What can law's popular cultures do for law, as a constitutive and interrogative critical practice? This collection explores such a question through the lens of the 'cultural legal studies' movement, which proffers a new encounter with the 'cultural turn' in law and legal theory. Moving beyond the 'law ands' (literature, humanities, culture, film, visual and aesthetics) on which it is based, this book demonstrates how the techniques and practices of cultural legal studies can be used to metamorphose law and the legalities that underpin its popular imaginary. By drawing on three different modes of cultural legal studies - storytelling, technology and jurisprudence - the collection showcases the intersectional practices of cultural legal studies, and law in its popular cultural mode. The contributors to the collection deploy differentiated modes of cultural legal studies practice, adopting diverse philosophical, disciplinary, methodological and theoretical approaches and subjects of examination. The collection draws on this mix of diversity and homogeneity to thread together its overarching theme: that we must take seriously an interrogation of law as culture and in its cultural form. That is, it does not ask how a text 'represents' law; but rather how the representational nature of both law and culture intersect so that the 'juridical' become visible in various cultural manifestations. In short, it asks: how law's popular cultures actively effect the metamorphosis of law.

Fifty years before his death in 2013, Nelson Mandela stood before Justice de Wet in Pretoria's Palace of Justice and delivered one of the most spectacular and liberating statements ever made from a dock. In what came to be regarded as "the trial that changed South Africa", Mandela summed up the spirit of the liberation struggle and the moral basis for the post-Apartheid society. In this blistering critique of Apartheid and its perversion of justice, Mandela transforms the law into a sword and shield. He invokes it while undermining it, uses it while subverting it, and claims it while defeating it. Wise and strategic, Mandela skilfully reimagines the courtroom as a site of visibility and hearing, opening up a political space within the legal. This volume returns to the Rivonia courtroom to engage with Mandela's masterful performance of resistance and the dramatic core of that transformative event. Cutting across a wide-range of critical theories and discourses, contributors reflect on the personal, spatial, temporal, performative, and literary dimensions of that constitutive event. By redefining the spaces, institutions and discourses of law, contributors present a fresh perspective that re-sets the margins of what can be thought and said in the courtroom.

This book explains the challenge of constitutional pluralism and its importance, showing its theoretical and practical relevance, and giving a sense of why the existing scholarship on the matter is unsatisfactory. The work explores how legal practitioners and theorists have faced the challenge of a society living under two constitutions at the same time. This comes as the European Union, which legally and politically integrates Europe and seems to challenge the view that no State can simultaneously abide by both the venerable national constitutions and the ever-developing EU constitutional law, is increasingly torn between calls for closer integration to face collective challenges and mounting Euroscepticism and nationalism. This work employs a strongly pluralist perspective and a comparative methodology, and looks at constitutional crises outside the EU to ground the claim that pluralism and conflicts are essential elements of modern constitutions. It shows how the challenge of constitutional pluralism depends on a mistaken interpretation of positivist theory and how the latter, reinterpreted in a manner close to legal realism, has the resources to explain pluralism. Finally, the book addresses the issue of constitutional conflicts within the EU: it examines in detail recent cases of open disobedience to EU law by national courts and distinguishes physiological conflict from constitutional pathology. This work will be of particular interest to students and academics in Law and Political Science. It will also be compelling reading for scholars in general jurisprudence, EU law, constitutional and comparative constitutional law, and the history of European integration.

Online auctions have undergone many transformations and continue to attract millions of customers worldwide. However these popular platforms remain understudied by legal scholars and misunderstood by legislators. This book explores the legal classification of online auction sites across a range of countries in Europe. Including empirical studies conducted on 28 online auction websites in the UK, the research focusses on the protection of consumers' economic rights and highlights the shortcomings that the law struggles to control. With examinations into important developments, including the Consumer Rights Directive and the latest case law from the CJEU on the liability of intermediaries, Riefa anticipates changes in the law, and points out further changes that are needed to create a safe legal environment for consumers, whilst preserving the varied business model adopted by online auction sites. The study provides insights into how technical measures as well as a tighter legislative framework or enforcement pattern could provide consumers with better protection, in turn reinforcing trust, and ultimately benefiting the online auction platforms themselves.

