Although the influence and opinions of political elites, civil society, and the general public vary widely, the death penalty is universally in decline throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. Today, the death penalty is a site of accommodation and resistance to international human rights norms between African governments and the Global North. As in debates over membership in the International Criminal Court and legal protections for sexual minorities, some leaders resist death penalty abolition as "imposed" by the Global North, though the modern death penalty in Africa is a product of European colonialism. However, Sub-Saharan Africa is not a passive subject of global death penalty abolition driven by Europe. Courts around the continent have made important contributions to global death penalty jurisprudence and members of civil society have engaged in novel and successful strategies against the death penalty. In addition, precolonial notions of punishment and criminal responsibility in Africa have influenced debates over the death penalty, including whether to provide compensation to victims of crime.This book explores the African contribution to the global death penalty debate and lessons for the international death penalty abolition movement.

To understand today's Supreme Court, it is essential to understand the judicial philosophy of its swing vote. For twenty years, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy has voted with the majority more than any of his colleagues. He has provided the deciding vote in cases involving politically charged issues such as affirmative action, the 2000 presidential election, religious expression, gay rights, and executive power to detain suspected terrorists. With a record reliably neither liberal nor conservative, Kennedy has generally been viewed as a capricious, indecisive moderate.

Frank Colucci, however, argues that Kennedy indeed displays a coherent approach to constitutional interpretation. Colucci digs deep into the Justice's record, offering a close analysis of not only of Kennedy's opinions on the Court but also his prior opinions on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, his off-the-bench speeches delivered before becoming a Justice, and his testimony at confirmation hearings. Colucci identifies Kennedy's core belief: that judges have a duty to ensure the word liberty in the Constitution be given its full and necessary meaning.

Colucci shows that Kennedy rejects theories of originalism and judicial restraint. Instead, Kennedy adopts a moral reading of the Constitution--similar to that championed by Ronald Dworkin and Randy Barnett as well as former Justice William J. Brennan--in which liberty and human dignity trump even democracy.

Depicting Kennedy as seeking an alternative to the perceived excesses of both the Warren Court and originalist overreaction, Colucci also compares Kennedy's rhetoric to Catholic teaching and shows him as struggling to disassociate his personal beliefs from his official duties. Separate chapters offer close readings of Kennedy's jurisprudence regarding abortion, free speech, equality, and government structure.

Colucci's persuasive account offers readers a more nuanced understanding of Justice Kennedy's arguments about the nature of personal liberty and the proper role of courts in defining and enforcing it.

Through studies of beheaded Irish traitors, smugglers hung in chains on the English coast, suicides subjected to the surgeon's knife in Dresden and the burial of executed Nazi war criminals, this volume provides a fresh perspective on the history of capital punishment. The chapters 'Introduction: A Global History of Execution and the Criminal Corpse' and 'The Gibbet in the Landscape: Locating the Criminal Corpse in Mid-Eighteenth-Century England' are open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.

This volume of essays celebrates the first 50 years in the life of the New Zealand Court of Appeal. The move, in 1958, to a Court of Appeal comprising permanent appellate judges was an important landmark in the development of New Zealand law. The chapters highlight areas where the Court of Appeal has made a significant contribution to New Zealand and wider Commonwealth law, showing how the Court's jurisprudence has both reflected and contributed to resolving some of the pressing issues of the times.They are a critical reflection on the changing work and achievements of the permanent Court over the past half-century. In addition to recording the perspectives of a former President on the Court's achievements, the essays in this volume deal with such varied topics as: the role and use of precedent by the Court of Appeal; the Court's contribution to Commonwealth administrative law; criminal appeals; relationship property; accident compensation and tort litigation; company law; equity in commercial dealings; and the rights of Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the methods of dispute resolution in Central and Eastern Europe have changed dramatically. No longer intended to serve a monolithic state, courts and arbitration institutions have adapted to permit the resolution of commercial disputes that now arise. This volume offers a view of the function of courts and arbitration in these regions. Using the resources of the International Bar Association, the text provides separate reports on litigation and arbitration by experts in Russia, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic, plus additional chapters on Slovakia, Slovenia, and Estonia. The practical text sets out the relevant material in a straightforward manner and also provides comparisons. Numerous appendices should aid its usefulness as a resource.

