This volume focuses on the rise of transnational constitutional laws, primarily created by the interaction between national and international courts, and by the domestic transformation of international law. Through detailed analysis of patterns of institutional formation at key historical junctures in a number of national societies, it examines the social processes that have locked national states into an increasingly transnational constitutional order, and it explains how the growth of global constitutional norms has provided a stabilizing framework for the functions of state institutions. The book adopts a distinctive historical-sociological approach to these questions, examining the deep continuities between national constitutional law and contemporary models of global law. The volume makes an important contribution to the sociology of constitutional law, to the sociology of post-national legal processes, and to the sociology of human rights law. This title is also available as Open Access.

A unique defense of Federalism, making the case that constitutional law in America-encompassing the systems of all 51 governments-should have a role in assessing the right balance of power among all branches of our state and federal governments. Everything in law and politics, including individual rights, comes back to divisions of power and the evergreen question: Who decides? Who wins the disputes of the day often turns on who decides them. And our acceptance of the resolution of those disputes often turns on who the decision maker is-because it reveals who governs us. In Who Decides, the influential US Appellate Court Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton focuses on the constitutional structure of the American states to answer the question of who should decide the key questions of public policy today. By concentrating on the role of governmental structure in shaping power across the 50 American states, Sutton develops a powerful explanation of American constitutional law, in all of its variety, as opposed to just federal constitutional law. As in his earlier book, 51 Imperfect Solutions, which looked at how American federalism allowed the states to serve as laboratories of innovation for protecting individual liberty and property rights, Sutton compares state-level governments with the federal government and draws numerous insights from the comparisons. Instead of focusing on individual rights, however, he focuses on structure, while continuing to develop some of the core themes of his previous book. An illuminating and essential sequel to his earlier work on the nature of American federalism, Who Decides makes the case that American Constitutional Law should account for the role of the state courts and state constitutions, together with the federal courts and the federal constitution, in assessing the right balance of power among all branches of government. Taken together, both books reveal a remarkably complex, nuanced, ever-changing federalist system, one that ought to make lawyers and litigants pause before reflexively assuming that the United States Supreme Court alone has the answers to our vexing constitutional questions.

The 1949 Geneva Conventions are the most important rules for armed conflict ever formulated. To this day they continue to shape contemporary debates about regulating warfare, but their history is often misunderstood. For most observers, the drafters behind these treaties were primarily motivated by liberal humanitarian principles and the shock of the atrocities of the Second World War. This book tells a different story, showing how the final text of the Conventions, far from being an unabashedly liberal blueprint, was the outcome of a series of political struggles among the drafters. It also concerned a great deal more than simply recognizing the shortcomings of international law revealed by the experience of war. To understand the politics and ideas of the Conventions' drafters is to see them less as passive characters responding to past events than as active protagonists trying to shape the future of warfare. In many different ways, they tried to define the contours of future battlefields by deciding who deserved protection and what counted as a legitimate target. Outlawing illegal conduct in wartime did as much to outline the concept of humanized war as to establish the legality of waging war itself. Through extensive archival research and critical legal methodologies, Preparing for War establishes that although they did not seek war, the Conventions' drafters prepared for it by means of weaving a new legal safety net in the event that their worst fear should materialize, a spectre still haunting us today.

This book presents the evolution of Italian administrative law in the context of the EU, describing its distinctive features and comparing it with other experiences across Europe. It provides a comprehensive overview of administrative law in Italy, focusing on the main changes occurred over the last few decades.Although the respective chapters generally pursue a legal approach, they also consider the influence of economic, social, cultural and technological factors on the evolution of public administration and administrative law.The book is divided into three parts. The first part addresses general issues (e.g. procedures and organization of public administrations, administrative justice). The second part focuses on more specific topics (e.g. public intervention in the economy, healthcare management, local government). In the third part, the evolution of Italian administrative law is discussed in a comparative perspective.

This book adds a critical perspective to the legal dialogue on the regulation of 'smart urban mobility'. Mobility is one of the most visible sub-domains of the 'smart city', which has become shorthand for technological advances that influence how cities are structured, public services are fashioned, and citizens coexist. In the urban context, mobility has come under pressure due to a variety of different forces, such as the implementation of new business models (e.g. car and bicycle sharing), the proliferation of alternative methods of transportation (e.g. electric scooters), the emergence of new market players and stakeholders (e.g. internet and information technology companies), and advancements in computer science (in particular due to artificial intelligence). At the same time, demographic changes and the climate crisis increase innovation pressure. In this context law is a seminal factor that both shapes and is shaped by socio-economic and technological change. This book puts a spotlight on recent developments in smart urban mobility from a legal, regulatory, and policy perspective. It considers the implications for the public sector, businesses, and citizens in relation to various areas of public and private law in the European Union, including competition law, intellectual property law, contract law, data protection law, environmental law, public procurement law, and legal philosophy. Chapter 'Location Data as Contractual Counter-Performance: A Consumer Perspective on Recent EU Legislation' of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.

