This volume examines the evolution of reproductive law in Italy from the `far west' of the 1980s and 90s through to one of the most potentially restrictive systems in Europe. The book employs an array of sociological, philosophical and legal material in order to discover why such a repressive piece of legislation has been produced at the end of a period of substantial change in the dynamic of gender relations in Italy. The book also discusses Italian policy within the wider European policy framework.

Reading God's will and a man's Last Will as ideas that reinforce one another, this study shows the relevance of England's early modern crisis, regarding faith in the will of God, to current debates by legal academics on the theory of property and its succession. The increasing power of the dead under law in the US, the UK, and beyond-a concern of recent volumes in law and social sciences-is here addressed through a distinctive approach based on law and humanities. Vividly treating literary and biblical battles of will, the book suggests approaches to legal constitution informed by these dramas and by English legal history. This study investigates correlations between the will of God in Judeo-Christian traditions and the Last Wills of humans, especially dominant males, in cultures where these traditions have developed. It is interdisciplinary, in the sense that it engages with the limits of several fields: it is informed by humanities critical theory, especially Benjaminian historical materialism and Lacanian psychoanalysis, but refrains from detailed theoretical considerations. Dramatic narratives from the Bible, Shakespeare, and Milton are read as suggesting real possibilities for alternative inheritance (i.e., constitutional) regimes. As Jenkins shows, these texts propose ways to alleviate violence, violence both personal and political, through attention to inheritance law.

Drawing upon socio-legal research, this insightful book considers labour migration within the context of ('eastward') European Union enlargement. Specifically, this volume explores the legal rights of accession nationals to access employment, their experiences once in work and their engagement with broader family and social entitlement. By combining analysis of the legal framework governing free movement-related rights with analysis of qualitative data gained from interviews with Polish migrants, this volume is able to speculate on the significance the status of Union citizenship holds for nationals of the recently-acceded CEE Member States. Citizenship is conceptualised not merely as rights but as a practice; a real 'lived' experience. The citizenship status of migrants from the CEE Member States is shaped by formal legal entitlement, law in action - as it is implemented by the Member States and 'accessed' by the migrants - and social and cultural perceptions and experiences 'on the ground'.

Why is there so much resistance to recent issues of tolerance and diversity? Despite efforts of the international community to encourage open-mindedness, recent attempts at international, political and economic integration have shown that religious, cultural and ethnic tolerance and diversity remain under threat. The contributions in the volume reflect the growing importance of these issues and why resistance is so widespread. Part I addresses the relationship between the language of law and its power, whilst Part II explores the interplay of tolerance and diversity under visual, legislative and interpretative perspectives. This collection as a whole offers a combination of varied perspectives on the analysis, application and exploitation of laws and will be a valuable source of information for those interested in the general area of language and the law.

Critical Interventions in the Ethics of Healthcare argues that traditional modes of bioethics are proving incommensurable with burgeoning biotechnologies and consequently, emerging subjectivities. Drawn from diverse disciplines, this volume works toward a new mode of discourse in bioethics, offering a critique of the current norms and constraints under which Western healthcare operates. The contributions imagine new, less paternalistic, terms by which bioethics might proceed - terms that do not resort to exclusively Western models of liberal humanism or to the logic of neoliberal economies. It is argued that in this way, we can begin to develop an ethical vocabulary that does justice to the challenges of our age. Bringing together theorists, practitioners and clinicians to present a wide variety of related disciplinary concerns and perspectives on bioethics, this volume challenges the underlying assumptions that continue to hold sway in the ethics of medicine and health sciences.

Crossing the usual boundaries of abstract legal theory, this book considers actual charter systems - legal systems with explicitly posited moral-political rights, such as those of Canada and the United States - as well as cases in constitutional adjudication. It shows the worth of careful reflection on methodological and meta-theoretical issues for a comprehensive account of a present-day legal system which is fast becoming the norm. The author explicitly connects the ongoing Methodology Debate within legal philosophy to constitutional adjudication and Canadian law. By drawing out the implications of the Methodology Debate and the challenge of giving a proper account of constitutional adjudication in a general theory of law, the study examines how a descriptive, morally and politically neutral legal theory can deal with epistemic uncertainty - uncertainty about the actual status of moral-political legal provisions and their jurisprudential function - in a thoroughgoing manner. It also demonstrates the merits of a minimalist version of Legal Positivism with regard to the practical importance of charters in charter systems and societies.

