The first volume of the Vienna Lectures on Legal Philosophy illustrates the remarkable scope of contemporary legal philosophy. It introduces methodological questions rooted in national academic discourses, discusses the origin of legal systems, and contrasts constitutionalist and monist approaches to the rule of law with the institutionalist approach most prominently and vigorously defended by Carl Schmitt. The issue at the core of these topics is which of these perspectives is more plausible in an age defined both by a 'postnational constellation' and the re-emergence of nationalist tendencies; an age in which the law increasingly cancels out borders only to see new frontiers erected.

This book examines why laws fail and provides strategies for making laws that work. Why do some laws fail? And how can we make laws that actually work? This helpful guide, written by a leading jurist, provides answers to these questions and gives practical strategies for law-making. It looks at a range of laws which have failed; the 'damp squibs' that achieve little or nothing in practice; laws that overshoot their policy goals; laws that produce nasty surprises; and laws that backfire, undermining the very goals they were intended to advance. It goes on to examine some of the reasons why such failures occur, drawing on insights from psychology and economics, including the work of Kahneman and others on how humans develop narratives about the ways in which the world works and make predictions about the future. It provides strategies to reduce the risk of failure of legislative projects, including adopting a more structured and systematic approach to analysing the likely effects of the legislation; ensuring we identify the limits of our knowledge and the uncertainties of our predictions; and framing laws in a way that enables us to adjust the way they operate as new information becomes available or circumstances change. Key themes include the importance of the institutions that administer the legislation, of default outcomes, and of the 'stickiness' of those defaults. The book concludes with helpful checklists of questions to ask and issues to consider, which will be of benefit to anyone involved in designing legislation.

This new book advances a fresh philosophical account of the relationship between the legislature and courts, opposing the common conception of law, in which it is legislatures that primarily create the law, and courts that primarily apply it. This conception has eclectic affinities with legal positivism, and although it may have been a helpful intellectual tool in the past, it now increasingly generates more problems than it solves. For this reason, the author argues, legal philosophers are better off abandoning it. At the same time they are asked to dismantle the philosophical and doctrinal infrastructure that has been based on it and which has been hitherto largely unquestioned. In its place the book offers an alternative framework for understanding the role of courts and the legislature; a framework which is distinctly anti-positivist and which builds on Ronald Dworkin's interpretive theory of law. But, contrary to Dworkin, it insists that legal duty is sensitive to the position one occupies in the project of governing; legal interpretation is not the solitary task of one super-judge, but a collaborative task structured by principles of institutional morality such as separation of powers which impose a moral duty on participants to respect each other's contributions. Moreover this collaborative task will often involve citizens taking an active role in their interaction with the law.

The Continuity of Legal Systems in Theory and Practice examines a persistent and fascinating question about the continuity of legal systems: when is a legal system existing at one time the same legal system that exists at another time? The book's distinctive approach to this question is to combine abstract critical analysis of two of the most developed theories of legal systems, those of Hans Kelsen and Joseph Raz, with an evaluation of their capacity, in practice, to explain the facts, attitudes and normative standards for which they purport to account. That evaluation is undertaken by reference to Australian constitutional law and history, whose diverse and complex phenomena make it particularly apt for evaluating the theories' explanatory power. In testing whether the depiction of Australian law presented by each theory achieves an adequate 'fit' with historical facts, the book also contributes to the understanding of Australian law and legal systems between 1788 and 2001. By collating the relevant Australian materials systematically for the first time, it presents the case for reconceptualising the role of Imperial laws and institutions during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and clarifies the interrelationship between Colonial, State, Commonwealth and Imperial legal systems, both before and after Federation.