An account of a fundamental change in American legal thought, from a conception of law as something found in nature to one in which law is entirely a human creation. Before the late 19th century, natural law played an important role in the American legal system. Lawyers routinely used it in their arguments and judges often relied upon it in their opinions. Today, by contrast, natural law plays virtually no role in the legal system. When natural law was part of a lawyer's toolkit, lawyers thought of judges as finders of the law, but when natural law dropped out of the legal system, lawyers began thinking of judges as makers of the law instead. In The Decline of Natural Law, the eminent legal historian Stuart Banner explores the causes and consequences of this change. To do this, Banner discusses the ways in which lawyers used natural law and why the concept seemed reasonable to them. He further examines several long-term trends in legal thought that weakened the position of natural law, including the use of written constitutions, the gradual separation of the spheres of law and religion, the rapid growth of legal publishing, and the position of natural law in some of the 19th century's most contested legal issues. And finally, he describes both the profession's rejection of natural law in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the ways in which the legal system responded to the absence of natural law. The first book to explain how natural law once worked in the American legal system, The Decline of Natural Law offers a unique look into how and why this major shift in legal thought happened, and focuses, in particular, on the shift from the idea that law is something we find to something we make.

The Latvian-born legal theorist P.I. Stuchka (1865-1932), generally recognized as one of the principal architects of modern Soviet legal theory and the Soviet legal system itself, was a prodigious author and editor. Twenty essays by Stuchka written between 1917 and 1931 were selected for translation

The first comprehensive examination of the US Constitution's Ex Post Facto Clause, surveying its history and the critical role it can and should play in combatting the punitive tendencies of American legislatures. The Ex Post Facto Clause, one of the few civil liberty protections found in the body of the US Constitution, reflects the Framers' acute concern over the tendency of legislatures to enact burdensome retroactive laws targeting unpopular individuals. Over time, a broad array of Americans have invoked the protective cloak of the Clause, including Confederate sympathizers in the late 1860s; immigrants in the early 1900s; Communist Party members in the 1950s; and, since the 1990s, convicted sex offenders. Although the Supreme Court enforced the Clause with vigor during the first several decades of the nation's history, of late the justices have been less than zealous defenders of the security it was intended to provide. And, even more problematic, they have done so amid major changes in the nation's social, political, and institutional life that have made the protections of the Ex Post Facto Clause all the more important. The Ex Post Facto Clause provides the first book-length examination of the history of the Clause and its potential for tempering the punitive impulses of modern American legislatures. Wayne A. Logan chronicles and critiques the evolving treatment of ex post facto claims by the Supreme Court, which has created a body of law that is both at odds with the Framers' intent and ill-suited to the unforgiving and harshly punitive nation that America has become. Drawing on Framing Era history, seminal Supreme Court decisions, and the global embrace of the values underlying the Ex Post Facto Clause, Logan provides a blueprint for how the Clause can play a reinvigorated and more robust role in guarding against the penal populism besetting modern American legislatures.

The 2014 Supreme Court ruling on McCullen v. Coakley striking down a Massachusetts law regulating anti-abortion activism marked the reengagement of the Supreme Court in abortion politics. A throwback to the days of clinic-front protests, the decision seemed a means to reinvigorate the old street politics of abortion. The Court's ruling also highlights the success of a decades' long effort by anti-abortion activists to transform the very politics of abortion. The New States of Abortion Politics, written by leading scholar Joshua C. Wilson, tells the story of this movement, from streets to legislative halls to courtrooms. With the end of clinic-front activism, lawyers and politicians took on the fight. Anti-abortion activists moved away from a doomed frontal assault on Roe v. Wade and adopted an incremental strategy-putting anti-abortion causes on the offensive in friendly state forums and placing reproductive rights advocates on the defense in the courts. The Supreme Court ruling on Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt in 2016 makes the stakes for abortion politics higher than ever. This book elucidates how-and why.

Justices on the Ballot addresses two central questions in the study of judicial elections: how have state supreme court elections changed since World War II? And, what effects have those changes had on election outcomes, state supreme court decisions, and the public's view of the courts? To answer these questions, Herbert M. Kritzer takes the broadest scope of any study to date, investigating every state supreme court election between 1946 and 2013. Through an analysis of voting returns, campaign contributions and expenditures, television advertising, and illustrative case studies, he shows that elections have become less politicized than commonly believed. Rather, the changes that have occurred reflect broader trends in American politics, as well as increased involvement of state supreme courts in hot-button issues.