With massive growth taking place in the real estate industry, how can China develop a free market and private ownership of land while still officially subscribing to Communist ideology? This study uses fieldwork interviews to establish how the Chinese real estate market operates in practice from both legal and business perspectives. It describes how the market functions, which laws are applicable and how they are applied, and how a nation can achieve dramatic economic growth so rapidly while its legal system is so unsettled. The book demonstrates how China is drawing on the world for ideas while retaining a domestic system that remains essentially Chinese, and how the recent revitalization of China's real estate market has confounded the predictions of many developments economists.

In Denmark, Finland and Sweden the evolution of administrative law, including social welfare law, has been marked by a shift towards a stronger protection of the recipient's individual rights. The adoption of activation policies targeting recipients of social assistance has highlighted the tensions between decision-making concerning the implementation of these policies and the legislative efforts to promote the realisation of individual rights in the field of social welfare. An examination of the legislation in question and its implementation conditions shows that the realisation of individual rights is subordinated to the pursuit of organisational and other objectives. The findings of the study are used to formulate proposals for the promotion of individual rights based on the Nordic egalitarian model of citizenship. This critical assessment of activation policies should be of broad international appeal. It will be of interest to researchers in social policy, as well as those concerned with protection of rights.

The approximately two million gay and lesbian elders in the United States are an underserved and understudied population. At a time when gay men and lesbians enjoy an unprecedented degree of social acceptance and legal protection, many elders face the daily challenges of aging isolated from family, detached from the larger gay and lesbian community, and ignored by mainstream aging initiatives. Drawing on materials from law, history, and social theory, this book integrates practical proposals for reform with larger issues of sexuality and identity. Beginning with a summary of existing demographic data and offering a historical overview of pre-Stonewall views of homosexuality, author Nancy J. Knauer goes on to address the invisibility of this community. She examines the multiple double binds central to their identity formation, including ageism among gays and lesbians and homophobia among seniors. Further, the book focuses on specific legal concerns such as estate planning, housing, discrimination, and financial insecurity, and how they impact this community uniquely. Integrating theory with practical questions of policy, and advancing a new understanding of the construction of sexuality and identity, this book advocates meaningful new reforms designed to ensure equity and dignity in aging regardless of sexual orientation.

This book describes and analyses the notion of Mahr, the Muslim custom whereby the groom has to give a gift to the bride in consideration of the marriage. It explores how Western courts, specifically in Canada, the United States, France, and Germany, have approached and interpreted Mahr. Although the outcomes of the cases provide an illustrative framework for the book, the focus is broader than simply the adjudicative endeavours. The work explores the concept of liberalism, which purportedly champions individuals and individual choice concurrently with freedom and equality. Tensions between and among these concepts, however, inevitably arise. The acknowledgment and exploration of these intertwined tensions forms an important underpinning for the book. Through the analysis of case law from these four countries, this study suggests that transplanting Mahr from Islamic law into a Western courtroom cannot be undone: it immediately becomes rooted in the countries' legal, historical, political, and social backgrounds and flourishes (or fails) in diverse and unexpected ways. Rather than being the concept described by classical Islamic jurists, Mahr is interpreted according to wildly varied legal constructs and concepts such as multiculturalism, fairness, public policy, and gender equality. Moreover, Islamic law travels with a multiplicity of voices, and it is this complex hybridity (a fragmented and disjointed Mahr) which will be mediated through Western law. Returning to the overarching concept of liberalism, the book proposes that distributive consequences rather than recognition occupy central place in the evaluation of the legal options available to Muslim women upon divorce.

Over the last two decades in the West, there has been a significant increase in the arrest, imprisonment and detention of migrants. The racial criminalization and victimization of migrants and Roma people has led judicial authorities, local governments, the police, mass media and the general population to perceive migrants and 'gypsies' as responsible for a wide range of offences. Taking into consideration the political and cultural conditions that affect and interconnect societies of emigration and immigration, the contributors examine and compare a range of cases in Europe and the United States. The contributions demonstrate how the persecution of the 'current enemy' is the 'total political fact' of the 21st century in that it ensures consensus and business, or what might be termed the 'crime deal' of today. This provocative book has international appeal and will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers and policymakers with an interest in migration and social and ethnic control.

This book brings together the fruits of different traditions in legal philosophy and draws on them to develop a systematic thesis on the concept of law. The work uses a legal model to explore the underlying question of how the current phenomena of transnational law are best understood, in combination with an examination of the traditions of JA1/4rgen Habermas's critical theory and H.L.A. Hart's analytic jurisprudence. This leads the author to conclude that the key to a fruitful dialogue and comprehensive understanding is to appreciate that the concept of law is not state-cantered and must reflect relationships to other legal systems.

