This book studies the U.S. Supreme Court and its current common law approach to judicial decision making from a national and transnational perspective. The Supreme Court's modern approach appears detached from and inconsistent with the underlying fundamental principles that ought to guide it, an approach that often leads to unfair and inefficient results. This book suggests the adoption of a judicial decision-making model that proceeds from principles and rules and treats these principles and rules as premises for developing consistent unitary theories to meet current social conditions. This model requires that judicial opinions be informed by a wide range of considerations, beginning with established legal standards but also including the insights derived from deductive and inductive reasoning, the lessons learned from history and custom and ending with an examination of the social and economic consequences of the decision. Under this model, the considerations taken to reach a specific result should be articulated through a process that considers various hypotheses, arguments, confutations, and confirmations, and they should be shared with the public."

This book provides critical insight into the experience of multi-owned property, and showcases different cultural responses across the Asia-Pacific region. Escalating demand for properties within global cities has created exuberance around apartment living; however less well understood are the restrictions on individual rights and responsibilities associated with collective living. In contrast to the highly populated and traditional communal housing arrangements of past Asian economies, we see an increasing focus on neo-liberalist, market-based policies associated with the rise of an Asian middle class shaping structural change from communal to individualistic. This edited collection unpacks the rights, restrictions and responsibilities of multi-owned property ownership across the Asia-Pacific region; examining the experiences of developers, strata-managers, owners and residents. In doing so, they highlight how the rights of one party affects the restrictions and responsibilities of others within different policy frameworks. This work will reach an interdisciplinary audience including scholars and practitioners of sociology, public policy, urban studies and planning, economics, property management and architecture.

This book presents the essential knowledge and legal practice for establishing and operating companies in China. The book includes 6 chapters: Establishment of a Company; Shareholders, Directors, Supervisors, Senior Executives; Investment, M&A and Creditor's Rights; Financing and Guarantee; Alteration, Liquidation and Cancellation; Malfeasance Most Likely to be Overlooked. The end is a summary of the laws and regulations involved in the chapters above. From a professional perspective, this book explains and analyzes the key points, practical difficulties and potential risks that an enterprise may encounter in the process of establishment and operation, describes in detail the key points for handling various businesses and matters, the notes for selection of different administrative procedures, and conducts multi-dimensional comparison and case analysis to facilitate readers' understanding. This book is a practical guide for everyone to understand how to establish and operate a company in China, which is not only suitable for readers who want to start a business or have already started a business, but also suitable for overseas investors to fully understand how to establish and operate a company in China. It is also helpful for investors and entrepreneurs to lead the enterprise to be more standardized and more compliant so as to achieve better operation and development. In addition, this book could be used as a reference book for legal and financial professionals to help professionals become more professional.

If, as John Rawls famously suggests, justice is the first virtue of social institutions, how are we to understand the institution of contract law?
This book proposes a Rawlsian theory of contract law. It argues that justice requires that we understand contract rules in terms of the idea of reasonable, terms of interaction - that is, terms that would be accepted by reasonable persons moved by a desire for a social world in which they, as free and equal, can cooperate with others on terms they accept. On that basis, the book explains the main doctrines of contract law, including those governing third parties, in both the Common Law and the Civil Law.

This edited book aims to address challenges facing the deployment of autonomous vehicles. Autonomous vehicles were predicted to hit the road by 2017. Even though a high degree of automation may have been achieved, vehicles that can drive autonomously under all circumstances are not yet commercially available, and the predictions have been adjusted. Now, experts even say that we are still decades away from fully autonomous vehicles. In this volume, the authors form a multidisciplinary team of experts to discuss some of the reasons behind this delay. The focus is on three areas: business, technology, and law. The authors discuss how the traditional car manufacturers have to devote numerous resources to the development of a new business model, in which the sole manufacturing of vehicles may no longer be sufficient. In addition, the book seeks to introduce how technological challenges are creating a shift toward connected autonomous vehicles. Further, it provides insight into how regulators are responding to the insufficiently tested technology and how lawyers try to answer the liability question for accidents with these autonomous vehicles.