The first-ever multivolume treatment of the issues in legal philosophy and general jurisprudence, from both a theoretical and a historical perspective. The work is aimed at jurists as well as legal and practical philosophers. Edited by the renowned theorist Enrico Pattaro and his team, this book is a classical reference work that would be of great interest to legal and practical philosophers as well as to jurists and legal scholar at all levels. The work is divided in two parts. The theoretical part (published in 2005), consisting of five volumes, covers the main topics of the contemporary debate; the historical part, consisting of six volumes (Volumes 6-8 published in 2007; Volumes 9 and 10, published in 2009; Volume 11 published in 2011 and Volume 12 forthcoming in 2015), accounts for the development of legal thought from ancient Greek times through the twentieth century. The entire set will be completed with an index. Volume 6: A History of the Philosophy of Law from the Ancient Greeks to the Scholastics 2nd revised edition, edited by Fred D. Miller, Jr. and Carrie-Ann Biondi Volume 6 is the first of the Treatise's historical volumes (following the five theoretical ones) and is dedicated to the philosophers' philosophy of law from ancient Greece to the 16th century. The volume thus begins with the dawning of legal philosophy in Greek and Roman philosophical thought and then covers the birth and development of European medieval legal philosophy, the influence of Judaism and the Islamic philosophers, the revival of Roman and Christian canon law, and the rise of scholastic philosophy in the late Middle Ages, which paved the way for early-modern Western legal philosophy. This second, revised edition comes with an entirely new chapter devoted to the later Scholastics (Chapter 14, by Annabel Brett) and an epilogue (by Carrie-Ann Biondi) on the legacy of ancient and medieval thought for modern legal philosophy, as well as with updated references and indexes.

This book analyses the history of international law to reveal the significant role utopianism has played in developing the international legal system. In fact, when pinpointing the legal system's most accelerated phases of development, it becomes increasingly apparent how integral utopianism has been in dealing with the international community's most troubled periods such as the World Wars. However, States have on numerous occasions undermined utopianism, leading to situations where individuals and communities have been vulnerable to modes of oppression such as war or repressive regimes. Thus, by examining the League of Nations and United Nations, this book seeks to show why utopianism continues to be a vital ingredient when the international community is seeking to ensure its loftiest and most ambitious goals such as maintaining international peace and security, and why for the sake of such utopian aspirations, the primary position States enjoy in international law requires reassessment.

The book presents a comprehensive reconceptualization of Geert Hofstede's well-known concept of power distance, applying the theory to the specific case of judge-witness courtroom interactions in Polish regional courts. In the light of the detailed critique of Hofstede's original approach to power distance, the book first carefully develops a three-level concept of power distance, including personal preferences concerning the realization of power relations (subjective level); rules, practices and spatio-architectural arrangements underlying power relations (organizational level); and individual demeanors that can, in practice, increase or decrease the asymmetry between parties to a power relation (interactional level). This reconceptualization provides a universal conceptual apparatus that is applicable to various social settings, but the authors have used it in extensive qualitative and quantitative research focused on courtroom interactions. After laying the theoretical foundations, the book details the elements of judge-witness courtroom interactions (both verbal and non-verbal) that contribute to establishing power distance between judge and witness. These were identified over 6 months of observational research conducted in 2018 in the Krakow regional courts. Lastly, the book addresses the issue of the relationship between the subjective level of power distance and opinions that laypeople can have concerning a judge's demeanor in the courtroom environment. To do so, it describes specific quantitative research that involved the creation of original film clips depicting witness questioning by the judge in a courtroom in three power distance situations. Offering a coherent framework for examining various interpersonal relations in legal contexts and illustrating how the framework can be applied on the courtroom interactions example, the book will appeal to a wide range of legal practitioners and academics. It also allows scientists outside the legal field to gain a new and broad understanding of power distance that they can easily apply in their respective fields. Furthermore, it provides non-academics with insights into courtroom interactional dynamics, as exemplified by the discussion of Polish judicial practice.

According to many Islamic jurists, the world is divided between dar al-Islam (the abode of Islam) and dar al-harb (the abode of war). This dual division of the world has led to a great amount of juridical discussion concerning what makes a territory part of dar al-Islam, what the status of Muslims living outside of this is, and whether they are obliged to obey Islamic jurisprudence. Susanne Olsson examines the differing understandings of dar al-Islam and dar al-harb, as well as related concepts, such as jihad and takfir. She thereby is able to explore how these concepts have been utilised, transformed and negotiated throughout history. As the subject of Muslims living in Europe is such a topical and sometimes controversial one, this book will appeal to researchers of modern Islam as integral to the Western experience.