This book addresses the viability of the EU economic and social model within and after the global economic crisis. It identifies four key issues which warrant further discussion: (1) the asymmetry of the legal and policy framework of the euro and potential recalibration; (2) substantive tensions between the EU 'economic constitution' and its normative aim of social justice and impacts on national policy; (3) the role of civil society, including the two sides of industry in overcoming these tensions; and (4) the EU's global aspirations towards the creation of a viable socio-economic model. Its chapters offer two perspectives on each of the four main issues. In drawing these debates together, the book provides a broad understanding as well as starting points for future research. Bringing together different disciplinary approaches, ranging from legal studies to political economy, sociology and macroeconomics, it is a valuable contribution to the debate on the European social model and introduces new insights by focusing on legal and political tensions, the impact of the financial crisis and other economic contexts as well as global dimensions.

How can we live together without subordination and oppression? What does it mean to treat each other as free and equal persons? This book uses contemporary feminist insights to examine aspects of the classic social contractarians' arguments, focusing specifically upon the work of Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Rousseau and Kant. Considering the relationship between the 'self' and the law, this volume also looks at the points at issue between feminist political theorists and considers the usefulness of contractarian arguments for feminist politics today, together with an examination of the relationship between their political, legal and moral analyses.

Rasmus Wandall uses quantitative and qualitative methods from studies carried out in Denmark, to address the formal and informal norms and ideologies that are used to generate decisions to imprison. Focusing on the operations of the courtroom participants, his work investigates how court decision-making is organized to allow the sentencing procedure to be open to more than its formal legal framework, while at the same time keeping the sentencing within the boundaries of law and legal validity. The author uses the theory of law's operational closure, developed by Niklas Luhmann. The theory provides an advantageous point of departure to capture the close and subtle interactions between law's need for validity and for contextual openness in every legal operation - including court decision-making.

Rapid technological advances, the establishment of large-scale biobanks, and the exchange of data across international boundaries raise a variety of questions for regulators struggling with the problem of how to govern such stores of information and the processes connected with them. Engaging with the pressing issues of privacy, consent, access to data, and benefit sharing, Principles and Practice in Biobank Governance draws together the latest empirical research from the UK, Europe, America, Australia and Asia to focus on these challenges. Current models of governance are critiqued, principles and policies are debated, and new models and theoretical frameworks are presented through this intellectually stimulating, informative volume. This truly international volume offers new insights from a range of disciplinary perspectives and will be essential reading for policy makers and scholars across a range of social sciences, including sociology, bioethics, law and social policy.

In the context of global efforts to control the production, distribution and use of narcotic drugs, China's treatment of the problem provides an important means of understanding the social, political, and economic limits of national and international policies to regulate drug practices. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, China was known for its national addiction to opium, but its drug-eradication campaigns from the 1950s to the 1970s achieved unprecedented success that ultimately transformed China into a "drug-free" society. However, since the economic reforms and open-door policy of the late twentieth century, China is now facing a re-emergence of the production, use and trafficking of narcotic drugs. Employing case studies and a comparative historical approach, and drawing on a variety of data sources including historical records, official crime data only recently made available, and news reports, this book is the first English-language publication to provide such a comprehensive documentation and analysis of the nature of China's legal regulation of controlled substances. The authors also offer theoretical approaches for studying drug regulation, aspects of drug consumption cultures, the socio-political treatment of drugs during various historical periods and ongoing efforts to legislate drug trade, criminalize drug use and manage the drug addict population within national and international contexts.

Some of the most basic doctrines of property law are very old, many dating to the medieval era. How can legal rules that were born so long ago remain viable today? In Reappraisals in the Law of Property, author John V. Orth considers various topics in order to discover the forces that have been made and are continuing to remake these areas of the law. Orth proposes three forces in particular that have shaped the development of property law over time: the inertial force of tradition, the reforming power of judicial and legislative activism, and the constant challenge of academic criticism. Together, these themes form the foundation of a critical and challenging work, one that re-evaluates property law and demonstrates both its enduring consistency and the unique and often drastic ways in which it has evolved in the modern era.