Underpinned by a hybrid methodology (ranging from social sciences to human sciences), this book parses mediation in four perspectives, which stands as an unparalleled methodological approach so far. Mediation has long been tethered to piecemeal and haphazard approaches, which have flatly failed to capture the gist of the uniqueness of this (often) poorly latched on (and poorly understood) dispute resolution mechanism. This book argues that, in order to fully grasp the richness of such dispute resolution mechanism, mediation must be parsed in four tiers. The first tier is the social dynamics of mediation. The second tier is the cultural dynamics of mediation. The third tier is the legal dynamics of mediation. The fourth tier is the cross-border and cross-cultural dynamics of mediation. Taken together, the four tiers that premise the four-tiered model of mediation seek to unlock the finding in view of which law and social reality are tightly interlocked. In this vein, it is the underlying social reality of a given jurisdiction that should dictate the design of a pre-suit court-connected mandatory mediation with an easy opt-out, a central claim of both social dynamics of mediation (the first tier of the four-tiered model of mediation) and legal dynamics of mediation (the third tier of the four-tiered model of mediation).

This book explores the use of restorative justice approaches in the context of environmental crimes. It critically assesses regular criminal justice approaches with regard to green crimes and explores restorative justice conferencing as an alternative. Focussing on justice approaches in Australia and New Zealand, it argues that court processes following environmental offending provide minimal to no offender and victim voice, interaction, and input, rendering them invisible. It proposes a third measure of justice - that of meaningful involvement, beyond that of fair procedure and outcome. It suggests the use of restorative justice conferencing, a facilitated dialogue between stakeholders to crime or conflict, as a vehicle to operationalise and achieve justice as meaningful involvement. This book speaks to those interested in green criminology, victimology and environmental law.

The book analyzes the most relevant developments in the relation between contracts and technology, from automatically concluded contracts to today's revolutionary "smart contracts" developed through blockchain, which are beginning to and will increasingly disrupt many economic and social relations. First of all, the author offers a broad analysis of the peculiarities and evolution of the relation between contracts and technology. The main features and elements of electronic contracts are then examined in depth to highlight the specific rules applicable to them in the international comparative legal framework. In turn, the book provides a detailed explanation of the technology, economic and social dynamics, and legal issues concerning blockchain and smart contracts. The analysis focuses on the question of the legal nature of smart contracts, the issues posed by their development and the first legal solutions adopted in some countries. The comparative approach pursued makes it possible to focus attention on the first solutions adopted until now in various systems, with particular regard to the circulation of models and ideas and to the specificities of their local variations, in terms of e.g. applicable law and jurisdiction. In reviewing the characteristics of distributed ledger technologies, and in particular of the blockchain technology on which smart contracts are based, above all the peculiarities of the latter are taken into consideration, especially automatic execution and resistance to tampering, which simultaneously present significant opportunities and complex legal issues. A comprehensive framework is then provided to reconcile smart contracts with comparative contract law, in order to define the scope and specificities of their binding force, legal effectiveness and regulation in various legal systems. Lastly, with specific reference to the elements, pathologies and contractual remedies for smart contracts, the book examines the peculiarities of their application and the main issues that emerge in comparative contract law in order to promote their harmonized use, in keeping with the transnational nature of such a revolutionary tool.

This book deals with the implementation of the rights of the child as enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 21 countries from Europe, Asia, Australia, and the USA. It gives an overview of the legal status of children regarding their most salient rights, such as the implementation of the best interest principle, the right of the child to know about of his/her origin, the right to be heard, to give medical consent, the right of the child in the field of employment, religious education of children, prohibition of physical punishment, protection of the child through deprivation of parental rights and in the case of inter-country adoption. In the last 25 years since the Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted, many States Parties to the Convention have made great efforts to pass legislation regulating the rights of the child, in their commitment to the improvement of the legal status of the child. However, is that enough for any child to live better, safer, and healthier? What are the practical effects of this international as well as many national instruments in the everyday life of children? Have there been any outcomes in terms of improvement of their status around the world, and improvement of the conditions under which they live, since the Convention entered into force? In tackling these questions, this work presents a comparative overview of the implementation of the Convention, and evaluates the results achieved.

