Fifty years on from its original publication, HLA Hart's The Concept of Law is widely recognized as the most important work of legal philosophy published in the twentieth century, and remains the starting point for most students coming to the subject for the first time. In this third edition, Leslie Green provides a new introduction that sets the book in the context of subsequent developments in social and political philosophy, clarifying misunderstandings of Hart's project and highlighting central tensions and problems in the work.

This book engages in an analytical and realistic enquiry into legal interpretation and a selection of related matters including legal gaps, judicial fictions, judicial precedent, legal defeasibility, and legislation. Chapter 1 provides an outline of the central theoretical and methodological tenets of analytical realism. Chapter 2 presents a conceptual apparatus concerning the phenomenon of legal interpretation, which it subsequently applies to investigate the truth-in-legal-interpretation issue. Chapters 3 to 6 argue for a theory of legal interpretation - pragmatic realism - by outlining a theory of interpretive games, revisiting the debate between literalism and contextualism in contemporary philosophy of language, and underscoring the many shortcomings of the container-retrieval view and pragmatic formalism. In turn, Chapter 7, focusing on comparative legal theory, advocates an interpretation-sensitive theory of legal gaps, as opposed to purely normativist ones. Chapter 8 explores the connection between judicial reasoning and judicial fictions, casting light on the structure and purpose of fictional reasoning. Chapter 9 provides an analytical enquiry into judicial precedent, examining a variety of ideal-typical systems in terms of their normative or de iure relevance. Chapter 10 addresses defeasibility and legal indeterminacy. In closing, Chapter 11 highlights the central tenets of a realistic theory of legislation.

This book offers a comprehensive assessment of the successes and failures in China's current legal system construction. It systematically and comprehensively examines the development of China's rule of law policy since the reform and opening up, as well as future trends. The main areas covered include: The course, achievements and motivation behind China's construction of law-based administration; Development, status quo and general characteristics of administrative legislation; Reform of the administrative examination and approval system and the administrative licensing system; The relationship between social security system reform, beneficial administration and service government; The development of administrative law in China; Origin of the concept of due process, experiences with and development trends concerning China's administrative legislative procedure; The importance of government information, open practices, problems and development trend; History, current situation, reform mechanism of the emergency management system and the improvement of the legal system for emergency requisitions; The course, practical problems in and reasons for the enhanced approach of administrative reconsideration system; The course, achievements in, current situation and enhanced approach of administrative litigation system; The course of the national compensation system; and the construction of responsible government and administrative accountability system.

Privacy is gravely endangered in the digital age, and we, the digital citizens, are its principal threat, willingly surrendering it to avail ourselves of new technology, and granting the government and corporations immense power over us. In this highly original work, Firmin DeBrabander begins with this premise and asks how we can ensure and protect our freedom in the absence of privacy. Can-and should-we rally anew to support this institution? Is privacy so important to political liberty after all? DeBrabander makes the case that privacy is a poor foundation for democracy, that it is a relatively new value that has been rarely enjoyed throughout history-but constantly persecuted-and politically and philosophically suspect. The vitality of the public realm, he argues, is far more significant to the health of our democracy, but is equally endangered-and often overlooked-in the digital age.

View the Table of Contents. Read the Preface.

"An outstanding contribution to the scholarly debates on the interpretation of the First Amendment religion clauses. [Ravitch's] biting critical analyses of the currently popular principles of neutrality and liberty are especially important."
--Stephen M. Feldman, editor of "Law and Religion: A Critical Anthology"

"Masters of Illusion is filled with penetrating analysis and original insights about freedom of religion. Ravitch's discussions of neutrality, sex education, religious symbols, and his proposal for handling freedom of religion issues are particularly valuable."
--Steven H. Shiffrin, author of "Dissent, Injustice, and the Meanings of America"

Many legal theorists and judges agree on one major premise in the field of law and religion: that religion clause jurisprudence is in a state of disarray and has been for some time. In Masters of Illusion, Frank S. Ravitch provocatively contends that both hard originalism (a strict focus on the intent of the framers) and neutrality are illusory in religion clause jurisprudence, the former because it can not live up to its promise for either side in the debate and the latter because it is simply impossible in the religion clause context. Yet these two principles have been used in almost every Supreme Court decision addressing religion clause questions.

