Mainstream historians in recent decades have often treated formal categories and rules as something to be 'used' by individuals, as one might use a stick or stone, and the gains of an earlier legal history are often needlessly set aside. Anthropologists, meanwhile, have treated rules as analytic errors and categories as an imposition by outside powers or by analysts, leaving a very thin notion of 'practice' as the stuff of social life. Philosophy of an older vintage, as well as the work of scholars such as Charles Taylor, provides fresh approaches when applied imaginatively to cases beyond the traditional ground of modern Europe and North America. Not only are different kinds of rules and categories open to examination, but the very notion of a rule can be explored more deeply. This volume approaches rules and categories as constitutive of action and hence of social life, but also as providing means of criticism and imagination. A general theoretical framework is derived from analytical philosophy, from Wittgenstein to his critics and beyond, and from recent legal thinkers such as Schauer and Waldron. Case-studies are presented from a broad range of periods and regions, from Amazonia via northern Chad, Tibet, and medieval Russia to the scholarly worlds of Roman law, Islam, and Classical India. As the third volume in the Legalism series, this collection draws on common themes that run throughout the first two volumes: Legalism: Anthropology and History and Legalism: Community and Justice, consolidating them in a framework that suggests a new approach to rule-bound systems.

Trust is pervasive in our lives. Both our simplest actions - like buying a coffee, or crossing the street - as well as the functions of large collective institutions - like those of corporations and nation states - would not be possible without it. Yet only in the last several decades has trust started to receive focused attention from philosophers as a specific topic of investigation. The Routledge Handbook of Trust and Philosophy brings together 31 never-before published chapters, accessible for both students and researchers, created to cover the most salient topics in the various theories of trust. The Handbook is broken up into three sections: I. What is Trust? II. Whom to Trust? III. Trust in Knowledge, Science, and Technology The Handbook is preceded by a foreword by Maria Baghramian, an introduction by volume editor Judith Simon, and each chapter includes a bibliography and cross-references to other entries in the volume.

This book features mathematical and formal philosophers' efforts to understand philosophical questions using mathematical techniques. It offers a collection of works from leading researchers in the area, who discuss some of the most fascinating ways formal methods are now being applied. It covers topics such as: the uses of probable and statistical reasoning, rational choice theory, reasoning in the environmental sciences, reasoning about laws and changes of rules, and reasoning about collective decision procedures as well as about action. Utilizing mathematical techniques has been very fruitful in the traditional domains of formal philosophy - logic, philosophy of mathematics and metaphysics - while formal philosophy is simultaneously branching out into other areas in philosophy and the social sciences. These areas particularly include ethics, political science, and the methodology of the natural and social sciences. Reasoning about legal rules, collective decision-making procedures, and rational choices are of interest to all those engaged in legal theory, political science and economics. Statistical reasoning is also of interest to political scientists and economists.

This book is a thorough treatise concerned with coherence and its significance in legal reasoning. The individual chapters present the topic from the general philosophical perspective, the perspective of legal-theory as well as the viewpoint of cognitive sciences and the research on artificial intelligence and law. As it has turned out the interchange of knowledge among these disciplines is very fruitful for each of them, providing mutual inspiration and increasing understanding of a given topic. This book is a unique resource for anyone interested in the concept of coherence and the role it plays in reasoning. As this book captures important contemporary issues concerning the ongoing discussion on coherence and law, those interested in legal reasoning should find it particularly helpful. By presenting such a broad scope of views and methods on approaching the issue of coherence we hope to promote the general interest in the topic as well as the academic research that centers around coherence and law.

This book provides a set of proposals for the new conceptual network required in order to establish civil law rules for a world permeated by Artificial Intelligence. These proposals are intended by their authors to push the debate on the new civil law forward. In spite of the natural conservatism of jurists, some innovative or even futuristic ideas are called for, also because the future, even this not-so-distant one, is difficult to foresee. Paradoxically, and unlike in the past, this lack of knowledge must not stop us from planning. If it does, humankind may, as some pessimists already claim, lose its chance to win the battle for control of the world. The rise and expansion of Artificial Intelligence and robotics in recent years has highlighted a pressing need to create a suitable legal framework for this new phenomenon. The debate on the subject, although wide-ranging and involving many new legal documents, is still quite general and preliminary in nature, although these preparatory works illustrate the very real need to develop appropriate new civil law arrangements. It is exactly the branch of private law where the necessity of these new rules appears to be the most imperative. Autonomous vehicles, medical robots, and expertise software raise fundamental questions on aspects of civil liability such as culpability; whereas the growth in popularity of automated, intelligent software systems for concluding contracts requires a new approach to many fundamental and deeply rooted elements of contract law, e.g. consciousness, intent, error, deception, interpretation of contracts and good faith. Ruling on these specific matters demands the identification and clarification of certain key points, which shall become the foundation for constructing AI/robot civil law.