This is the first book to comprehensively analyze the work of Hans Micklitz, one of the leading scholars in the field of EU economic law. It brings together analysts, academic friends and critics of Hans Micklitz and results in a unique collection of essays that evaluate his work on European Economic Law and Regulation. The contributions discuss a wide range of Micklitz' work: from his theoretical work on private law beyond party autonomy, with a special focus on its regulatory function, to the illustration of how his work has built the basis for current solutions such as used in solving the financial crisis. The book is divided into sections covering foundations of private law, regulatory law, competition and intellectual property law, product safety law, consumer contract law and the enforcement of law. This book clearly shows the enormous impact of Hans Micklitz' work on the EU legal system in both scholarship and practice.

This book uses a case study of a low-cost home ownership initiative at the margins of renting and owning provided by social landlords - known as shared ownership - to challenge everyday assumptions held about the 'social' and the 'legal' in property. The authors provide a study of the construction of property ownership, from the creation of this idea through to the present day, and offer a fresh consideration of key issues surrounding property, ownership, and the social. Analysing a diverse range of sources (from archives to micro-blogs, observation of housing providers, and interviews with shared owners), the authors explain the significance of the things (from the formal documents like leases, to odd materials like sweet wrappers and cigarette butts) commonly found in the narratives around shared ownership which are used to construct it as private ownership in everyday life. Ultimately, they uncover how this dream of ownership can become tarnished when people's identities as 'owners' come under threat, and as such, these findings will provide fascinating insight into the intricacies of so-called home ownership for scholars of Law, Criminology, and Sociology.

Prosecutes the civil litigation system and proposes practical reforms to increase access to the courts and reduce costs. Civil litigation has come under fire in recent years. Some critics portray a system of dishonest lawyers and undeserving litigants who prevail too often, and are awarded too much money. Others criticize the civil justice system for being out of reach for many who have suffered real injury. But contrary to these perspectives and popular belief, the civil justice system in the United States is not out of control. In Civil Justice Reconsidered, Steven Croley demonstrates that civil litigation is, for the most part, socially beneficial. An effective civil litigation system is accessible to parties who have suffered legal wrongs, and it is reliable in the sense that those with stronger claims tend to prevail over those with weaker claims. However, while most of the system's failures are overstated, they are not wholly off base; civil litigation often imposes excessive costs that, among other unfortunate consequences, impede access to the courts, and Croley offers ways to reform civil litigation in the interest of justice for potential plaintiffs and defendants, and for the rule of law itself. A better litigation system matters only because of what is at stake for real people, and Civil Justice Reconsidered speaks to the thought leaders, litigation reformers, members of the bar and bench, and policymakers who can answer the call for reforming civil litigation in the United States.

This book discusses and studies the basic course of ecological civilization construction in the 70 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China and summarizes the experience and lessons. It contains 75 articles from 75 top experts and government officials in the field of ecological civilization policy-making and basic theory research in China, including Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization, ecological culture, green industry economy, environmental quality, legal system, ecological security and so on, so as to provide reference for understanding and studying the progress of ecological environment protection since the founding of China.

This volume analyses the process and structure of ecotaxes in India to bring forth its rationale, application and incidence on emerging environmental problems on the backdrop of the environmental issues confronted by the Indian economy. Being at infant stage in India, the concept of ecotaxes is plagued with large empirical difficulties. This book provides a holistic understanding of the complexities in the design and implementation of these fiscal instruments at the country level. After elaborating on the theory, history of its applications, the book provides an innovative methodological exercise. It examines the adequacy and relevance of ecotaxation in the Indian context, along with ensuring that the distortions due to the proposed levy are minimised. The incidence of these taxes on the households, the double dividend hypothesis and the effect on competitiveness of the producer are a few of the core themes elaborated upon in this book. This is demonstrated through a linear general equilibrium framework of Environmentally extended Social Accounting Matrix (E-SAM).The book provides material for the researchers and graduate students on the methodological structure of eco-taxes. The proposed methodological intervention could be utilised by the researchers who wish to analyse the macroeconomic impact of any tax through the framework of Social Accounting Matrix (SAM). Additionally, the process as well as the implications and nuances provided in the book will assist the policy makers to design innovative policies for dealing with environmental issues. The volume also has something for the practitioners by helping them comprehend various effects of these instruments on different stake holders of the economy and thus will be useful as a policy prescription. The three policy scenarios analysed in this study could be considered by the policymakers while attempting to design these instruments in the Indian context and thus ending the extensive reliance on the age old and grossly ineffective Command and Control (CAC) Policies.