This book provides an unprecedented portrayal of a lively shari'a court in contemporary West Jerusalem, which belongs to the Israeli legal system but serves Palestinian residents of the eastern part of the city. It draws a rich picture of an intriguing institution, operating in an environment marked by legal pluralism and by exceptional political and cultural tensions. The book suggests an organizational-institutional approach to legal pluralism, which examines not only the relations between bodies of law but also the relations between courts of law serving the same population. Based on participant observations in the studied court as well as on textual and legal analyses of court cases and rulings, the study combines history and ethnography, diachronic and synchronic perspectives, and examines broad, macro-political processes as well as micro-level interactions. The book offers fresh perspectives on the phenomenon of legal pluralism, on shari'a law in practice and on Palestinian-Israeli relations in the divided city of Jerusalem. The work is a valuable resource for academics and researchers working in the areas of Legal Pluralism, Islamic Law, and socio-legal history of the Middle East.

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.

Surrogacy presents particularly complex questions for human rights law and theory. This book provides a unique and insightful examination into the underexplored issues of how domestic and international law is responding to the sharp increase in the use of surrogacy. The work presents critical analysis of the current regulation of surrogacy via domestic law in Australia, India and the USA, and international law in the form of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Including a wide range of views from academics and practitioners around the world, the contributors consider what could be done to further protect the rights of all persons involved in surrogacy arrangements. This in-depth study of the international and domestic law governing surrogacy provides much needed scholarly knowledge of this contemporary phenomenon, along with recommendations for improvement, regulation and reform. The book will be of great importance to human rights and legal scholars, and well as practitioners in this field.

Challenging the usual introductions to the study of law, A Critical Introduction to Law argues that law is inherently political and reflects the interests of the few even while presenting itself as neutral. This fully revised and updated fourth edition provides contemporary examples to demonstrate the relevance of these arguments in the twenty-first century. The book includes an analysis of the common sense of law; the use of anthropological examples to gain external perspectives of our use and understanding of law; a consideration of central legal concepts, such as order, rules, property, dispute resolution, legitimation and the rule of law; an examination of the role of law in women's subordination and finally a critique of the effect of our understanding of law upon the wider world. Clearly written and admirably suited to provoking discussions on the role of law in our contemporary world, this book is ideal for undergraduate and postgraduate students reading law, and will be of interest to those studying legal systems and skills courses, jurisprudence courses, and law and society.

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.

The proliferation of virtual and augmented reality technologies into society raise significant questions for judges, legal institutions, and policy makers. For example, when should activities that occur in virtual worlds, or virtual images that are projected into real space (that is, augmented reality), count as protected First Amendment 'speech'? When should they instead count as a nuisance or trespass? Under what circumstances would the copying of virtual images infringe intellectual property laws, or the output of intelligent virtual avatars be patentable inventions or works of authorship eligible for copyright? And when should a person (or computer) face legal consequences for allegedly harmful virtual acts? The Research Handbook on the Law of Virtual and Augmented Reality addresses these questions and others, drawing upon free speech doctrine, criminal law, the law of data protection and privacy, and of jurisdiction, as well as upon potential legal rights for increasingly intelligent virtual avatars in VR worlds. The Handbook offers a comprehensive look at challenges to various legal doctrines raised by the emergence - and increasing use of - virtual and augmented reality worlds, and at how existing law in the USA, Europe, and other jurisdictions might apply to these emerging technologies, or evolve to address them. It also considers what legal questions about virtual and augmented reality are likely to be important, not just for judges and legal scholars, but also for the established businesses and start-ups that wish to make use of, and help shape, these important new technologies. This comprehensive Research Handbook will be an invaluable reference to those looking to keep pace with the dynamic field of virtual and augmented reality, including students and researchers studying intellectual property law as well as legal practitioners, computer scientists, engineers, game designers, and business owners. Contributors include: W. Barfield, P.S. Berman, M.J. Blitz, S.J. Blodgett-Ford, J. Danaher, W. Erlank, J.A.T. Fairfield, J. Garon, G. Hallevy, B. Lewis, H.Y.F. Lim, C. Nwaneri, S.R. Peppet, M. Risch, A.L. Rossow, J. Russo, M. Supponen, A.M. Underhill, B.D. Wassom, A. Williams, G. Yadin