Reading Ricoeur through Law, edited by Marc de Leeuw, George H. Taylor, and Eileen Brennan, is the first collection of essays solely focused on Ricoeur's thinking about law, bringing together both established and emerging scholars to offer a systematic and critical examination of Ricoeur's legal thinking. The chapters not only explore the specific contribution Ricoeur makes to the field of jurisprudence but also examine how Ricoeur's work on law fits, complements, or changes his overall anthropology, phenomenology, and hermeneutics. The book provides a complex insight into how law, ethics, and politics intertwine both from within law as normative rule setting, as well as through the wider social-political and historical context in which law and legal institutions affect our inter-subjective and communal life as lived "with and for others in just institutions." The collection also makes available in English "The Just between the Legal and the Good," a key text in Ricoeur's reflections about law and justice. The core topics of this collection are rights, justice, responsibility, judging, interpretation, argumentation, punishment, and authority, but contributors but also offer original insights in how Ricoeur's philosophical reconceptualization of symbolism, action, ideology, narrative, selfhood, testimony, history, trauma, reconciliation, justice, and forgiveness can be made productive for our understanding of law and legal institutions.

This Handbook discusses representative philosophers in the history of the philosophy of law and social philosophy, giving clear concise expert definitions and explanations of key personalities and their ideas. It provides an essential reference for experts and newcomers alike.

Building upon an understanding of the rule of law as an ?'essentially contested concept?', this insightful book investigates the historical, political, and legal foundations of the Chinese perspectives on the rule of law at both a national and international level. In particular, chapters focus on China?s impact on global trade and security governance. These case studies enable conclusions to be drawn regarding China?'s more general perspectives on the international rule of law as a concept. Offering a thorough analysis of EU-China relationships, the book highlights the prospects and challenges for a meaningful dialogue on the rule of law and the international rule of law. In doing so, it illustrates the merits of the rule of law as a concept to engage in meaningful dialogues across a myriad of legal and political systems. This book will hold particular appeal for students and scholars of Chinese Law, International Law, EU-China Relations, and legal theory. Policy makers will also find this a stimulating read as the work aims to build both academic and policy bridges between the Western and Chinese conceptions on the rule of law at both national and international levels.

Rights have become,in recent years, a significant concern of legal theorists, as well as of those involved in moral and political philosophy. This new book seeks to move a number of debates forward by developing the analysis of rights and focusing upon more general theoretical considerations relating to rights. The book is divided into five parts. The first includes an explanation of the part played by conceptual analysis within jurisprudence, while the second conducts a re-examination of Hohfeld's analysis of rights. This part deals with the arguments advanced by a number of modern theorists including Hart, White and MacCormick. The third part contains the author's own framework for discussing rights, including examples drawn from tort, constitutional law and international law, together with an analysis of Unger's theory of rights. Part four centres on the perceived conflict between Dworkin, Rawls and Nozick as the defenders of a rights approach, and Bentham as the champion of utilitarianism and concludes that neither deals with the fundamental concerns of morality on which their theories are based. The fifth part consists of a conclusion which reflects on the key themes and considers the role of rights within general theory. For students, particularly helpful features of the book are the overt consideration of jurisprudential methodology and the opportunity to examine a number of key theorists linked by their divergent views on the subject of rights.

Democratic Government and Constitutional Jurisdiction brings together a series of articles produced in recent years and contains elements that can provide a panoramic view of the most prominent discussions in constitutional law in our time. The book is divided in five main parts, each of them is an article and addresses issues related to constitutional law, democracy and institutions. It brings about the challenges that Brazil must confront as part of the process of constructing a free, just and compassionate society, this book is intended to be an additional tool for improving the country's institutions. In the inevitable presence of doubts and dreams, we seek to offer alternatives in order to ensure that this project continues.