This book provides a survey of important topics arising out of the interaction of law and morality, primarily within the American legal tradition. Its focus is on an examination of relevant case law. The book is divided into three sections: (1) Theory: Some general theories of the relation between law and morality. (2) Method: How the law attempts to deal with evolving issues of law and morality using the common law and the ethical and procedural norms of judicial reasoning; (3) Practice: A survey of topics where case law is seen as a response to controversial moral conflicts that arise within American culture and social life. Law and Morality can be seen as a core text for courses in the general area of 'law and morality' or 'law and ethics' taught in philosophy departments; multi-disciplinary curricula involving Philosophy, Politics, and Law; pre-law courses on an undergraduate level; and courses in law schools that take up 'law and philosophy' issues. It is an important reference work for international legal scholars, and those interested in obtaining in a single volume a broad range of information about how the American legal system has evolved in dealing with moral and ethical conflicts through law.

This book analyses the features and functionality of the relationship between the law, individual or collective values and medical-scientific evidence when they have to be interpreted by judges, courts and para-jurisdictional bodies. The various degrees to which scientific data and moral values have been integrated into the legal discourse reveal the need for a systematic review of the options and solutions that judges have elaborated on. In turn, the book presents a systematic approach, based on a proposed pattern for classifying these various degrees, together with an in-depth analysis of the multi-layered role of jurisdictions and the means available to them for properly handling new legal demands arising in plural societies. The book outlines a model that makes it possible to focus on and address these issues in a sustainable manner, that is, to respond to individual requests and technological advances in the field of biolaw by consistently and effectively applying suitable legal instruments and jurisdictional interpretation.

An Influential Study by a Leading Exponent of Legal RealismIn this influential and oft-cited study Ross discounted the theories of natural law, positivism and legal realism. In their stead, he proposed the abandonment of "ought-propositions" for the "is-propositions" employed by other empirical sciences, thereby envisioning lawyers that serve merely as "rational technologists." Less bound by tradition, and traditional notions of justice, jurisprudence then becomes "not only a beautiful mental activity per se, but also an instrument which may benefit any lawyer who wants to understand what he is doing and why" (Preface).Alf Niels Christian Ross 1899-1979] was Professor of Law at the University of Copenhagen. In 1956 he was a visiting professor at the University of Illinois. He served for seven years on the constitutional committee that laid the groundwork for the Danish constitution of 1953. His many books, which have been translated extensively, include Towards a Realistic Jurisprudence (1946), A Textbook of International Law (1947), Constitution of the United Nations: Analysis of Structure and Function (1950), Why Democracy? (1952), Directives and Norms (1968) and On Guilt, Responsibility and Punishment (1975).

The Book That Launched the German Historical School of Jurisprudence. Written in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna, the Vocation proposed a common legal code for the newly liberated German states and attacked Thibaut's advocacy of a code based on natural law. Though he aimed in part to improve the administration of justice, Savigny hoped that a common legal system would promote a larger goal: a spirit of unity among Germans. Frederick Carl von Savigny 1779-1861] was an important German jurist and scholar of Roman law. A principal member of the historical school of jurisprudence, he had a keen interest in its role in the subsequent development of European law. He is known for the influential Von Savigny's Treatise on Possession; Or the Jus Possessionis of the Civil Law (1803) and his System of Modern Roman Law (1840-1849), an eight-volume study of contemporary legal systems derived on Roman law. CONTENTS I. Introduction II. Origin of Positive Law III. Legislative Provisions and Law Books IV. Roman Law V. Civil Law in Germany VI. Our Vocation for Legislation VII. The Three New Codes VIII. What we are to do where there are no Codes IX. What is to be done where Codes exist already X. General Observations XI. Thibaut's Proposal XII. Conclusion Appendix I Appendix II

No social life is possible without order. Order being the most constituent element of society, it is not surprising that so many theories have been developed to explain what social order is and how it is possible, as well as to explore the features that social order acquires in its different dimensions. The book leads these many theories of social order back to a few main matrices for the use of theoretical and practical reason, which are defined as 'paradigms of order'. The plurality of conceptual constructs regarding social order is therefore reduced to a manageable number of theoretical patterns and an intellectual map is produced in which the most significant differences between paradigms are clearly outlined. Furthermore, the 'paradigmatic revolutions' are addressed that marked the most relevant turning points in the way in which a 'well-ordered society' should be understood. Against this background, the question is discussed on the theoretical and practical perspectives for a cosmopolitan society as the only suitable possibility to meet the global challenges with which we are all presently confronted.