Commentators have shown how a 'culture of security' ushered in after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 has involved exceptional legal measures and increased recourse to secrecy on the basis of protecting public safety and safeguarding national security. In this context, scholars have largely been preoccupied with the ways that increased security impinges upon civil liberties. While secrecy is justified on public interest grounds, there remains a tension between the need for secrecy and calls for openness, transparency and disclosure. In law, secrecy has implications for the separation of powers, due process, and the rule of law, raising fundamental concerns about open justice, procedural fairness and human rights. Beyond the counterterrorism and legal context, scholarly interest in secrecy has been concerned with the credibility of public and private institutions, as well as the legacies of secrecy across a range of institutional and cultural settings. By exploring the intersections between secrecy, law and society, this volume is a timely and critical intervention in secrecy debates traversing various fields of legal and social inquiry. It will be a useful resource for academic researchers, university teachers and students, as well as law practitioners and policymakers interested in the legal and socio-legal dimensions of secrecy.

Society is obsessed with categorising and treating individuals and groups according to their physical and non-physical differences, such as sex, gender, disability and race. This treatment can lead to the inclusion or exclusion of an individual from the tangible and intangible benefits of society. Where this practice becomes discriminatory, legal frameworks can protect human rights and ensure that people are treated with due respect for their similarities and differences. In a sporting context, the inclusion and exclusion of athletes based upon their differences is often a necessary part of the essence of competitive sporting activity, arranged around rules and categories that can have an unequal exclusionary impact on certain classes of individual. Dominant sporting cultures can also have exclusionary effects. This important and innovative book seeks to investigate the socio-legal and regulatory balance between inclusion and exclusion in competitive sport. It critically analyses a range of legal and non-legal cases concerning sport-specific inclusion and exclusion in the areas of sex, gender, disability and race, including those cases involving Oscar Pistorius, Caster Semenya and Luis Suarez, to identify the extent to which the law and sport adopt a justifiable and legitimate inclusive or exclusive approach to participation. The book explores national and international regulatory frameworks, identifying deficiencies and good practice, and concludes with recommendations for regulatory reform. Inclusion and Exclusion in Competitive Sport is important reading for anybody with an interest in the relationship between sport and wider society, sports development, sport management, sports law, or socio-legal studies.

The issue of whether transnational risk can be regulated through a social sphere goes to the heart of what John Ruggie has described as 'embedded liberalism': how capitalist countries have reconciled markets with the social community that markets require to survive and thrive. This collection, located in the wider debates about global capitalism and its regulation, tackles the challenge of finding a way forward for regulation. It rejects the old divisions of state and market, citizens and consumers, social movements and transnational corporations, as well as 'economic' and 'social' regulation. Instead this rich, multidisciplinary collection engages with a critical theme-the idea of harnessing the regulatory capacity of a social sphere by recognising the embeddedness of economic transactions within a social and political landscape. This collection therefore explores how social norms, practices, actors and institutions frame economic transactions, and thereby regulate risks generated by and for business, state and citizens. A key strength of this book is its integration of three distinct areas of scholarship: Karl Polanyi's economic sociology, regulation studies and socio-legal studies of transnational hazards. The collection is distinct in that it links the study of specific transnational risk regulatory regimes back to a social-theoretical discussion about economy-society interactions, informed by Polanyi's work. Each of the chapters addresses the way in which economics, as well as economic and social regulation, can never be understood separately from the social, particularly in the transnational context. Endorsement 'This thought-provoking collection asks the most critical question of our time - how to civilise markets through social accountability and political action. The climate and financial crises we face show how crucial this challenge is. Lange, Haines and Thomas have put together a series of fruitful case studies of the possibilities for embedding economic relationships in social relationships by a series of top-class researchers within their own illuminating and sensitive framing of the issue'. Professor Christine Parker, Professor of Regulatory Studies at Monash University.