Using her experience of living under apartheid and witnessing its downfall and the subsequent creation of new governments in South Africa, the author examines and compares gender inequality in societies undergoing political and economic transformation. By applying this process of legal transformation as a paradigm, the author applies this model to Afghanistan. These two societies serve as counterpoints through which the book engages, in a nuanced and novel way, with the many broader issues that flow from the attempts in newly democratic societies to give effect to the promise of gender equality. Developing the idea of 'conditional interdependence', the book suggests a new approach based on the communitarian values which underpin newly democratic societies and would allow women's rights to gain momentum and reap greater benefits. Broad in its thematic approach, the book generates challenging and complex questions about the achievement of gender equality. It will be of interest to academics interested in gender and human rights, international and comparative law.

This book discusses how the plurality of legal norms operating in the European Union can be balanced to produce a functioning, sustainable and legitimate legal system. Presenting a conceptual framework for assessing and comparing transformations of national judicial systems in the context of EU membership, the book contributes to the EU legal theoretical debate on the relationship between 'authority' and 'coherence'. The author develops an original analytical framework of coherence to assess the application of EU law by national courts and uses interdisciplinary scientific methods and research design that combine legal doctrinal and social science methodology to the study of 'classical' legal questions. Providing an extensive database of 2004-2009 national judgments of national courts in Latvia and Estonia, the book offers an extensive comparative review of the jurisprudence of constitutional and supreme courts, as well as providing insight into the jurisprudence of ordinary national courts. It will appeal to legal scholars and political scientists studying courts and jurisprudence.

There has been a rapid increase in the pace and scope of international collaborative research in developing countries in recent years. This study argues that whilst ethical regulation of biomedical research in Africa and other developing countries has attracted global attention, legal liability issues, such as the application of common law rules and the development of legally enforceable regulations, have been neglected. It examines some of the major research scandals in Africa and suggests a new ethical framework against which clinical trials could be conducted. The development of research guidelines in Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi and Nigeria are also examined as well as the role of ethics committees. Providing a detailed analysis of the law of negligence and its application to research ethics committees and their members, common law and constitutional forms of action and potential negligence claims, the book concludes by suggesting new protocols and frameworks, improved regulation and litigation. This book will be a valuable guide for students, researchers, and policy-makers with an interest in medical law and ethics, bioethics, customary law in Africa and regulation in developing countries.

Considering the steady increase in intellectual property rights in the last century, does it make sense to speak of 'user's rights' and can limitations on intellectual liberty be justified from a rights-based perspective? This book philosophically defends the importance of the public domain and user's rights through the use of natural-rights thought. Utilizing primarily the work of John Locke, it contends that considerations of natural justice and human freedom impose powerful constraints on the proper reach and substance of intellectual property rights, especially copyright. It investigates both the internal and external natural-rights constraints on intellectual property, and argues in particular for the importance to human freedom of the right to intellectual liberty - the right to inform one's actions by learning about the world. It concludes that respect for fundamental freedom-based interests require a balanced approach to the scope, strength and duration of intellectual property rights.

This volume examines the legal status of religion in education, both public and non-public, in the United States and seven other nations. It will stimulate further interest, research, and debate on comparative analyses on the role of religion in schools at a time when the place of religion is of vital interest in most parts of the world. This interdisciplinary volume includes chapters by leading academicians and is designed to serve as a resource for researchers and educational practitioners, providing readers with an enhanced awareness of strategies for addressing the role of religion in rapidly diversifying educational settings. There is currently a paucity of books devoted solely to the topic written for interdisciplinary and international audiences involving educators and lawyers, and this book will clarify the legal complexities and technical language among the law, education, and religion.

Presenting examples of how literary accounts can provide a supplement to our understanding of science in law, this book challenges the view that law and science are completely different. It focuses on stories which explore the relationship between law and science, especially cultural images of science that prevail in legal contexts. Contrasting with other studies of the transfer and construction of expertise in legal settings, this book considers the intersection of three interdisciplinary projects: law and science, law and literature, and literature and science. Looking at the appropriation of scientific expertise into law from these perspectives, this book presents an original introduction into how we can gain insight into the use of science in the courtroom and in policy and regulatory settings through literary sources.

Patenting Lives includes contributions from various interests and perspectives, both in the context of current international developments in life patents and the global agenda of harmonization of international intellectual property. The book is divided into five sections reflecting the critical issues arising from patents and biotechnology - Context; Human Rights and Ethical Frameworks; Medicine and Public Health; Traditional Knowledge; and Agriculture. The international contributors from government, civil society, academia and the private sector provide diverse perspectives on life patents and the facilitation of social, cultural and economic development in the context of international principles of trade.