No sitting federal judge has ever written so trenchant a critique of the federal judiciary as Richard A. Posner does in this, his most confrontational book. Skewering the politicization of the Supreme Court, the mismanagement of judicial staff, the overly complex system of appeals, the threat of originalism, outdated procedures, and the backward-looking traditions of law schools and the American judicial system, Posner has written a cri de coeur and a battle cry. With the prospect that the Supreme Court will soon be remade in substantial, potentially revanchist, ways, The Federal Judiciary exposes the American legal system's most troubling failures in order to instigate much-needed reforms. Posner presents excerpts from legal texts and arguments to expose their flaws, incorporating his own explanation and judgment to educate readers in the mechanics of judicial thinking. This rigorous intellectual work separates sound logic from artful rhetoric designed to subvert precedent and open the door to oblique interpretations of American constitutional law. In a rebuke of Justice Antonin Scalia's legacy, Posner shows how originalists have used these rhetorical strategies to advance a self-serving political agenda. Judicial culture adheres to an antiquated traditionalism, Posner argues, that inhibits progressive responses to threats from new technologies and other unforeseen challenges to society. With practical prescriptions for overhauling judicial practices and precedents, The Federal Judiciary offers an unequaled resource for understanding the institution designed by the founders to check congressional and presidential power and resist its abuse.

This book explores the development of mental health systems in the Pacific Island Countries (PICs) of Samoa and Tonga through an examination of several policy transfer events from the colonial to the contemporary. Beginning in the 1990s, mental health became an area of global policy concern as reflected in concerted international organisation and bilateral aid and development agendas, most notably those of the World Bank, World Health Organization, and the governments of Australia and New Zealand. This book highlights how Tonga and Samoa both reformed their respective mental health systems during these years, after relatively long periods of stagnation. Using recent scholarship concerning public policy transfer, this book explains these policy outcomes and expands it to include consideration of the historical institutional dimensions evidenced by contemporary mental health systems. This book considers three distinct levels of policy implicated in mental health system transfer processes from developed to developing nations: colonial authority and influence; decolonisation processes; and the global development agenda surrounding health systems. In the process, the author argues that there are in fact three levels of policy change that must be accounted for in examining contemporary policy change. These policy levels include formal policy transfers, which tend to be prescriptive, involving professional problem construction and the designation of appropriate state apparatus for curative or custodial care provision; quasi-formal transfers, which tend to be aspirational and involve policy instruments developed through collaborative, participatory processes; and informal transfers that tend to be normative and include practices by professional actors in delivering service merged with traditional cultural beliefs as to disease aetiology as well as reflecting a deep understanding of the cultural context within which the services will be delivered. This book argues that a renewed focus on the importance of public policy and government institutional capacity is necessary to ensure human rights and justice are secured.

Beginning in 1803, and continuing for several decades, the Ohio legislature enacted what came to be known as the Black Laws. These laws instituted barriers to blacks entering the state and placed limits on black testimony against whites. Stephen Middleton tells the story of this racial oppression in Ohio and provides chilling episodes of how blacks asserted their freedom from the enactment of the Black Laws until the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. The fastest-growing state in antebellum America and the destination of whites from the north and the south, Ohio also became the destination for thousands of southern blacks, free and fugitive. Thus, nineteenth-century Ohio became a legal battleground for two powerful and far-reaching impulses in the history of race and law in America. One was the use of state power to further racial discrimination and the other was the thirst of African Americans, and their white allies, for equality under the law for all Americans. The state could never stop the steady stream of blacks crossing the Ohio River to freedom. In time, black and white leaders arose to challenge the laws and by 1849 the firewall built to separate the races began to collapse. The last vestiges of Ohio's Black Laws were repealed in a bill written by a black legislator in 1886. Written in a clear and compelling style, this path-breaking study of Ohio's early racial experience will be required reading for a broad audience of historians, legal scholars, students, and those interested in the struggle for civil rights in America.Stephen Middleton is a member of the history department at North Carolina State University. He is the author of Ohio and the Antislavery Activities ofSalmon P. Chase, The Black Laws in the Old Northwest: A Documentary History, and Black Congressmen During Reconstruction: A Documentary Sourcebook.

