies of liberal global governance, yield no justice—only the oppressive status quo. A History of False Hope issues a biting critique of the captivating allure and cold impotence of international law.

There is a deep and multifaceted relationship between international law and history - political events have legal implications, and international norms and institutions may influence the course of history. This incisive book unveils and illuminates this nexus, providing examples from a wide range of domains of global governance. Analysing this intertwined relationship with particular reference to international human rights, humanitarian and criminal law, this timely book features contributions from leading scholars and practitioners in international law, history and diplomacy. History and International Law, with a foreword by ICJ Judge Giorgio Gaja, covers topics ranging from the connections between current and historical events and human rights protection in the EU, to the ways in which ICC investigations and prosecutions continue to affect political developments in Africa. The authors offer examples of original analysis, establishing innovative paradigms of interdisciplinary research in the field. International lawyers and academics will find this book both useful and insightful. It will also prove valuable to scholars and students of the history of international law, diplomacy and international relations. Contributors include: O. Bekou, G. Ben-Nun, A. Ciampi, E. de Wet, S. Douglas-Scott, R.E. Fife, K. Ristic, S. Troebst

This book presents a rounded critique of the conventional wisdom about the legality of nuclear weapons by experts in international and constitutional law. Part I addresses the status of nuclear weapons under international law. Scholars on one side of the question draw upon treaties and international custom to argue that most uses of nuclear weapons are illegal and that even mere possession of such weaponry is legally unjustifiable. Others argue that law cannot be imposed on the nuclear weapons states without their consent and that nuclear weapons provide deterrence that binds the superpowers in a peaceful balance of power. Part I concludes with a comprehensive bibliography on nuclear weapons and international law. Part II, the section that focuses on nuclear weapons and American constitutional law, offers widely divergent approaches and conclusions. Although there is no explicit prohibition of such weapons in the United States Constitution, several contributors suggest that the advent of nuclear weapons has so changed the milieu in which constitutional institutions operate that many accepted conclusions must be reexamined. Part III explores the effects of nuclear weapons on the environment and the medical consequences of nuclear war.

European and American experts systematically compare U.S. and EU strategies to promote democracy around the world -- from the Middle East and the Mediterranean, to Latin America, the former Soviet bloc, and Southeast Asia. In doing so, the authors debunk the pernicious myth that there exists a transatlantic divide over democracy promotion.

This Handbook showcases the rich varieties of legislatures that exist in Asia and explains how political power is constituted in seventeen jurisdictions in East, Southeast and South Asia. Legislatures in Asia come in all stripes. Liberal democracies co-exist cheek by jowl with autocracies; semi-democratic and competitive authoritarian systems abound. While all legislatures exist to make law and confer legitimacy on the political leadership, how representative they are of the people they govern differs dramatically across the continent, such that it is impossible to identify a common Asian prototype. Divided into thematic and country-by-country sections, this handbook is a one-stop reference that surveys the range of political systems operating in Asia. Each jurisdiction chapter examines the structure and composition of its legislature, the powers of the legislature, the legislative process, thereby providing a clear picture of how each legislature operates both in theory and in practice. The book also thematically analyses the following political systems operating in Asia: communist regimes, liberal democracies, dominant party democracies, turbulent democracies, presidential democracies, military regimes, and protean authoritarian rule. This handbook is a vital and comprehensive resource for scholars of constitutional law and politics in Asia.

Social networks have created a plethora of problems regarding privacy and the protection of personal data. The use of social networks has become a key concern of legal scholars, policy-makers and the operators as well as users of those social networks. This pathbreaking book highlights the importance of privacy in the context of today's new electronic communication technologies as it presents conflicting claims to protect national and international security, the freedom of the Internet and economic considerations. Using the New Haven School of Jurisprudence's intellectual framework, the author presents the applicable law on privacy and social media in international and comparative perspective, focusing on the United States, the European Union and its General Data Protection Regulation of 2018 as well as Germany, the United Kingdom and Latin America. The book appraises the law in place, discusses alternatives and presents recommendations in pursuit of a public order of human dignity.

This book provides an analysis of the treatment of impossibility in modern private law. The author explains the regulation of impossibility in German, Swiss and Turkish laws with a comparative analysis of the subject under (i) the United Nations Convention on International Sale of Goods (CISG), (ii) UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts (PICC), (iii) Principles of European Contract Law (PECL also known as the Lando-Principles), (iv) Draft Common Frame of Reference (DCFR) and (iv) Common European Sales Law (CESL).