The book offers contributions to a philosophical and realistic approach to the place of adjudication in contemporary constitutional democracies. Bringing together scholars from different legal and philosophical backgrounds, the book purports to cast light on the role(s) of judges and the function of judicial interpretation inside of constitutional states, from the standpoint of legal realism as a revisited and sophisticated jurisprudential outlook. In so doing, the book also copes with a few major jurisprudential issues, like, e.g., determining the ideas that make up the core of legal realism, exploring the relation between legal realism and legal positivism, identifying the boundaries of judicial interpretation as they appear from a realist standpoint, as well as considering some skeptical outlooks on the very claims of contemporary legal realism.

This book presents and comments on the papers delivered at a colloquium held at the Australian National University in December 2008, celebrating 50 years since the publication in the Harvard Law Review of the famous and wide-ranging debate between the legal philosophers H.L.A. Hart and Lon L. Fuller. The essays written by experts in legal philosophy do not re-run the Hart-Fuller debate, nor are they confined to discussion of the jurisprudential issues canvassed by Hart and Fuller. Rather, in using the debate as a point of departure and inspiration, they pick up on strands in the debate and re-evaluate them in the light of the social, political, and intellectual developments of the past 50 years, when the ways of understanding law and other normative systems have changed. The Hart-Fuller Debate: 50 Years On will be of international interest to legal philosophers, as well as those interested in morality and the law.

The chapters in this volume arise from a conference held at the University of Aberdeen concerning the law of causation in the UK, Commonwealth countries, France and the USA. The distinguished group of international experts who have contributed to this book examine the ways in which legal doctrine in causation is developing, and how British law should seek to influence and be influenced by developments in other countries. As such, the book will serve as a focal point for the study of this important area of law. The book is organised around three themes - the black letter law, scientific evidence, and legal theory. In black letter law scholarship, major arguments have emerged about how legal doctrine will develop in cases involving indeterminate defendants and evidential gaps in causation. Various chapters examine the ways in which legal doctrine should develop over the next few years, in particular in England, Scotland, Canada and the USA, including the problem of causation in asbestos cases. In the area of scientific evidence, its role in the assessment of causation in civil litigation has never been greater. The extent to which such evidence can be admitted and used in causation disputes is controversial. This section of the book is therefore devoted to exploring the role of statistical evidence in resolving causation problems, including recent trends in litigation in the UK, USA, Australia and in France and the question of liability for future harm. In the legal theory area, the so-called NESS (necessary element in a sufficient set) test of causation is discussed and defended. The importance of tort law responding to developing science and observations from the perspective of precaution and indeterminate causation are also explored. The book will be of interest to legal academics, policy makers in the field, specialist legal practitioners, those in the pharmaceutical and bioscience sectors, physicians and scientists.

This collection of essays is the first edited volume in the English language which is entirely dedicated to the work of Eugen Ehrlich. Eugen Ehrlich (1862-1922) was an eminent Austrian legal theorist and professor of Roman law. He is considered by many as one of the 'founding fathers' of modern sociology of law. Although the importance of his work (including his concept of 'living law') is widely recognised, Ehrlich has not yet received the serious international attention he deserves. Therefore, this collection of essays is aimed at 'reconsidering' Eugen Ehrlich by bringing together an interdisciplinary group of leading international experts to discuss both the historical and theoretical context of his work and its relevance for contemporary law and society scholarship. This book has been divided into four parts. Part I of this volume paints a lively picture of the Bukowina, in southeastern Europe, where Ehrlich was born in 1862. Moreover it considers the political and academic atmosphere at the end of the nineteenth century. Part II discusses the main concepts and ideas of Ehrlich's sociology of law and considers the reception of Ehrlich's work in the German speaking world, in the United States and in Japan. Part III of this volume is concerned with the work of Ehrlich in relation to that of some his contemporaries, including Roscoe Pound, Hans Kelsen and Cornelis van Vollenhoven. Part IV focuses on the relevance of Ehrlich's work for current socio-legal studies. This volume provides both an introduction to the important and innovative scholarship of Eugen Ehrlich as well as a starting point for further reading and discussion.