International lawyers have long recognised the importance of interpretation to their academic discipline and professional practice. As new insights on interpretation abound in other fields, international law and international lawyers have largely remained wedded to a rule-based approach, focusing almost exclusively on the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Such an approach neglects interpretation as a distinct and broader field of theoretical inquiry. Interpretation in International Law brings international legal scholars together to engage in sustained reflection on the theme of interpretation. The book is creatively structured around the metaphor of the game, which captures and illuminates the constituent elements of an act of interpretation. The object of the game of interpretation is to persuade the audience that one's interpretation of the law is correct. The rules of play are known and complied with by the players, even though much is left to their skills and strategies. There is also a meta-discourse about the game of interpretation - 'playing the game of game-playing' - which involves consideration of the nature of the game, its underlying stakes, and who gets to decide by what rules one should play. Through a series of diverse contributions, Interpretation in International Law reveals interpretation as an inescapable feature of all areas of international law. It will be of interest and utility to all international lawyers whose work touches upon theoretical or practical aspects of interpretation.

Despite nearly sixty years of European integration, neither nations nor national loyalties have withered away. On the contrary, national identity rhetoric seems on the rise, not only in politics but also in legal discourse. Lately we have seen a rise in the number of Member States invoking their national identity in an attempt to justify a derogation from a requirement imposed on them by a Treaty article or an EU legislative act, or to legitimize a particular national reading of such an EU norm. Despite this, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has yet to develop a coherent approach to such arguments, or express a vision of the role national identity should play in EU law. Elke Cloots undertakes this task by providing a principled and coherent scheme for the adjudication of disputes involving claims based on the national identity of a Member State. Should arguments involving national identity be legally relevant? If yes, how should the ECJ approach such identity-related interests? Cloots crafts a normative framework to assist the ECJ in striking the right balance between European integration and respect for the identity concerns at issue. The book combines rigorous theoretical inquiry with thorough analysis of the European Treaties and case law, with particular attention paid to litigation involving domestic measures concerning the national system of government, constitutional rights protections, and language policy. Clarifying the issues at stake and presenting a solution to these problems, this book will be an invaluable resource for the academics, lawyers, and policy makers in the field.

What one can know depends on one’s evidence. Good scientific theories are supported by evidence. Our experiences provide us with evidence. Any sort of inquiry involves the seeking of evidence. It is irrational to believe contrary to your evidence. For these reasons and more, evidence is one of the most fundamental notions in the field of epistemology and is emerging as a crucial topic across academic disciplines. The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evidence is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting subject and is first major volume of its kind. Comprising forty chapters by an international team of contributors the Handbook is divided into six clear parts: The Nature of Evidence Evidence and Probability The Social Epistemology of Evidence Sources of Evidence Evidence and Justification Evidence in the Disciplines. The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evidence is essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of science and epistemology, and will also be of interest to those in related disciplines across the Humanities and Social Sciences such as law, religion, and history.

This volume offers an up-to-date overview of the much-debated issue of how a democracy may defend itself against those who want to subvert it. The justifications, effectiveness and legal implications of militant democracy are discussed by addressing questions as: How can militant democracy measures such as party bans be justified? Why is it that some democracies ban antidemocratic parties? Does militant democracy succeed in combatting right-wing extremism? And is militant democracy evolving into an internationalized legal and political concept? Bringing together experts and perspectives from political science, law and philosophy, this volume advances our understanding of the current threats to democracy, a political system once thought almost invincible. It is especially timely in the light of the rise of illiberal democracy in the EU, the increasingly authoritarian rule in Turkey, the steady shift to autocracy in Russia and the remarkable election of Trump in the US.

The essay addresses one of the main challenges to the contemporary methodology of the law, namely a new wave of naturalistic approaches that follow the rapid progress in the studies of the mind as a basis for psychological, behavioral, and cultural phenomena. The book aims to address the extent to which new developments of a naturalistic worldview affect the methodological foundations of studying and explaining the law, and distinguishes two fundamentally different models of scientific inquiry. Interpreting legal texts has to remain an anti-naturalistic, hermeneutic enterprise, conceiving law as a combination of causally related facts. As such, its scientific status depends mostly on its ability to become a part of an interdisciplinary web of naturalistic explanations of reality.

The United States is generally believed to be a liberal, rights-based culture. In such a society, according to Richard S. Markovits, arguments of moral principle dominate legal discourse.

Markovits analyzes various rights related to our society's basic duties of showing appropriate, equal respect for all creatures capable of moral integrity and appropriate, equal concern for their actualizing this potential. By taking moral- and legal-rights arguments seriously, the book counters the tendencies of legal academics to substitute non-right-focused policy analysis for rights analysis and of judges to indulge their own political preferences under the guide of executing arcane, morally-disconnected "legal analysis."