Since the 1980s, there has been an alarming increase in the prevalence of obesity in virtually every country in the world. As obesity is known to lead to both chronic and severe medical problems, it imposes a cost not only on affected individuals and their families, but also on society as a whole. In Europe, the Obesity Prevention White Paper of May 2007 - followed by the adoption of an EU School Fruit Scheme, the acknowledgement that food advertising to children should be limited, and proposed legislation to make nutrition labeling compulsory - has firmly placed obesity on the EU agenda by laying down a multi-sectoral strategy and a basis for future action. In accordance with this growing sense of urgency, this is the first book to offer an in-depth legal analysis of obesity prevention, with particular reference to Europe. It describes what the EU has done and could do to support Member States in fighting the obesity epidemic, and clearly shows the way to locating advocacy strategies within the framework of EU law. The thorough analysis includes a discussion of the following issues: the need to address nutrition and physical activity as important health determinants; the emphasis traditionally placed at EU level on food safety rather than food quality; the need for the development of databases on nutrition and physical activity, comparable common indicators and risk assessment mechanisms; mainstreaming public health into all EU policies; the scope of EU powers in the case law of the Court of Justice; the role of information in the EU's obesity prevention strategy; the Commission's proposed Mandatory Nutrition Declaration; and, the Food Claims Regulation. It also includes: the regulation of food marketing to children, and in particular the role of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and industry self-regulation; food reformulation; the use of economic instruments in the EU's obesity prevention strategy, with an emphasis on the Common Agricultural Policy and the EU's taxation policy; and EU action in the fields of sport, occupational health and safety, and transport policy. The author convincingly shows that conflicts of interest inherent in market forces demand a strong EU intervention, preferably through legislation than self-regulation. She also demonstrates the urgent need to reach an agreement, on the basis of reliable data, about what is effective in practice to improve lifestyles. The study acknowledges that the law is not a panacea, but nonetheless has an influential role to play in making the healthy choice an easier choice, and must move decisively towards ensuring that the societal costs associated with obesity are sustainable, and that the ultimate goal of a healthy population is achievable. The book is essential reading for everyone involved or interested in the development of the EU's obesity prevention policy.

A Basic Guide to International Business Law aims to give students an understanding as well as practical knowledge of legal problems arising in the area of international business, and to equip them with the skills needed to prevent and tackle these problems. All Chapters employ the same didactic structure. Introductory case studies, examples, annotated case law, glossaries, diagrams, summaries and exercises are all designed to familiarize students quickly with relevant aspects of international (business) law. A Basic Guide to International Business Law deals with the following topics: * Introduction to International Private Law and European Law * Legal aspects of negotiations * International contracts: matters of jurisdiction and the law applicable to these contracts * International contracts of sale * Competion law * Free movement of goods, workers, the freedom of capital and establishment and the freedom to provide services * International payments * Carriage of goods by road and sea * Incoterms * Entry modes (agents, representatives, distributors, licensing, franchising)

This book offers an essential guide to Public Finance and National Accounts in the context of the European Union. Since the creation of the Eurozone, fiscal policy has been at the heart of economic (but also political/media) discussions in the EU. From the Stability and Growth Pact (1997) to the more recent Fiscal Treaty, EU and Eurozone, countries have been subject to various fiscal rules. The importance of these rules, and of the subsequent procedures that every Eurozone country has to adhere to, is unquestionable. The book provides the reader with an in-depth understanding of the complex EU rules concerning fiscal policy, breaking down the corresponding legal texts into simple and accessible language. It has a broad interdisciplinary appeal, and scholars and practitioners whose work involves these areas will find it of particular interest.

Can war be justified? Pacifists answer that it cannot; they oppose war and advocate for nonviolent alternatives to war. But defenders of just war theory argue that in some circumstances, when the effectiveness of nonviolence is limited, wars can be justified. In this book, two philosophers debate this question, drawing on contemporary scholarship and new developments in thinking about pacifism and just war theory. Andrew Fiala defends the pacifist position, while Jennifer Kling defends just war traditions. Fiala argues that pacifism follows from the awful reality of war and the nonviolent goal of building a more just and peaceful world. Kling argues that war is sometimes justified when it is a last-ditch, necessary effort to defend people and their communities from utter destruction and death. Pulling from global traditions and histories, their debate will captivate anyone who has wondered or worried about the morality of political violence and military force. Topics discussed include ethical questions of self-defense and other-defense, the great analogy between individuals and states, evolving technologies and methods of warfighting, moral injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, broader political and communal issues, and the problem of regional security in a globalizing world. The authors consider cultural and religious issues as well as the fundamental question of moral obligation in a world saturated in military conflict. The book was written in the aftermath of the war on terrorism and includes reflection on lessons learned from the past decades of war, as well as hopes for the future in light of emerging threats in Europe and elsewhere. The book is organized in a user-friendly fashion. Each author presents a self-contained argument, which is followed by a series of responses, replies, and counter-arguments. Throughout, the authors model civil discourse by emphasizing points of agreement and remaining areas of disagreement. The book includes reader-friendly summaries, a glossary of key concepts, and suggestions for further study. All of this will help students and scholars follow the authors' dialogue so they may develop their own answer to the question of whether war can be justified. Key Features Summarizes the debate between pacifism and just war theory Considers historical and traditional sources as well as contemporary scholarship and applications Models philosophical dialogue and civil discourse, while seeking common ground Discusses issues of concern in contemporary warfighting and peacemaking, while offering an analysis of the war on terrorism

*Presents a user-friendly wealth of useable, practical, and viable malpractice solutions *Explains in-depth advice on avoiding malpractice claims and their negative consequences for doctors in every field *Offers a valuable resource of precise and practical strategies to prepare for depositions, court testimony, and a doctor's defense in the event of litigation

This edited volume presents research and policy insights into the theory and practice of dispute systems reform in diverse jurisdictions. It highlights how important extra-judicial mechanisms are for resolving cross border disputes, as evidenced both by the breadth of scholarship dedicated to the issue and proliferation of parties resorting to non-litigious dispute resolution mechanisms in recent years. Drawing on selected case studies, the book examines the impact of comparative research and policy analysis in advancing reform of dispute resolution institutions at both the regional and global levels. It explores the challenges and opportunities of understanding and assessing developments in systems of dispute resolution in diverse social and political contexts through comparative research. With growing number of disputes which have come to involve cross-border issues, anyone interested in transnational and comparative dispute resolution will find this book a useful reference.