An in-depth examination of the U.S. Supreme Court under the 11-year reign of Chief Justice Edward Douglass White. The White Court: Justices, Rulings, and Legacy examines the workings and legacies of the Supreme Court during the tenure of Chief Justice Edward Douglass White. Through detailed discussions of landmark cases, this reference work explores the role the Court played in steering the country through an era of economic growth, racial discrimination, and international warfare. The White Court reveals how the Court established its greatest legacy, the "rule of reason," in antitrust cases against the American Tobacco Company and Standard Oil, and how it resolved controversies concerning the expansion of executive power during wartime. Individual profiles of the 13 White Court justices describe their rise to prominence and controversies surrounding their nominations, their work on the Court, judicial philosophies, important decisions, and overall impact. A-Z entries on key people, laws, cases, events, and concepts such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Hipolite Egg Co. v. United States, and Standard Oil of New Jersey v. United States Appendix with excerpts from primary documents of key cases decided during the White Court tenure

A valuable analysis of the political environment, judicial records, and implications of rulings during the era of the Burger Court. The Burger Court delivered significant decisions in cases involving the separation of powers, equal protection, free speech, and civil liberties. The Burger Court guaranteed in Roe v. Wade a woman's right to an abortion, demonstrating that this court definitely had a mind of its own. This handbook is as suitable for the preparation of term papers and debates as it is for ready reference and more involved research. Includes extensive reference materials such as further reading and bibliographical sections directing users to primary sources and Court documents Covers key people such as Archibald Cox and Gerald Ford, laws such as the Equal Rights Amendment and the Voting Rights Act, and events such as the Iranian Hostage Crisis and the Watergate Scandal

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"This thoughtful book will appeal to readers across the political spectrum."
--"Harvard Law Review"

"An invaluable source . . . for anyone interested in navigating the judiciary's politics."
--"National Journal"

"The Myth of the Imperial Judiciary makes a formidable argument that conservatives indeed have an unrealistic conception of the Supreme Court."
--"Austin American Statesman"

"Kozlowski marshals history to show that not only was a strong and active judiciary intended by the Founding Fathers, but also that it has served the nation extremely well."
--"Chicago Sun-Times"

"Kozlowski effectively demonstrates that courts have far less power to operate as free agents than many believe."
--"Law and Politics Book Review"

"Kozlowski marshals history to show that not only was a strong and active judiciary intended by the Founding Fathers, it has served the nation extremely well. . . . A fine piece of scholarship."
--"Washington Post"

"How many minds his book will change on a subject so charged with emotion remainds dubious, but the points Mr. Kozlowski makes so expertly cannot in fairness be ignored."
--"New York Law Journal"

Few institutions have become as ferociously fought over in democratic politics as the courts. While political criticism of judges in this country goes back to its inception, today's intensely ideological assault is nearly unprecedented.

Spend any amount of time among the writings of contemporary right-wing critics of judicial power, and you are virtually assured of seeing repeated complaints about the "imperial judiciary." American conservatives contend not onlythat judicial power has expanded dangerously in recent decades, but that liberal judges now willfully write their policy preferences into law. They raise alarms that American courts possess a degree of power incompatible with the functioning of a democratic polity.

The Myth of the Imperial Judiciary explores the anti-judicial ideological trend of the American right, refuting these claims and taking a realistic look at the role of courts in our democracy to show that conservatives have a highly "unrealistic" conception of their power. Kozlowski first assesses the validity of the conservative view of the Founders' intent, arguing that courts have played an assertive role in our politics since their establishment. He then considers contemporary judicial powers to show that conservatives have greatly overstated the extent to which the expansion of rights which has occurred has worked solely to the benefit of liberals.