This volume offers a critical analysis and illustration of the challenges and promises of 'stateless' law thought, pedagogy and approaches to governance - that is, understanding and conceptualizing law in a post-national condition. From common, civil and international law perspectives, the collection focuses on the definition and role of law as an academic discipline, and hybridity in the practice and production of law. With contributions by a diverse and international group of scholars, the collection includes fourteen chapters written in English and three in French. Confronting the 'transnational challenge' posed to the traditional theoretical and institutional structures that underlie the teaching and study of law in the university, the seventeen authors of Stateless Law: Evolving Boundaries of a Discipline bring new insight to the ongoing and crucial conversation about the future shape of legal scholarship, education and practice that is emblematic of the early twenty-first century. This collection is essential reading for academics, institutions and others involved in determining the future roles, responsibilities and education of jurists, as well as for academics interested in Law, Sociology, Political Science and Education.

Contemporary European societies are multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, certainly in terms of the diversity which has stemmed from the immigration of workers and refugees and their settlement. Currently, however, there is widespread, often acrimonious, debate about 'other' cultural and religious beliefs and practices and limits to their accommodation. This book focuses principally on Muslim families and on the way in which gender relations and associated questions of (women's) agency, consent and autonomy, have become the focus of political and social commentary, with followers of the religion under constant public scrutiny and criticism. Practices concerning marriage and divorce are especially controversial and the book includes a detailed overview of the public debate about the application of Islamic legal and ethical norms (shari'a) in family law matters, and the associated role of Shari'a councils, in a British context. In short, Islam generally and the Muslim family in particular have become highly politicized sites of contestation, and the book considers how and why and with what implications for British multiculturalism, past, present and future. The study will be of great interest to international scholars and academics researching the governance of diversity and the accommodation of other faiths including Islam.

This revised and updated casebook comprehensively compares the U.S. legal approach to problems of inequality and discrimination with the approaches of a variety of other legal systems around the world, including those in Europe, South Africa, China, Colombia, India and Brazil. This book provides an introduction to theories of equality and sources of equality law, and examines inequality and discrimination based on gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and identity, religion and disability. Key features: Extensive chapter notes add critical context to areas of developing law Analysis of a range of sources: each chapter includes case law, treaty law, statutory law, regulatory law and legal scholarship A comparative problem-based approach, using concrete issues of inequality and discrimination to help students focus on real world concerns Examination of key contested topics such as marriage inequality, the rights of persons with disabilities, affirmative action, reproductive rights, employment discrimination and hate speech A supplementary online course with additional content and guidance for both students and instructors is available through Stanford Law School. Written in a thorough yet accessible style and with contributions from leading international legal scholars, this casebook is ideal for lecture courses, seminars and summer programs in equality and anti-discrimination in law schools, as well as undergraduate courses in law, political science and sociology. Contributors include: D. Allen, P.L. Cherian, D. Collier, J. Damamme, T. Degener, R. Ford, S. Foster, S. Han, K. Loper, S. Misra, D.B. Oppenheimer, M.-C. Pauwels, S. Robin-Olivier, B. Wang, W. Zhou

