In recent years, there have been a number of concerns about the recognition of religious laws and the existence of religious courts and tribunals. There has also been the growing literature on legal pluralism which seeks to understand how more than one legal system can and should exist within one social space. However, whilst a number of important theoretical works concerning legal pluralism in the context of cultural rights have been published, little has been published specifically on religion. Religion and Legal Pluralism explores the extent to which religious laws are already recognised by the state and the extent to which religious legal systems, such as Sharia law, should be accommodated.

While some feminists seek to use ideas of the 'universal human subject' to include women, others argue that such ideas are intrinsically masculine and exclude the feminine. This book analyzes and critiques 'second wave' feminists who discuss how philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, Descartes, Hobbes and Kant regard human beings and their capacities. The author suggests adopting an inclusive universal concept of the human being, drawn from ideas of positive liberty from the liberal tradition, Hegelian ideas of the formation of the free human being in society, and care ethics. The book links this theoretical perspective to international human rights and humanitarian law, drawing together areas of theory usually presented separately. These include the liberal theory of the individual (particularly individual freedom, feminist critiques and theories of subjectivity), globalization and global identity issues and the theory of human rights law, with the focus resting on human subjectivity and ethics. While the focus is on Anglo-American jurisprudence, this is combined with continental philosophy, international human rights issues and a Yugoslav war crimes case study.

Discussions of punishment typically assume that punishment is criminal punishment carried out by the State. Punishment is, however, a richer phenomenon and it occurs in many contexts. This book contains a general account of punishment which overcomes the difficulties of competing accounts. Recognizing punishment's manifoldness is valuable not merely in contributing to conceptual clarity, but in that this recognition sheds light on the complicated problem of punishment's justification. Insofar as they narrowly presuppose that punishment is criminal punishment, most apparent solutions to the tension between consequentialism and retributivism are rather unenlightening if we attempt to apply them in other contexts. Moreover, this presupposition has given rise to an unwieldy variety of accounts of retributivism which are less helpful in contexts other than criminal punishment. Treating punishment comprehensibly helps us to better understand how it differs from similar phenomena, and to carry on the discussion of its justification fruitfully.

This volume investigates advances in the field of legal translation both from a theoretical and practical perspective, with professional and academic insights from leading experts in the field. Part I of the collection focuses on the exploration of legal translatability from a theoretical angle. Covering fundamental issues such as equivalence in legal translation, approaches to legal translation and the interaction between judicial interpretation and legal translation, the authors offer contributions from philosophical, rhetorical, terminological and lexicographical perspectives. Part II focuses on the analysis of legal translation from a practical perspective among different jurisdictions such as China, the EU and Japan, offering multiple and pluralistic viewpoints. This book presents a collection of studies in legal translation which not only provide the latest international research findings among academics and practitioners, but also furnish us with a new approach to, and new insights into, the phenomena and nature of legal translation and legal transfer. The collection provides an invaluable reference for researchers, practitioners, academics and students specialising in law and legal translation, philosophy, sociology, linguistics and semiotics.

The problem of moral luck is that there is a contradiction in our common sense ideas about moral responsibility. In one strand of our thinking, we believe that a person can become more blameworthy by luck. For example, two reckless drivers manage their vehicles in the same way, and one but not the other kills a pedestrian. We blame the killer driver more than the merely reckless driver, because we believe that the killer driver is more blameworthy. Nevertheless, this idea contradicts another feature of our thinking captured in this moral principle: A person's blameworthiness cannot be affected by that which is not within her control. Thus, our ordinary thinking about moral responsibility implies that the drivers are and are not equally blameworthy. In Defense of Moral Luck aims to make progress in resolving this contradiction. Hartman defends the claim that certain kinds of luck in results, circumstance, and character can partially determine the degree of a person's blameworthiness. He also explains why there is a puzzle in our thinking about moral responsibility in the first place if luck often affects a person's praiseworthiness and blameworthiness. Furthermore, the book's methodology provides a unique way to advance the moral luck debate with arguments from diverse areas in philosophy that do not bottom out in standard pro-moral luck intuitions.