This book provides the first comprehensive international coverage of key issues in mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect. The book draws on a collection of the foremost scholars in the field, as well as clinicians and practice-based experts, to explore the nature, history, impact and justifiability of mandatory reporting laws, their optimal form, legal and conceptual issues, and practical issues and challenges for reporters, professional educators and governments. Key issues in non-Western nations are also explored briefly to assess the potential of socio-legal responses sex trafficking, forced child labour and child marriage. The book is of particular value to policy makers, educators and opinion leaders in government departments dealing with children, and to professionals and organisations who work with children. It is also intended to be a key authority for researchers and teachers in the fields of medicine, nursing, social work, education, law, psychology, health and allied health fields.

Hugh Collins argues that the European Union should develop a civil code to provide uniform rules for contracts, property rights and protection against civil wrongs, thus drawing together the differing national traditions with respect to the detailed regulation of civil society. The benefits of such a code would lie not so much in facilitating cross border trade, but in establishing foundations for a denser network of transnational relations of civil society, which in turn would help to overcome the present popular resistance to effective and functional political institutions at a European level. These principled foundations for a more inclusive and less balkanised civil society in Europe also provide elements of a required European social model that offers necessary safeguards for consumers, workers and disadvantaged groups against the pressures of market forces in an increasingly global economic system.

This book shows six different realities of same-sex families. They range from full recognition of same-sex marriage to full invisibility of gay and lesbian individuals and their families. The broad spectrum of experiences presented in this book share some commonalities: in all of them legal scholars and civil society are moving legal boundaries or thinking of spaces within rigid legal systems for same-sex families to function. In all of them there have been legal claims to recognize the existence of same-sex families. The difference between them lies in the response of courts. Regardless of the type of legal system, when courts have viewed claims of same-sex couples and their families as problems of individual rights, they have responded with a constitutional narrative protecting same-sex couples and their families. When courts respond to these claims with rigid concepts of what a family is and what marriage is as if legal concepts where unmodifiable, same-sex couples have remained outside the protection of the law. Until forty years ago marriage was the only union considered legitimate to form a family. Today more than 30 countries have granted rights to same sex couples, including several that have opened up marriage to couples of the same sex. Every day there is a new bill being discussed or a new claim being brought to courts seeking formal recognition of same sex couples. Not all countries are open to changing their legal structures to accommodate same-sex couples, but even those with no visible changes are witnessing new voices in their communities challenging the status quo and envisioning more flexible legal systems.

This book explores a hitherto unexamined possibility of justifiable disobedience opened up by John Rawls' Law of Peoples. This is the possibility of disobedience justified by appeal to standards of decency that are shared by peoples who do not otherwise share commitments to the same principles of justice, and whose societies are organized according to very different basic social institutions. Justified by appeal to shared decency standards, disobedience by diverse state and non-state actors indeed challenge injustices in the international system of states. The book considers three case studies: disobedience by the undocumented, disobedient challenges to global economic inequities, and the disobedient disclosure of government secrets. It proposes a substantial analytical redefinition of civil disobedience in a global perspective, identifying the creation of global solidarity relations as its goal. Michael Allen breaks new ground in our understanding of global justice. Traditional views, such as those of Rawls, see justice as a matter of recognizing the moral status of all free and equal person as citizens in a state. Allen argues that this fails to see things from the global perspective. From this perspective disobedience is not merely a matter of social cooperation. Rather, it is a matter of self determination that guarantees the invulnerability of different types of persons and peoples to domination. This makes the disobedience by the undocumented justified, based on the idea that all persons are moral equals, so that all sovereign peoples need to reject dominating forms of social organization for all persons, and not just their own citizens. In an age of mass movements of people, Allen gives us a strong reason to change our practices in treating the undocumented. James Bohman, St Louis University, Danforth Chair in the Humanities This monograph is an important contribution to our thinking on civil disobedience and practices of dissent in a globalized world. This is an era where non-violent social movements have had a significant role in challenging the abuse of power in contexts as diverse, yet interrelated as the Arab Spring protests and the Occupy protests. Moreover, while protests such as these speak to a local political horizon, they also have a global footprint, catalyzing a transnational dialogue about global justice, political strategy and cosmopolitan solidarity. Speaking directly to such complexities, Allen makes a compelling case for a global perspective regarding civil disobedience. Anyone interested in how the dynamics of non-violent protest have shaped and reshaped the landscape for democratic engagement in a globalized world will find this book rewarding and insightful. Vasuki Nesiah, New York University