Kozlowski reveals the ways in which the claims of those on the right are often either unsupported or simply wrong. He concludes that American courts, far from imperiling our democracy or our moral fabric, stand as a bulwark against the abuse of legislative power, acting forcefully, as they have always done, to give meaning to constitutional promises.

This book presents a general method that lawyers, prosecutors and judges can follows to assess the quality and scientific content of technical work done for an accident and crime scene reconstruction. Using multilevel sequence of events analysis allows all key events to be fully identified, which in turn assists judicial bodies in identifying where to assign specific criminal liability. Created from a concept long sought by the two authors (an engineer and an attorney), the method allows readers without any technical background to progress from an examination of evidence gathered at the scene of a complex accident and to reconstruct "beyond reasonable doubt" the events that took place. Once created and scientifically verified by the sequence of events analysis, the chain of key events serves as a reference source for various levels of complex organizations and inter-organization structures in cases involving complex criminal responsibilities.

Lord Slynn of Hadley is one of the outstanding judges of his time. He has served as a High Court Judge, as an Advocate General and Owa Judge of the European Court of Justice, and he has been a Lord of Appeal for ten years. This Liber Amicorum bears testimony to the international reputation that he has achieved for his judgments and for his scholarship. In the many distinguished contributions, judges from international courts and from Supreme Courts and Constitutional Courts, together with academics from leading universities around the world, have taken the opportunity to celebrate the accomplishments of Lord Slynn's legal career thus far, and also to discuss areas of law where Lord Slynn can be expected to give important impulses to further development. The thirty years of the legal life of Lord Slynn of Hadley (Gordon Slynn as he is known to his friends) have seen remarkable developments and changes in the legal scenery, both domestic (British), and international. This book, by his friends, extends widely. Recollect that there is a separate volume covering the European Court of Justice, and yet there is enough in this publication to celebrate several separate careers. The reader will note that there are contributions from justices of eight Supreme Courts, plus the German Constitutional Court, the Conseil Constitutionel and the European Court of Human Rights, from ten universities, many of them multiple, together with famous institutions and individuals in many different fields. Even Lord Slynn's young lecturer interest in Air Law is reflected by a professional paper on the Law of Space. Many, if not most, of the contributions bear, appropriately, on the question of the role of courts in reviewing actions of the legislature and the executive, but there are also articles to attract other diverse specialists, several, no doubt to Lord Slynn's pleasure, provocative and forward-looking. Lord Slynn is happily still in office, so this is really a "Festschrift" of celebration.

This is the first in-depth analysis of the Rehnquist Court viewed as a functional entity. Well known for his work in constitutional law, Stanley Friedelbaum analyzes leading cases and rigorously examines the Court's full opinions. He reviews the interaction between the Justices and points to the patterns of the Court as a new centralist coalition comes to control critical policymaking relating to abortion, the right to die, affirmative action, reverse discrimination, and privacy interests. A table of important cases and a bibliography enhance this short study for general readers and for students in introductory constitutional law courses and in advanced courses in judicial politics and American government.

International Law in the U.S. Legal System provides a wide-ranging overview of how international law intersects with the domestic legal system of the United States, and points out various unresolved issues and areas of controversy. Curtis Bradley explains the structure of the U.S. legal system and the various separation of powers and federalism considerations implicated by this structure, especially as these considerations relate to the conduct of foreign affairs. Against this backdrop, he covers all of the principal forms of international law: treaties, executive agreements, decisions and orders of international institutions, customary international law, and jus cogens norms. He also explores a number of issues that are implicated by the intersection of U.S. law and international law, such as treaty withdrawal, foreign sovereign immunity, international human rights litigation, war powers, extradition, and extraterritoriality. This book highlights recent decisions and events relating to the topic, including various actions taken during the Trump administration, while also taking into account relevant historical materials, including materials relating to the U.S. Constitutional founding. Written by one of the most cited international law scholars in the United States, the book is a resource for lawyers, law students, legal scholars, and judges from around the world.