Ravitch unpacks the various principles of religion clause interpretation, drawing on contemporary debates such as school prayer and displaying the Ten Commandments on courthouses, to demonstrate that the neutrality principle does not work in a pluralistic society. When defined by large, overarching principles of equality andliberty, neutrality fails to account for differences between groups and individuals. If, however, the Court drew on a variety of principles instead of a single notion of neutrality to decide whether or not laws facilitated or discouraged religious practices, the result could be a more equitable approach to religion clause cases.

On the Commonwealth represents Cicero's first serious attempt to bring Greek theories of political life to the circumstances of the Roman Republic. While some passages have been lost or reduced to fragments, it remains an important work of political philosophy and essential reading for political science students.

This text targets an academic audience without focusing on a specific discipline. Its sound decisional models and analytical scrutiny combine with a broad cross-disciplinary perspective to attempt to give its readers a full understanding of the bargaining process. Features include: a cross-disciplinary approach; reliable and verifiable models for successful and constructive negotiation; and analytical commentary from a professional perspective.

Relations between societal values and legal doctrine are inevitably complex given the time lag between law and social reality, and the sociological space between legal communities involved in the development and application of the law and non-legal communities affected by it. It falls on open-ended concepts, such as proportionality, human rights, dignity, freedom, and truth, and on legal frameworks for balancing competing rights and interests, such as self-defense, command or corporate responsibility, and restrictions on freedom of expression, to negotiate chronic tensions between law and society and to bridge existing gaps. The present volume contains chapters by leading experts - former judges on constitutional courts and international courts, and some of the world's leading criminal law, public law, and international law scholars - offering their points of view and professional analysis of legal notions and doctrines that serve as hubs for the interpretation, application, and contestation of core values, which in turn constitute building blocks of the rule of law. The shared perspective on the interplay between values and legal rules in public law, criminal law, and international law is likely to render the publication a valuable resource for both theoreticians and practitioners, law students, and seasoned legal experts working in diverse legal fields.

This timely anthology brings into sharp relief the extent of violence against women. Its range is global and far reaching in terms of the number of victims. There are deeply entrenched values that need to be rooted out and laid bare. This text offers a philosophical analysis of the problem, with important insights from the various contributors. Topics range from sexual assault to media violence, prostitution and pornography, domestic violence, and sexual harassment. Each of the four parts include essays which tackle these issues and provide us with tools for bringing about change. The philosophical approaches to the topic give readers insight into the harms of interpersonal violence and its impact on the lives of its victims. Analyzing Violence Against Women calls us to examine public policies and work for systemic change. In the process, we are reminded that the concerns of the discipline of Philosophy encompasses issues with a wider scope. Students will especially benefit from seeing how the various authors grapple with this pressing issue and clarify why we need to bring about change.

This book reviews the burgeoning literature on contemporary punishment and penal change, concentrating on the work of four scholars- David Garland, John Pratt, Hans Boutellier and Loic Wacquant. The book differs from classical reviews in that it places the scholars themselves, rather than the problem to be addressed, at the centre of the book. Daems argues that academics do not think and write in a vacuum, they carry a past with them and are influenced by new insights and theories, and constantly need to reposition themselves within their own field and their political environment. This book, then, is as much about the selected authors as the stories they bring. It includes four large chapters devoted to the work of each author, offering an expose of their work framed within the context of their lives. It offers a discussion of their central ideas and their distinctive approach towards questions of penal change and an analysis of the relationship between their roles as scholars in an academic environment and citizens in a political community. The scholar-oriented approach allows the author to deal with questions related to criminology's public persuasiveness - a timely analysis in view of recent calls for criminologists and other social scientists to enter public debate more directly.
This book is an accessible and important contribution to the debate on recent penal change, presented in a way that both experts and non-experts will be able to follow. It will be of interest to criminologists, sociologists, socio-legal scholars, and criminal lawyers and students.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of capital punishment in the Australian colonies for the very first time. The author illuminates all aspects of the penalty, from shortcomings in execution technique, to the behaviour of the dying criminal, and the antics of the scaffold crowd. Mercy rates, execution numbers, and capital crimes are explored alongside the transition from public to private executions and the push to abolish the death penalty completely. Notions of culture and communication freely pollinate within a conceptual framework of penal change that explains the many transformations the death penalty underwent. A vast array of sources are assembled into one compelling argument that shows how the 'lesson' of the gallows was to be safeguarded, refined, and improved at all costs. This concise and engaging work will be a lasting resource for students, scholars, and general readers who want an in-depth understanding of a long feared punishment. Dr. Steven Anderson is a Visiting Research Fellow in the History Department at The University of Adelaide, Australia. His academic research explores the role of capital punishment in the Australian colonies by situating developments in these jurisdictions within global contexts and conceptual debates.