Ranging widely and covering in depth such flashpoint issues as educational rights, minimum real-income rights, privacy rights, abortion, parenting, sexual liberties, and the right to die, "Matters of Principle" is a deeply engaged and thoughtful work, certain to be controversial and much debated.

This book explores innovative and context-driven political and legal policy measures designed to expand the powers of the African Union (AU) in order to meaningfully drive the continental integration process. In this regard, the book addresses issues of context, political will, and innovative and inclusive approaches as essential elements that must be considered. Africa is currently experiencing one of the most critical phases of its integrative development. Since 2015, there have been increasing efforts to develop policies and practices that grant the AU broader powers to coordinate and create binding rules regarding the regional integration process. In other words, these processes seek to endow the AU with supranational powers like those exercised by the European Union, which, despite its internal problems, remains the most successful experiment in supranationalism in the world. This has included the decision to finance the AU through a 0.2% tax on eligible imports into member states; the decision to reduce the number of AU Commission portfolios from eight to six; the adoption and entry into force of the much touted Agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area; the adoption of the Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community Relating to Free Movement of Persons, Right to Residence and Right of Establishment; and the adoption of the AU Agenda 2063 policy framework in 2015. How these processes will change the direction of regional integration in Africa, the book argues, largely depends on the existence of quality-driven institutions.

"Eusebism" is a new moral philosophy based on respect, whose purpose is to change paradigms and perspectives that prevent human beings from being free and aware. Eusebism's unifying element is absolute and unconditional respect for everything that exists. From a material and transcendental perspective, it represents the only security on which to base relationships between all people and animals, to search for the best improvement possible and maximize overall well-being. Eusebism is not based on faith, but on observation and interpretation without subjectivism, even based upon species, sex, age, origin, propensity, habit, social status, technological level, and historical epoch. Humanism, animal rights, and environmentalism represent philosophical currents that, even if useful and innovative, remain confined within objective limitations since all consider just one element and automatically prevent referentiality to the other doctrines. The theory incorporates all those perspectives, assimilating inside a comprehensive general theory that rejects discrimination based on them. Eusebism's perspective inversion is explained by the question: "Why should I deny respect?"

Fiduciary law is a critically important body of law. Fiduciary duties ensure the integrity of a remarkable variety of relationships, institutions, and organizations. They apply to relationships of great personal significance, including in some jurisdictions the relationship between parents and children. They structure a wide variety of commercial relationships, and they are essential to the regulation of relationships between professional service providers and their clients, including relationships between lawyer and client, doctor and patient, and investment manager and client. Fiduciary duties, perhaps uniquely in private law, challenge traditional ways of marking the boundaries between private and public law, inasmuch as they figure prominently in public governance. Indeed, there is even a storied tradition of thinking of the authority of the state in fiduciary terms. Notwithstanding its importance, fiduciary law has been woefully under-analysed by legal theorists. Filling this gap with a series of chapters by leading theorists, this book includes chapters on: the nature of fiduciary relationships, the connection between fiduciary duties and morality, the content and significance of fiduciary loyalty, the economic significance of fiduciary law, the application of fiduciary principles to public law and international law, the import of fiduciary relationships to theories of authority, and various other fundamental topics in the field. In many cases, new and important questions are raised by the book's chapters. Indeed, this book not only offers a much-needed theoretical assessment of fiduciary topics, it defines the field going forward, setting an agenda for future philosophical study of fiduciary law.

This detailed work is based on more than ten years experience in conducting tenders for the licensing of petroleum prospective acreage on behalf of a number of sovereign governments in Europe, Africa and the former Soviet Union. It explains the processes of licensing from the points of view of the two main protagonists, the government bodies and the international oil companies. The book also gives due prominence to the interests of the host communities and to the environment, as well as to the neighbouring states and the other participants who may be affected by the licensing process. In the modern world petroleum licensing takes place in the full glare of attention from the press and from public opinion. This work breaks new ground in recommending ways in which government and the oil companies may devise best practice in licensing to serve the interest of all parties and also an ethical business environment.