This book examines the way in which undercover police investigation has come to be regulated in Australia. Drawing on documentary and doctrinal legal analysis, this book investigates how, in the space of a single decade, Australian law makers set out to regulate one of the most difficult aspects of police: undercover investigation. In so doing, the Australian experience represents a paradigm model. And yet despite its success, it is a system of law and practice that has a dark side - a model of investigation to relies heavily on activities that are unlawful in the absence of authorisation. It is a model that is as much concerned with the surveillance and control of police as it is with suspected criminal conduct. The book aims to locate the Australian experience in comparative perspective with other major common law jurisdictions (the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand), with a view to contrast strengths, similarities and weaknesses of these models. It is argued that the Australian model, at the pragmatic level, offers a highly successful model for regulatory structure and practice, providing a significant model for successful regulation. At the same time, the model that has been introduced raises important questions about how and why the Australian experience evolved in the way that it did, and the implications this has for the relationship between citizen and state, the judiciary and the executive, and broader questions about the protections offered by rights discourse and jurisprudence. This book aims to document the law, policy and practices that shape undercover investigations. In so doing, it aims to not only articulate the way in which the law regulates these activities, but also to move on to consider some of the fundamental questions linked to undercover investigations: how did regulation happen? By what means of regulation? What are the driving policy issues that give this field of law its particular complexion? What are the implications? Who gains, and who loses, by which means of power? The book offers unique insights into a largely unknown aspect of modern covert policing, identifying a range of practices, the legal framework, controversies and powers. By locating these practices in a rich theoretical context, informed by risk and governmentality scholarship, this book offers a legal and theoretical explanation of one of the most controversial forms of policing.

This book builds on the success of the First International Conference on Facts and Evidence: A Dialogue between Law and Philosophy (Shanghai, China, May 2016), which was co-hosted by the Collaborative Innovation Center of Judicial Civilization (CICJC) and East China Normal University. The Second International Conference on Facts and Evidence: A Dialogue between Law and History was jointly organized by the CICJC, the Institute of Evidence Law and Forensic Science (ELFS) at China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL), and Peking University School of Transnational Law (STL) in Shenzhen, China, on November 16-17, 2019. Historians, legal scholars and legal practitioners share the same interest in ascertaining the "truth" in their respective professional endeavors. It is generally recognized that any historical study without truthful narration of historical events is fiction and that any judicial trial without accurate fact-finding is a miscarriage of justice. In both historical research and the judicial process, practitioners are invariably called upon, before making any arguments, to prove the underlying facts using evidence, regardless of how the concept is defined or employed in different academic or practical contexts. Thus, historians and legal professionals have respectively developed theories and methodological tools to inform and explain the process of gathering evidentiary proof. When lawyers and judges reconsider the facts of cases, "questions of law" are actually a subset of "questions of fact," and thus, the legal interpretation process also involves questions of "historical fact." The book brings together more than twenty leading history and legal scholars from around the world to explore a range of issues concerning the role of facts as evidence in both disciplines. As such, the book is of enduring value to historians, legal scholars and everyone interested in truth-seeking.

This collection of essays interrogates how human rights law and practice acquire meaning in relation to legal pluralism, ie, the co-existence of more than one regulatory order in a same social field. As a social phenomenon, legal pluralism exists in all societies. As a legal construction, it is characteristic of particular regions, such as post-colonial contexts. Drawing on experiences from Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe, the contributions in this volume analyse how different configurations of legal pluralism interplay with the legal and the social life of human rights. At the same time, they enquire into how human rights law and practice influence interactions that are subject to regulation by more than one normative regime. Aware of numerous misunderstandings and of the mutual suspicion that tends to exist between human rights scholars and anthropologists, the volume includes contributions from experts in both disciplines and intends to build bridges between normative and empirical theory.

This Short Introduction looks at judging and reasoning from three perspectives: what legal reasoning has been; what legal reasoning is from the view of judges and jurists; and what legal reasoning is from the view of a social scientist epistemologist or humanities specialist. Geoffrey Samuel begins by identifying the main institutional focal points of legal reasoning (ius, regulae iuris, Interpretatio, utilitas and actiones). While examining legal reasoning from both an internal and external viewpoint, the book simultaneously incorporates theory and scholarship from a range of other disciplines including social science and film studies. The author also includes a discussion of fiction theory, schemes of intelligibility, and other epistemological issues as well as standard reasoning devices such as induction, deduction and analogy. Combining cases and materials with original text, this unique, concise format is designed to be accessible for students who are starting out on their law programs, as well as providing insights for students and researchers who would like to examine judging and legal reasoning in more depth.