A succinct, clear, and accessible introduction to the role and place of law in modern society, this addition to the 'Clarendon Law Series' explores the idea that the legal system is a highly developed social system, which has a distinct character and structure, and which shapes and influences behaviour.

Nobody's Law shows how people - who are disappointed, disenchanted, and outraged about the justice system - gradually move away from law. Using detailed case studies and combining different theoretical perspectives, this book explores the legal consciousness of ordinary people, businessmen, and street-level bureaucrats in the Netherlands. The empirical research in this study tells an original and alternative narrative about the role of law in everyday life. While previous studies emphasize the law's hegemony and argue that it's 'all over', Hertogh shows that legal proliferation makes it harder for people to know, and subsequently identify with, the law. As a result, official law has become increasingly remote and irrelevant to many people. The central finding presented in this highly topical text is that these developments signal a process of 'legal alienation'- a gradual and mundane process with potentially serious consequences for the legitimacy of law. A timely and original study, this book will be of particular interest to scholars in the fields of law and society, socio-legal studies and legal theory.

How should feminist theories conceive of the subject? What is it to be a legal person? What part does embodiment play in subjectivity? Can there be a conception of rights which does justice to the social contexts in which rights claims are embedded? Is the way the law constitutes legal subjects a form of violence? These questions lie at the heart of contemporary feminist theory, and in this collection they are addressed by a group of distinguished international scholars working in law, philosophy and politics. The volume, in which the concerns of one author are taken up by others, advances current debate on two interconnected levels. First, it contains original and ground-breaking discussions of the questions raised above. At the same time, it contains a more reflexive strand of argument about the intellectual resources available to feminist thinkers, and the advantages and dangers of borrowing from non-feminist traditions of thought. It thus provides an exceptionally rich examination of contemporary legal and political feminist theory.

In almost every field of law,from tort and contract to environmental law and criminal justice, issues about 'risk' are increasingly of interest to lawyers. At the same time, there has been little general enquiry into the nature of the contact between law and risks. This book argues that ideas about risk have not traditionally been absent from law, as is sometimes supposed. Lawyers and legal theorists have used and conceptualised risk in particular ways, and ideas of risk have had significant influence in key elements of legal theory including questions of justice and responsibility. The book explores the conceptual place of risk across a number of fields of law; and identifies some significant challenges for law and legal theory arising from broader debates about risk. It therefore sheds light on areas that are under-explored despite current interest among lawyers, and aims to provide an accessible guide to emerging controversies and challenges for law in this area while explaining their significance.

This book provides international perspectives on the law of copyright in relation to three core themes - copyright and developing countries; the government and copyright; and technology and the future of copyright. The third theme includes an examination of the extent to which technology will dictate the development of the law, and a re-examination of the role of copyright in fostering innovation and creativity. As a critique, one chapter discusses how certain rights can create or reinforce social inequality under copyright royalty systems. Underlying these themes is the role the law of copyright has in encouraging or impeding human flourishing.

This book explores the intellectual history of contract law in ancient China by employing archaeological and empirical methodologies. Divided into five chapters, it begins by reviewing the origin of the contract in ancient China, and analyzing its name, primary form, historical premise and functions. The second chapter discusses free will and lawfulness in the establishment of a contract, offering insights into the impact of contracts on social justice. In turn, the third chapter addresses the inner core of the contract: validity and liability. This allows readers at all levels to identify the similarities and differences between contracts from different eras and different parts of the world, which will also benefit those pursuing comparative research in related fields. Chapters four and five offer a philosophical exploration of contract history in ancient China, and analyze key aspects including human nature and ethical justice.