This book provides a new approach to the study of the History of Roman Law. It collects the first results of the European Research Council Project, Scriptores iuris Romani - dedicated to a new collection of the texts of Roman jurisprudence, highlighting important methodological issues, together with innovative reconstructions of the profiles of some ancient jurists and works. Jurists were great protagonists of the history of Rome, both as producers and interpreters of law, since the Republican Age and as collaborators of the principes during the Empire. Nevertheless, their role has been underestimated by modern historians and legal experts for reasons connected to the developments of Modern Law in England and in Continental Europe. This book aims to address this imbalance. It presents an advanced paradigm in considering the most important aspects of Roman law: the Justinian Digesta, and other juridical late antique anthologies. The work offers an historiographic model which overturns current perspectives and makes way for a different path for legal and historical studies. Unlike existing literature, the focus is not on the Justinian Codification, but on the individualities of ancient Roman Jurists. As such, it presents the actual legal thought of its experts and authors: the ancient iuris prudentes. The book will be of interest to researchers and academics in Classics, Ancient History, History of Law, and contemporary legal studies.

The purpose of this work is to analyze the functioning of extra-legal references (general clauses) in the context of the relation between the legislative policy of opening the legal system and judicial discretion in the field of law interpretation. This publication is based on the analysis of normative acts (in Poland and other selected European countries) and judicial decisions (mainly Polish). The result of the study is an attempt to settle the scope of judicial discretion in determining the content of reference criteria, the basis for their application, and their role in various stages of the process of judicial interpretation of the law. The book concludes with an attempt to construct a comparative and an optimization model of the functioning of general clauses in the legal order.

This book contributes conceptually, theoretically and morally to a deeper understanding of the distinctive Asian perceptions of punishment, justice and human rights. Researched and prepared by scholars who have not only been conducting studies on the death penalty in the region but have also been advocating for legal reforms, this edited book touches upon the different justifications for the use of capital punishment in the ASEAN region, exposing the secrecy, sensitivities and dilemmas that mask violations of international human rights laws. The chapters bring in numerous new perspectives which have been overlooked in the traditional discourse surrounding the use of the death penalty, such as that around crimes that do not meet the threshold of “most serious�; the dignity of death row inmates and their families; contradictions within religion and capital punishment; and the way in which growing authoritarianism and the media are adversely influencing the public’s perception and support for capital punishment in the region. In examining how public opinion shapes state policies towards the death penalty and how it varies according to different offences and different states, the authors critically analyse how the international human rights mechanisms have specifically called for ASEAN member states to refrain from extending the application of the death penalty and to limit it to the “most serious crimes.� Relevant to socio-legal scholars focused on crime and punishment in Southeast Asia, and in the Global South more broadly, this is a landmark collection in criminology and human rights scholarship.  Chapter "ASEAN and the Death Penalty: Theoretical and Legal Views and a Pathway to Abolition" is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Torture and Moral Integrity is about the wrongness of torture and the nature of morality. It discusses multiple types of torture with great philosophical acuity and it seeks to explain why interrogational torture and other types of torture are always and everywhere morally wrong. At the same time, it rigorously plumbs the general structure of morality and the intricacies of moral conflicts and it probes some of the chief grounds for the moral illegitimacy of various modes of conduct. It sophisticatedly defends a deontological conception of morality against some subtle critiques that have been mounted during the past few decades by proponents of consequentialism. The book tackles a concrete moral problem: a problem that has been heatedly debated during recent years in the governmental and military institutions of many countries as well as in academic circles. At the same time it tackles some very abstract issues in moral and political philosophy. Moreover, as becomes apparent at numerous junctures, the abstract ruminations and the concrete prescriptions are closely connected: Kramer's recommendations concerning the legal consequences of the perpetration of torture by public officials or private individuals, for example, are based squarely on his more abstract accounts of the nature of torture and the nature of morality. His philosophical reflections on the structure of morality are the vital background for his approach to torture, and his approach to torture is a natural outgrowth of those philosophical reflections.

States restrict immigration on a massive scale. Governments fortify their borders with walls and fences, authorize border patrols, imprison migrants in detention centers, and deport large numbers of foreigners. Unjust Borders: Individuals and the Ethics of Immigration argues that immigration restrictions are systematically unjust and examines how individual actors should respond to this injustice. Javier Hidalgo maintains that individuals can rightfully resist immigration restrictions and often have strong moral reasons to subvert these laws. This book makes the case that unauthorized migrants can permissibly evade, deceive, and use defensive force against immigration agents, that smugglers can aid migrants in crossing borders, and that citizens should disobey laws that compel them to harm immigrants. Unjust Borders is a meditation on how individuals should act in the midst of pervasive injustice.