Gets straight to the point and offers clear and concise coverage of the law, broken-down into bite-size sections with regular recaps to boost confidence. The leading competitors are much longer books and are becoming too large and unwieldy for single-semester first-year level courses. Packed full of illustrative examples, flowcharts and activities and unlike competing books, this is presented in an innovative, visual format, ideal for those with visual learning preferences This edition has been heavily updated, with a new chapter on Legal Ethics, improved and updated MCQs as well as guidance on how to use them, information on how the new SQE works and how law schools have responded to it, and new material on the effects of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic on the English Legal System.

On the occasion of its tenth anniversary, the EFTA Court held a conference at which speakers were asked to reflect on the case law of the Court and its role in the European Economic Area (EEA). In the course of its work, the Court has acted as a driving force of integration under the EEA Agreement, by establishing general principles such as state liability and giving landmark judgments in several areas of European law. The essays in this volume, by leading experts and high-ranking representatives of national and European courts, cover areas such as the relationship between the principle of free movement and national or collective preferences on the EU/EEA and WTO levels, the relationship between the European courts and the Member States in European integration, homogeneity as a general principle of European integration, and the importance of judicial dialogue. In this regard, the sentence from President Skouris of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, who called the dialogue between the EFTA Court and the EC Court 'a shining example of judicial cooperation', could also serve as a motto for the present book.

This book provides a highly accessible yet practical guide to all aspects of arbitration, from the drafting of an arbitration agreement through to the award, including enforcement and appeals. Being comprehensive in its approach, every stage of the arbitral process under the Arbitration Act 1996 is covered including a separate chapter covering special types of arbitration such as consumer schemes and arbitrations under statute. Written in simple non-legalistic language and intentionally general in its coverage, it should be of relevance to arbitration matters whatever trade or profession practised.

This book highlights the tremendous shift in the traditional arrangements for the delivery of civil justice in the Commonwealth Caribbean, from litigation to alternative dispute resolution (ADR) processes. Over the last quarter of a century, much learning has taken place on the topic of ADR and the literature on the subject is now voluminous. This book puts forward the thesis that the peculiar experiences of the developing world ought to help reshape our traditional notions of ADR. Furthermore, the impact of globalisation on the developing world has brought with it special and peculiar challenges to our notions of civil and criminal justice which are not replicated elsewhere. This book will appeal to a wide readership. The legal profession, students of law and politics, social scientists, mediators, the police, state officers and the public at large will find its contents of interest.

This book provides a systematic elaboration of Chinese Private International Law, reveals the general techniques concerning conflict of laws in China, explains the detailed Chinese conflict rules for different areas of law, and demonstrates how international civil litigation is pursued in China. Clearly structured and written by a native Chinese scholar specializing in the field, the book's easy-to-read style makes it accessible to a broad readership, while its content makes it a useful reference guide, especially for jurists and researchers.

He reviled the rich for their cupidity and they found his rhetoric repulsive. Plebians believed him their champion and patricians knew he was their bete noire, remarks Halford Ryan in his eloquent foreword to this definitive survey of Clarence DarroW's development as orator and unique American myth. As a writer, lecturer, debater, and trial lawyer Darrow spoke for the have-nots and cultivated an image of mythic proportions as the underdog's advocate. Many of the more than 2,000 trials in which he was active reflected the major social and philosophical issues of the last quarter of the nineteenth and first third of the twentieth centuries in America. Read today, DarroW's speeches still ring true both as political statements and as models of persuasive pleading and pathos--reason enough to study the work of this uncommon advocate who stood perpetually opposed to the great and powerful of the earth. Richard J. Jensen has written a clearsighted volume that documents how Darrow created and then enlarged his personal myth through speeches, writings, and actions. Each chapter focuses on particular segments of that creation. Half of the book consists of authoritative texts of several of DarroW's most influential and rhetorically brilliant speeches, and a speech chronology simplifies the work of researchers.