The importance of simulation in education, specifically in legal subjects, is here discussed and explored within this innovative collection. Demonstrating how simulation can be constructed and developed for learning, teaching and assessment, the text argues that simulation is a pedagogically valuable and practical tool in teaching the modern law curriculum. With contributions from law teachers within the UK, Australia, Hong Kong, South Africa and the USA, the authors draw on their experiences in teaching law in the areas of clinical legal education, legal process, evidence, criminal law, family law and employment law as well as teaching law to non-law students. They claim that simulation, as a form of experiential and problem-based learning, enables students to integrate the 'classroom' experience with the real world experiences they will encounter in their professional lives. This book will be of relevance not only to law teachers but university teachers generally, as well as those interested in legal education and the theory of law.

Advancing legal scholarship in the area of mixed legal systems, as well as comparative law more generally, this book expands the comparative study of the world's legal families to those of jurisdictions containing not only mixtures of common and civil law, but also to those mixing Islamic and/or traditional legal systems with those derived from common and/or civil law traditions. With contributions from leading experts in their fields, the book takes us far beyond the usual focus of comparative law with analysis of a broad range of countries, including relatively neglected and under-researched areas. The discussion is situated within the broader context of the ongoing development and evolution of mixed legal systems against the continuing tides of globalization on the one hand, and on the other hand the emergence of Islamic governments in some parts of the Middle East, the calls for a legal status for Islamic law in some European countries, and the increasing focus on traditional and customary norms of governance in post-colonial contexts. This book will be an invaluable source for students and researchers working in the areas of comparative law, legal pluralism, the evolution of mixed legal systems, and the impact of colonialism on contemporary legal systems. It will also be an important resource for policy-makers and analysts.

In considering diffusion from a global perspective, this book provides timely new insights into its application in a variety of fields and at many levels of both legal and non-legal orderings. This collection contributes to the wider theoretical debate concerning the movement of law and legal norms by engaging with concrete examples of legal diffusion, in jurisdictions as diverse as Albania, the Czech Republic, Poland and Kuwait. These examples, taken together, provide a comprehensive illustration of the theoretical debates concerning the diffusion of laws and norms in terms of both process and form. This international, multi-disciplinary and multi-methodological volume brings together scholars from law and social science with experience in mixed and hybrid jurisdictions, and advances the conversation about legal and normative diffusion across the academy. It represents a robust challenge to many preconceived ideas about legal movement and, as such, will be of interest to academics and students working in the fields of Law, Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science, Legal Education and comparative method.

Focusing on paradoxes and tensions of European legal integration, this book investigates four complex and inherently contradictory processes - constitutionalization and democratization, institution-building and market-making, cross-cultural communication and European discourse, and cultural exceptionalism and normalization - to offer a new framework for understanding contemporary European integration. The volume features contributions from some of the biggest names in European legal philosophy, to include Neil MacCormick, Yves Dezalay and Bryant Garth, Pierre Legrand, Heikki Mattila and David Nelken. It presents a timely, interdisciplinary approach to an important and topical area and will be of interest to those concerned with the place of socio-legal processes, language and culture in the continuous advancement of the EU project.

This collection of essays by an international group of authors explores the ways in which law and legal institutions are used in countries coming to terms with traumatic pasts and, in some cases, traumatic presents. In putting to question what is often taken for granted in uncritical calls for reconciliation, it critically analyses and frequently challenges the political and legal assumptions underlying discourses of reconciliation. Drawing on a broad spectrum of disciplinary and interdisciplinary insights the authors examine how competing conceptions of law, time, and politics are deployed in social transformations and how pressing demands for reconstruction, reconciliation, and justice inform and respond to legal categories and their use of time. The book is genuinely interdisciplinary, drawing on work in politics, philosophy, theology, sociology and law. It will appeal to a wide audience of researchers and academics working in these areas.