Das Buch vermittelt praxisbezogen die grundlegenden Prinzipien, Methoden und den Ablauf der erfolgreichen Mediation. Im Mittelpunkt stehen bewahrte Kommunikations- und Gesprachstechniken, Beginn und Durchfuhrung der Mediation, der Mediationsvertrag und die Abschlussvereinbarung sowie ein historischer Abriss. UEbersichten veranschaulichen die Struktur des Gesprachs im Mediationsverfahren; zahlreiche Praxisbeispiele, Checklisten und Formulierungshilfen erleichtern die Umsetzung. Die klare und ubersichtliche Darstellung ermoeglicht das schnelle und gezielte Nachschlagen zentraler theoretischer und praktischer Aspekte der Mediation. Ein auf die Phasen der Mediation bezogenes Sachverzeichnis ermoeglicht das Nachschlagen von Techniken und Checklisten, die zum jeweiligen Verfahrenszeitpunkt hilfreich sind. Das Buch richtet sich an Mediatoren in der Ausbildung ebenso wie an erfahrene Praktiker. Die 2. Auflage enthalt die relevanten Erganzungen des Mediationsgesetzes durch die ZMediatAusbV und Hinweise zur (Selbst-) Zertifizierung. Ein zusatzliches Kapitel widmet sich u.a. der Konfliktklarung in interkulturellen Kontexten und der Mediation bei Beteiligungsprozessen bei Veranderungen im Unternehmen. Auch die Herausforderungen des "internen Mediators" sowie der Mediation in geschlossenen Systemen wie etwa auf (Kreuzfahrt-) Schiffen oder Justizvollzugsanstalten werden berucksichtigt. Das Buch endet mit einem Ausblick auf Mediation im Kontext der Digitalisierung

Examines the recent rise in the United States' use of preventive force More so than in the past, the US is now embracing the logic of preventive force: using military force to counter potential threats around the globe before they have fully materialized. While popular with individuals who seek to avoid too many "boots on the ground," preventive force is controversial because of its potential for unnecessary collateral damage. Who decides what threats are 'imminent'? Is there an international legal basis to kill or harm individuals who have a connection to that threat? Do the benefits of preventive force justify the costs? And, perhaps most importantly, is the US setting a dangerous international precedent? In Preventive Force, editors Kerstin Fisk and Jennifer Ramos bring together legal scholars, political scientists, international relations scholars, and prominent defense specialists to examine these questions, whether in the context of full-scale preventive war or preventive drone strikes. In particular, the volume highlights preventive drones strikes, as they mark a complete transformation of how the US understands international norms regarding the use of force, and could potentially lead to a 'slippery slope' for the US and other nations in terms of engaging in preventive warfare as a matter of course. A comprehensive resource that speaks to the contours of preventive force as a security strategy as well as to the practical, legal, and ethical considerations of its implementation, Preventive Force is a useful guide for political scientists, international relations scholars, and policymakers who seek a thorough and current overview of this essential topic.

When we discuss constitutional law, we usually focus on the constitutional rules that apply to what the government does. Far less clear are the constitutional rules that apply to what the government says. When does the speech of this unusually powerful speaker violate our constitutional rights and liberties? More specifically, when does the government's expression threaten liberty or equality? And under what circumstances does the Constitution prohibit our government from lying to us? In The Government's Speech and the Constitution, Professor Helen Norton investigates the variety and abundance of the government's speech, from early proclamations and simple pamphlets, to the electronic media of radio and television, and ultimately to today's digital age. This enables us to understand how the government's speech has changed the world for better and for worse, and why the government's speech deserves our attention, and at times our concern.

In recent times there has been a dramatic change in the nature and scope of constitutional justice systems in the global south. New or reformed constitutions have proliferated, protecting social, economic, and political rights. While constitutional courts in Latin America have traditionally been used as ways to limit power and preserve the status quo, the evidence shows that they are evolving into a functioning part of contemporary politics and a central component of a system of constitutional justice. This book lays bare the political roots of this transformation, outlining a new way to understand judicial design and the very purpose of constitutional justice. Authors Daniel M. Brinks and Abby Blass use case studies drawn from nineteen Latin American countries over forty years to reveal the ideas behind the new systems of constitutional justice. They show how constitutional designers entrust their hopes and fears to dynamic governance systems, in hopes of directing the development of constitutional meaning over time.

Drawing inspiration from the profoundly influential work of legal theorist Larry Alexander, this volume tackles central questions in criminal law, constitutional law, jurisprudence, and moral philosophy. What are the legitimate conditions of blame and punishment? What values are at the heart of constitutional protections against discrimination or infringements of free speech? Must judges interpret statutes and constitutional provisions in ways that comport with the intentions of those who wrote them? Can the law obligate us to violate the demands of morality, and when can the law allow the rights of the few to be violated for the good of the many? This collection of essays by world-renowned legal theorists is for anyone interested in foundational questions about the law's authority, the conditions of its fair application to citizens, and the moral justifications of the rights, duties, and permissions that it protects.