The study opens with a brief biography, an overview of DarroW's rhetoric, along with the forces that affected it, and some initial comments on the elements that make up the myth. The next chapter, Schoolmaster of the Courtroom, chronicles the origins of DarroW's image as a defender of the downtrodden and his early trials in defense of labor unions and their leaders. What is considered to be one of the most famous speeches in American legal history, that given by Darrow at the conclusion of the 1924 Leopold and Loeb trial, is the focus of Chapter Three. Chapter Four centers on the Scopes Trial, perhaps the most famous trial in recent American history, during which the dramatic confrontation with William Jennings Bryan occurred. The penultimate chapter explains the arguments Darrow used to defend the poor, radicals, Blacks, and other less fortunate members of society. Finally, DarroW's rhetoric as a writer and as an active speaker and debater on the lecture circuit is examined. Part II contains the authoritative texts of seven speeches including those given during the Leopold and Loeb Trial and the Scopes Trial, among others. The Chronology of Speeches, Bibliography, and Index close the volume. The speeches along with Jensen's intelligent, readable analysis and criticism will be an important resource for those teaching and studying Legal Rhetoric and the History of Public Address.

Prillaman argues that a sound judiciary is critical for building popular support for democracy and laying the foundations for sustainable economic development, but that most Latin American governments have made virtually no progress toward building a more effective judiciary. He shows that the traditional approach to judicial reform is flawed on several levels. Reformers are wrong to focus on a single aspect of the judiciary on the assumption that one reform naturally leads to another. In fact, all aspects of the courts are so closely related that failure to reform one aspect creates a "negative synergy" that ultimately undermines the reformed areas. Instead, a successful reform strategy must simultaneously tackle independence, accountability, access, and efficiency; otherwise, it is virtually assured of failure. As Prillaman points out, judicial reform is not merely a technical process that can be isolated from broader economic and political forces. Rather, it is an inherently political process that will be opposed by forces ranging from politicians accustomed to stocking the courts to judges and court personnel reluctant to accept greater oversight and professional norms. Based on four case studies, Prillaman concludes that failed judicial reforms have led to growing support for mob lynching and vigilante justice that promises to fill the void created by ineffectual courts--ultimately challenging the quality and sustainability of democracy. An invaluable survey for political scientists, students, and researchers involved with democratic consolidation, institution building, and comparative judicial politics in Latin America specifically and the developing world in general.

This research review presents a 24-article tour of the topics surrounding the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. Written by two leading experts in the field, the review explores different approaches to, and comparative perspectives of, judgment recognition and enforcement. Topics covered include the special issues of the revenue rule and the role of public law, the effects of fraud, the scope of preclusion, and the impact of class actions. The review also looks to the future, considering possible solutions to harmonizing recognition and enforcement and assessing how the development of human rights may impact judgement recognition and enforcement. This review is an essential resource for those studying, researching or practicing in this area.

The Supreme Court against the Criminal Jury: Social Science and the Palladium of Liberty is an analysis of the United States Supreme Court decisions in what has come to be called the "jury-size" and "jury-decision rule" cases. In Williams v. Florida (1970) and Ballew v. Georgia (1978), a majority of the Supreme Court looked to history, empirical studies, and functional analysis to support its claim that there was "no discernible difference" between the verdicts of juries of six and juries of twelve. In the process the Court also decided that the number twelve was an historical accident and that the twelve-member jury was not an essential ingredient of trial by jury. Two years later, the Court, following essentially the same line of reasoning used in Williams, decided in the companion cases Apodaca v. Oregon (1972) and Johnson v. Louisiana (1972) that defendants were as well served with juries that reached verdicts by a majority vote of 11-1,10-2 and 9-3 as they were with unanimous jury verdicts. In these cases the Supreme Court rejected the centuries old common law view that the unanimous jury verdict was an essential element of trial by jury. With these four decisions, the criminal jury as it had been known for more than six hundred years under the common law and the Constitution was in principle abandoned. We critique these decisions from the perspective of unreliable jury studies and the impact of these decision on jury nullification.