In Western culture, law is dominated by textual representation. Lawyers, academics and law students live and work in a textual world where the written word is law and law is interpreted largely within written and printed discourse. Is it possible, however, to understand and learn law differently? Could modes of knowing, feeling, memory and expectation commonly present in the Arts enable a deeper understanding of law's discourse and practice? If so, how might that work for students, lawyers and academics in the classroom, and in continuing professional development? Bringing together scholars, legal practitioners internationally from the fields of legal education, legal theory, theatre, architecture, visual and movement arts, this book is evidence of how the Arts can powerfully revitalize the theory and practice of legal education. Through discussion of theory and practice in the humanities and Arts, linked to practical examples of radical interventions, the chapters reveal how the Arts can transform educational practice and our view of its place in legal practice. Available in enhanced electronic format, the book complements The Moral Imagination and the Legal Life, also published by Ashgate.

This book investigates how sustainability informs key principles and concepts of domestic and international law. It calls for the recognition of ecological sustainability as a fundamental principle to guide the entire legal system rather than just environmental legislation. To this end, the book makes a contribution to global environmental constitutionalism, a rapidly growing area within comparative and international environmental law and constitutional law. This 2nd edition has been fully revised and updated to take account of recent developments and new case law. The book will be a valuable resource for students, researchers and policy makers working in the areas of environmental law and governance.

What role does linguistic diversity play in European democratic and legal processes? Is it an obstacle to deliberative democracy and a hindrance to legal certainty, or a cultural and economic asset and a prerequisite for the free movement of citizens? This book examines the tensions and contradictions of European language laws and policy from a multi-disciplinary perspective. With contributions from leading researchers in EU law and legal theory, political science, sociology, sociolinguistic and cognitive linguistics, it combines mutually exclusive and competing perspectives of linguistic diversity. The work will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers in the areas of European law, legal theory and linguistics.

With contributions by recognised experts in the field of education law, this book is a comparative study of the resolution of special education disputes, including via mediation. It analyses the varying approaches in England, Scotland, the US and the Netherlands and addresses major questions of dispute resolution, redress, judicial and non-judicial approaches and the protection of citizens' rights. The first review of mediation in citizen v. state disputes outside the context of the courts, this topical book also incorporates findings from a recent ESRC study into dispute resolution in special educational needs cases. It will not only be of interest to those concerned with education issues but also those interested in administrative justice, especially the role of mediation generally

Sovereignty marks the boundary between politics and law. Highlighting the legal context of politics and the political context of law, it thus contributes to the internal dynamics of both political and legal systems. This book comprehends the persistence of sovereignty as a political and juridical concept in the post-sovereign social condition. The tension and paradoxical relationship between the semantics and structures of sovereignty and post-sovereignty are addressed by using the conceptual framework of the autopoietic social systems theory. Using a number of contemporary European examples, developments and paradoxes, the author examines topics of immense interest and importance relating to the concept of sovereignty in a globalising world. The study argues that the modern question of sovereignty permanently oscillating between de iure authority and de facto power cannot be discarded by theories of supranational and transnational globalized law and politics. Criticising quasi-theological conceptualizations of political sovereignty and its juridical form, the study reformulates the concept of sovereignty and its persistence as part of the self-referential communication of the systems of positive law and politics. The book will be of considerable interest to academics and researchers in political, legal and social theory and philosophy.

The globalization process has foregrounded ethnic discrimination as an increasingly important area of law around the world. Allowing a better understanding of the issue of ethnic discrimination and inequality, this book offers a comparative analysis of legislation impacting ethnic equality in various Anglophone countries. It demonstrates that it is possible to achieve equality at both national and international levels. A compelling historical analysis of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the European Union Treaty is provided together with a detailed examination of diversity and the law. The book will interest practitioners and others interested in ethnic legal issues.

Examining the theoretical and empirical status of applied ethics, this volume demonstrates how a pluralistic and democratic society can deal with ethical issues in the light of its moral conscience. The volume first sets the stage for a conception of applied ethics as applications of transnational civil ethics, based both on a discourse theory of knowledge (Apel, Habermas), and on an activities and capabilities approach (Aristotle, Sen). It then examines how applied ethics relates to important theoretical discussions in philosophy such as constructivism, virtue ethics, hermeneutic and deliberative theory. The contributors discuss applied ethics in light of globalization and identify recurring dilemmas as well as the problem of universal norms. They close by considering two aspects of the institutional point of view - republicanism, and contractarianism and constitutional economics.