What role does empirical data play in law? How can we draw normative conclusions from empirical legal research? New insights in philosophy, the social sciences and the humanities have forced the relationship between facts and norms on to the agenda. This book presents an innovative set of perspectives on the relationship between descriptive and normative elements in legal inquiry and practice. The contributors provide critical insights from a range of different disciplinary traditions and theoretical positions. They discuss topics such as the epistemic dependence of judicial decision-makers, legal doctrine as a non-normative discipline, systems-theory critique and law, and exploring the boundaries of law. This book will benefit legal academics and graduate students looking to explore issues of methodology. It will also be of great interest to researchers in law and related topics interested in discussions of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research. Contributors include: R. Cotterrell, P. Cserne, W. de Been, M. Del Mar, L. Francot, J. Hage, R. Herdy, O.W. Lembcke, A.R. Mackor, A.M. Pacces, G. Samuel, S. Taekema, B. van Klin, W. van der Burg

'Long admired for her pioneering work on gender, neo-liberalism and human rights, in this volume Ratna Kapur builds on that scholarship to offer a bold and wide ranging set of arguments that will add immensely to the many current debates about human rights and their efficacy in this age of inequality. Kapur' s trenchant critique of rights and her vision of an alternative to the liberal concept of freedom offer strikingly original arguments that make this an indispensable volume for all who are interested in the future of human rights.' - Tony Anghie, National University of Singapore and University of Utah, US 'Gender, Alterity and Human Rights: Freedom in a Fishbowl is located within the best of critical theory traditions - thinking and rethinking orthodoxies around sexuality, rights and freedoms. Kapur not only deploys a late Foucauldian rethinking of freedom, but inherits the very spirit of intellectual engagement - of ''shak(ing) up habitual ways of working and thinking, dissipate(ing) conventional familiarities, to reevaluate rules and institutions'' (Foucault). It is a compelling, provocative read that will make its readers rethink what they think they already know.' - Brenda Cossman, University of Toronto, Canada 'Ratna Kapur is one of the most important international legal scholars working today. Gender, Alterity and Human Rights is brilliant, provocative and ground breaking - I cannot think of any other book published today that centers radically 'other' approaches to political and ethical agency as the epistemological anchor for analysis of international law. She advances this ambitious new ground by showing how dominant approaches to human rights and feminism are themselves invested in political subjectivities and agendas that seek to redeem international law and authorize global governance. With theoretical rigor and a radical sensibility, she quarries through material as diverse as human rights case law and Sufi poetry to excavate the plurality of ways in which freedom is envisioned, challenged and inhabited.' - Vasuki Nesiah, New York University, US Human rights are axiomatic with liberal freedom. This book builds on the critique of this mainstream and official position on human rights, drawing attention to how human rights have been deployed to advance political and cultural intents rather than bring about freedom for disenfranchised groups. Its approach is unique insofar as it focuses on queer, feminist and postcolonial human rights advocacy, exposing how such interventions have at times advanced neo-liberal agendas and new forms of imperialism, and enabled a carceral politics rather than producing freedom for their constituencies. Through a focus on campaigns for same-sex marriage, ending violence against women, and the Islamic veil bans in liberal democracies, human rights emerge as forms of governance that operate through normative prescriptions, which bind even as they purport to free, and establish a hierarchy of the human subject: who is human and who is not; who qualifies for rights and who does not. This book argues that the futurity of human rights rests in a transformative engagement with non-liberal registers of freedom beyond the narrow confines of the liberal fishbowl. This book will have a global appeal for students and academics concerned with international and human rights law, jurisprudence, critical legal theory, gender studies, postcolonial studies, feminist legal theory, queer theory, religious studies, and philosophy. It will appeal to political activists and policymakers in the global justice arena concerned with the freedom of disenfranchised groups, human rights, gender justice, and the rights sexual and religious minorities.