Constitutions worldwide inevitably have 'invisible' features: they have silences and lacunae, unwritten or conventional underpinnings, and social and political dimensions not apparent to certain observers. The Invisible Constitution in Comparative Perspective helps us understand these dimensions to contemporary constitutions, and their role in the interpretation, legitimacy and stability of different constitutional systems. This volume provides a nuanced theoretical discussion of the idea of 'invisibility' in a constitutional context, and its relationship to more traditional understandings of written versus unwritten constitutionalism. Containing a rich array of case studies, including discussions of constitutional practice in Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Indonesia, Ireland and Malaysia, this book will look at how this aspect of 'invisible constitutions' is manifested across different jurisdictions.

Comparative constitutional law has a long pedigree, but the comparative study of constitution-making has emerged and taken form only in the last quarter-century. While much of the initial impetus came from the study of the American and French constituent assemblies in the late eighteenth century, this volume exemplifies the large comparative scope of current research. The contributors discuss constituent assemblies in South East Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, Latin America, and in Nordic countries. Among the new insights they provide is a better understanding of how constituent assemblies may fail, either by not producing a document at all or by adopting a constitution that fails to serve as a neutral framework for ordinary politics. In a theoretical afterword, Jon Elster, an inspirational thinker on the current topic, offers an analysis of the micro-foundations of constitution-making, with special emphasis on the role of crises-generated passions.

Outside the United States, Norway's 1814 constitution is the oldest still in force. Constitutional judicial review has been a part of Norwegian court decision-making for most of these 200 years. Since the 1990s, Norway has also exercised review under the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). Judicial review of legislation can be controversial: having unelected judges overruling popularly elected majorities seems undemocratic. Yet Norway remains one of the most democratic countries in the world. How does Norway manage the balance between democracy and judicial oversight? Author Anine Kierulf tells the story of Norwegian constitutionalism from 1814 until today through the lens of judicial review debates and cases. This study adds important insights into the social and political justifications for an active judicial review component in a constitutional democracy. Anine Kierulf argues that the Norwegian model of judicial review provides a useful perspective on the dichotomy of American and European constitutionalism.

This book assesses the environmental jurisdiction of coastal states over the seabed within and beyond 200 nautical miles from the baselines, thus mapping out coastal states' competencies to regulate activities impacting the marine environment of the sea floor. In addition, it offers revealing insights into the domestic legal and policy framework of a particular State in this regard. As Brazil intends to exploit mineral resources farther away offshore, technologically backed by the recognised expertise of its state-owned oil company, Petrobras, questions arise as to the adequacy of the country's domestic legal framework to sustainably manage the immenseness of the "Brazilian Blue Amazon". This book critically evaluates the compatibility of Brazil's national policies and legislation with the Law of the Sea, as well as the country's legal and institutional preparedness to face the challenges of managing approximately 4,5 million km(2) of maritime spaces under national jurisdiction.

This book examines the extraordinary nature of the power of preventive detention, which permits executive dispensation of the personal liberty of an individual on the mere apprehension that, if free and unfettered, he may commit acts prejudicial to national security or public order. In light of the extraordinary scope of this power, it, therefore, contends that the scope of the power should be confined to genuine emergencies threatening the life of the nation. Against the above background, this book sheds light on the fact that Article 149 of the Federal Constitution of Malaysia empowers the Parliament to enact preventive detention laws authorizing the executive branch of government to preventively detain individuals without the precondition of an emergency. Furthermore, the Constitution does not stipulate adequate safeguards for mitigating the harshness of preventive detention laws. This book makes it manifestly evident that the weaknesses of the constitutional provisions concerning preventive detention have enabled succeeding generations of executives in Malaysia to not only enact a series of preventive detention statues for arrogating to themselves wide powers concerning preventive detention but also to rely on them for arbitrarily detaining their political adversaries. Consequently, on the basis of this analysis, this book puts forward concrete recommendations for insertion in the Constitution detailed norms providing for legal limits on the wide power of the executive concerning preventive detention. The insertion of such norms would ensure the maintenance of a delicate balance between protecting national interests and, simultaneously, observing respect for an individual's right to protection from arbitrary deprivation of liberty.This book is useful for academics and students of comparative constitutional law, human rights and Asian law. The extensive law reform analysis undertaken in this book also greatly benefits the policy makers in Malaysia and the policy makers of constitutional polities facing similar problems with the issue of circumscribing the scope of the powers concerning preventive detention.