This book is the first book to comprehensively and deeply explain and construct the legal system of Chinese art auctions. Based on agency theory in traditional contract law, this book combs the legal relationship between client, auctioneer, and buyer. Aiming at the most difficult problem of art identification, this book shows the obligations that auctioneers must perform and the common methods for auctioneers to avoid these obligations. The purpose of this book is to ease the current situation in which the interests of buyers and auctioneers are too opposed and speed up the legalization process of art auctions through the construction of the legal system of art auctions in China. Additionally, using the method of policy demonstration, this book discusses how public power should intervene in the process of art auctions.

This book introduces readers to the main principles of Turkish contract law, and particularly analyzes the general provisions of the Turkish Code of Obligations. Moreover, in order to illuminate certain key subjects, it discusses selected provisions of the Turkish Civil Code, the Turkish Commercial Code and the Turkish Bankruptcy and Enforcement Law. Intended to provide a comprehensive and clear overview of Turkish contract law, the book seeks to avoid contentious arguments and explains the subjects with the help of simple examples.

This book includes guiding cases of the Supreme People's Court, cases deliberated on by the Judicial Committee of the Supreme People's Court and cases discussed at the Joint Meeting of Presiding Judges from various tribunals. This book is divided into three sections, including "Cases by Justices", "Cases at Judicial Committee" and "Typical Cases", which will introduce readers to Chinese legal processes, legal methodologies and ideology in an intuitive, clear and accurate manner. This book 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 , serving the rule of law in China", the China Institute of Applied Jurisprudence, with the approval of the Supreme People's Court, opts 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 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.

There have been extraordinary developments in the field of neuroscience in recent years, sparking a number of discussions within the legal field. This book studies the various interactions between neuroscience and the world of law, and explores how neuroscientific findings could affect some fundamental legal categories and how the law should be implemented in such cases. The book is divided into three main parts. Starting with a general overview of the convergence of neuroscience and law, the first part outlines the importance of their continuous interaction, the challenges that neuroscience poses for the concepts of free will and responsibility, and the peculiar characteristics of a "new" cognitive liberty. In turn, the second part addresses the phenomenon of cognitive and moral enhancement, as well as the uses of neurotechnology and their impacts on health, self-determination and the concept of being human. The third and last part investigates the use of neuroscientific findings in both criminal and civil cases, and seeks to determine whether they can provide valuable evidence and facilitate the assessment of personal responsibility, helping to resolve cases. The book is the result of an interdisciplinary dialogue involving jurists, philosophers, neuroscientists, forensic medicine specialists, and scholars in the humanities; further, it is intended for a broad readership interested in understanding the impacts of scientific and technological developments on people's lives and on our social systems.

This anthology provides an in-depth analysis and discusses the issues surrounding nudging and its use in legislation, regulation, and policy making more generally. The 17 essays in this anthology provide startling insights into the multifaceted debate surrounding the use of nudges in European Law and Economics. Nudging is a tool aimed at altering people's behaviour in a predictable way without forbidding any option or significantly changing economic incentives. It can be used to help people make better decisions to influence human behaviour without forcing them because they can opt out. Its use has sparked lively debates in academia as well as in the public sphere. This book explores who decides which behaviour is desired. It looks at whether or not the state has sufficient information for debiasing, and if there are clear-cut boundaries between paternalism, manipulation and indoctrination. The first part of this anthology discusses the foundations of nudging theory and the problems associated, as well as outlining possible solutions to the problems raised. The second part is devoted to the wide scope of applications of nudges from contract law, tax law and health claim regulations, among others. This volume is a result of the flourishing annual Law and Economics Conference held at the law faculty of the University of Lucerne. The conferences have been instrumental in establishing a strong and ever-growing Law and Economics movement in Europe, providing unique insights in the challenges faced by Law and Economics when applied in European legal traditions.