This book examines how the nation - and its (fundamental) law - are 'sensed' by way of various aesthetic forms from the age of revolution up until our age of contested democratic legitimacy. Contemporary democratic legitimacy is tied, among other things, to consent, to representation, to the identity of ruler and ruled, and, of course, to legality and the legal forms through which democracy is structured. This book expands the ways in which we can understand and appreciate democratic legitimacy. If (democratic) communities are "imagined" this book suggests that their "rightfulness" must be "sensed" - analogously to the need for justice not only to be done, but to be seen to be done. This book brings together legal, historical and philosophical perspectives on the representation and iconography of the nation in the European, North American and Australian contexts from contributors in law, political science, history, art history and philosophy.

Should judges in United States courts be permitted to cite foreign laws in their rulings? In this book Jeremy Waldron explores some ideas in jurisprudence and legal theory that could underlie the Supreme Court's occasional recourse to foreign law, especially in constitutional cases. He argues that every society is governed not only by its own laws but partly also by laws common to all mankind (ius gentium). But he takes the unique step of arguing that this common law is not natural law but a grounded consensus among all nations. The idea of such a consensus will become increasingly important in jurisprudence and public affairs as the world becomes more globalized.

Clarence Thomas is one of the most vilified public figures of our day. To date, however, his legal philosophy has received only cursory treatment. First Principles provides a portrait of Thomas based not on the justice's caricatured reputation, but on his judicial opinions and votes, his scholarly writings, and his public speeches.

The paperback edition includes a provocative new Afterword by the author bringing the book up to date by assessing Justice Thomas's performance, and the reaction to his decisions, during the last five years.

The importance of the rule of law is universally recognised and of fundamental value for most societies. Establishing and promoting the rule of law in the Muslim world, particularly in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, has become a pressing but complicated issue. These states have Muslim majority populations, and the religion of Islam has an important role in the traditional structures of their societies. While the Muslim world is taking gradual steps towards the establishment of rule of law systems, most Muslim majority countries may not yet have effective legal systems with independent judiciaries, which would allow the state and institutions to be controlled by an effective rule of law system. One important aspect of the rule of law is freedom of expression. Given the sensitivity of Muslim societies in relation to their sacred beliefs, freedom of expression, as an international human rights issue, has raised some controversial cases. This book, drawing on both International and Islamic Law, explores the rule of law, and freedom of expression and its practical application in the Muslim world.

Only recently have philosophers and psychologists begun to consider empirical research methods to inform questions and debates in legal philosophy. With the field ripe for further experimental inquiry, this collection explores the most topical empirical developments and anticipates future research directions. Bringing together legal scholars, psychologists, and philosophers, chapters address questions such as: Do people share a stable set of intuitions about what the law is? What are common perceptions about causation, intentionality, and culpability, and are they consistent with the corresponding legal concepts? To what extent can experimental research methods advance theoretical debates in legal philosophy about the nature of law? With fascinating implications for legal philosophy, ethics, and moral psychology, Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Law sets the agenda for the emerging field of experimental jurisprudence and will be of interest to both researchers and practitioners alike.

'Community' and 'justice' recur in anthropological, historical, and legal scholarship, yet as concepts they are notoriously slippery. Historians and lawyers look to anthropologists as 'community specialists', but anthropologists often avoid the concept through circumlocution: although much used (and abused) by historians, legal thinkers, and political philosophers, the term remains strikingly indeterminate and often morally overdetermined. 'Justice', meanwhile, is elusive, alternately invoked as the goal of contemporary political theorizing, and wrapped in obscure philosophical controversy. A conceptual knot emerges in much legal and political thought between law, justice, and community, but theories abound, without any agreement over concepts. The contributors to this volume use empirical case studies to unpick threads of this knot. Local codes from Anglo-Saxon England, north Africa, and medieval Armenia indicate disjunctions between community boundaries and the subjects of local rules and categories; processes of justice from early modern Europe to eastern Tibet suggest new ways of conceptualizing the relationship between law and justice; and practices of exile that recur throughout the world illustrate contingent formulations of community. In the first book in the series, Legalism: Anthropology and History, law was addressed through a focus on local legal categories as conceptual tools. Here this approach is extended to the ideas and ideals of justice and community. Rigorous cross-cultural comparison allows the contributors to avoid normative assumptions, while opening new avenues of inquiry for lawyers, anthropologists, and historians alike.