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.

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.

Cultural Difference on Trial: The Nature and Limits of Judicial Understanding comprises a sustained philosophical exploration of the capacity of the modern liberal democratic legal system to understand the thought and practice of those culturally different minorities who come before it as claimants, defendants or witnesses. Exploring this issue from within the tradition of contemporary analytical and naturalistic philosophy and drawing upon recent developments in the philosophy of mind and language, this volume is informed by a sound academic and practical grasp of the workings of the legal system itself. Systematically analysing the nature and limits of a judge's ability to understand culturally different thought and action over the course of a trial, this volume is essential reading for anyone interested in the workings of the modern legal system.

Philosophy of Law: An Introduction provides an ideal starting point for students of philosophy and law. Setting it clearly against the historical background, Mark Tebbit quickly leads readers into the heart of the philosophical questions that dominate philosophy of law today. He provides an exceptionally wide-ranging overview of the contending theories that have sought to resolve these problems. He does so without assuming prior knowledge either of philosophy or law on the part of the reader. The book is structured in three parts around the key issues and themes in philosophy of law: What is the law? - the major legal theories addressing the question of what we mean by law, including natural law, legal positivism and legal realism. The reach of the law - the various legal theories on the nature and extent of the law's authority, with regard to obligation and civil disobedience, rights, liberty and privacy. Criminal law - responsibility and mens rea, intention, recklessness and murder, legal defences, insanity and philosophies of punishment. This new third edition has been thoroughly updated to include assessments of important developments in philosophy and law in the early years of the twenty-first century. Revisions include a more detailed analysis of natural law, new chapters on common law and the development of positivism, a reassessment of the Austin-Hart dispute in the light of recent criticism of Hart, a new chapter on the natural law-positivist controversy over Nazi law and legality, and new chapters on criminal law, extending the analysis of the dispute over the viability of the defences of necessity and duress.

This book discusses the basic theories and structures employed in handling the Central-SAR relationship under the "One Country, Two Systems" policy from the perspective of ruling by law. It also explores the fundamental principles and methods used in the division of powers between the central authorities and the SARs, and investigates the institutions responsible for handling the Central-SAR relationship and their practices. Further, it presents case studies since 1997 to help readers better understand the Central-SAR relationship. Lastly, the author raises some new questions for readers who want to further study this topic.

Over the past two decades or so, legal literature has devoted much attention to various human rights issues at both the national and international levels. Yet there has been comparatively little written on the concept and importance of individual duty within the human rights discourse. This book attempts to comprehensively and systematically examine the corollary of human right - the principle of individual duty - from a number of different perspectives, including history, the law (principally international human rights and humanitarian law and national constitutional law), philosophy, jurisprudence, religion, and ethics. The author attempts to demonstrate that a greater emphasis upon individual duties is consistent with a cultural relativist critique, natural law theory, the experience of national legal systems and regional human rights systems, certain socio-political philosophies and conventional sociological postulates, and the dictates of good public policy. The author urges the assignment of a greater, indeed revived, role for the principle of individual duty in order to achieve a more salutary balance between rights and duties and in the relationship between individual freedom and the welfare of the general community.

Two central questions are at the core of international legal theory: 'What is international law?', and 'Is international law really law?' This volume examines these critical questions and the philosophical foundations of modern international law using the tools of Anglo-American legal theory and western political thought. Engaging with both contemporary and historical legal theory and with an analysis of international law in action, the book builds an understanding and theory of law from the perspective of those who actually use this legal system and understand it, rather than constructing an artificial system from the standpoint of political scientists and moral philosophers. Law at the Vanishing Point provides a fascinating new challenge to those who reduce international law either to ethics or to politics and provides a critical new appraisal of its power as an independent force in human social relations.

When accidents occur and people suffer injuries, who ought to bear the loss? Tort law offers a complex set of rules to answer this question, but up to now philosophers have offered little by way of analysis of these rules. In eight essays commissioned for this volume, leading legal theorists examine the philosophical foundations of tort law. This collection will be of interest to professionals and advanced students working in philosophy of law, social theory, political theory, and law, as well as anyone seeking a better understanding of tort law.