Establishing the medium of graphic fiction as a critical resource for interdisciplinary legal studies, this collection is the first to address the intersection of comics and law. Graphic fiction has gained enormous cultural capital and academic interest over recent years. Comics-inspired films fill our cinemas and superhero merchandise fills the shelves of supermarkets. In short, our culture is suffused with a comic-book aesthetic: as, for example, the Occupy movement appropriates the mask of V, from the comic work "V for Vendetta"; and, tragically, as James Holmes s murderous rampage through a Colorado movie theatre, seemingly sees him styling himself after Batman s arch-nemesis, the Joker. From mass entertainment and consumerism to political activism and violence, we are surrounded by emanations of graphic storytelling. Meanwhile, the rise of academic disciplines such as comics studies demonstrates that the medium contains much more depth than the common assumption of its simplicity and juvenility might suggest." "Against this background, comics offer an important resource for making sense of the contemporary place and role of law. Whether in their representations of lawyers and the legal system, their dystopian imaginations, their treatment of issues of justice and social order, or in their superheroic investment in the protection of the innocent and the punishment or capture of those who would harm them, like other narrative forms literature, film, theatre graphic fiction explores and expresses human life in all its social, moral and legal complexity. In the context of a now well established interest in cultural legal studies, this book showcases the critical potential of comics and graphic fiction as a resource for interdisciplinary legal studies and legal theory. "

This collection brings together a group of highly respected law and religion scholars to explore the funding of religious heritage in the context of state support for religions. The importance of this state support is that on the one hand it illustrates the potential tensions between secular and religious values, whilst on the other it constitutes a relevant tool for investigating the question of the legitimacy of such financial support. The funding logically varies according to the national system of state-religion relationships and this is reflected in the range of countries studied, including: Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. The book provides clarity in the assignment of funds to religious heritage, as well as seeking to define the limit of what relates to the exercise of worship and what belongs to cultural policy. It is clear that the main challenge for the future lies not only in managing the dual purpose of religious monuments, but also in re-using these buildings which have lost their original purpose. This collection will appeal to those interested in cultural heritage management, as well as law and religion scholars. The views expressed during the execution of the RELIGARE project, in whatever form and or by whatever medium, are the sole responsibility of the authors. The European Union is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

This impressive collection of original essays explores the relationship between social conflict and the environment - a topic that has received little attention within criminology. The chapters provide a systematic and comprehensive introduction and overview of conflict situations stemming from human exploitation of environments, as well as the impact of social conflicts on the wellbeing and health of specific species and ecosystems. Largely informed by green criminology perspectives, the chapters in the book are intended to stimulate new understandings of the relationships between humans and nature through critical evaluation of environmental destruction and degradation associated with social conflicts occurring around the world. With a goal of creating a typology of environment-social conflict relationships useful for green criminological research, this study is essential reading for scholars and academics in criminology, as well as those interested in crime, law and justice.

This book examines the paved road as a liminal space and legal frontier for enlivened, everyday struggles over property, power, and place/definition. This book explores paved medium of asphalt as a complex surface for legality that constitutively frames order against disorder involving jurisdiction tensions, property ownership, and cultural identities in vehicular environments. Will be of interest to students and scholars.

This book engages with and advances the current debate on new governance by providing a much-needed analysis of its relationship with the courts. New modes of governance have produced a plethora of instruments and actors at various levels that present a challenge to more traditional forms of command-and-control regulation. In this respect, it is commonly maintained that new governance generally - and political experimentation more broadly - weakens the power of the courts, producing a legitimacy problem for new forms of governance and, perhaps more fundamentally, for law itself. Focusing on the European Union, this book offers a new account of the role of the courts in new governance. Connecting new governance with the conception of deliberative democracy, this book demonstrates how the role of courts has been transformed by the legal and political experimentation currently taking place in the European Union. Drawing on a series of case studies, it is argued that, although deliberations in governance frameworks provide little by way of hard, binding law, these collaborative frameworks nevertheless condition judicial decision making. With far-reaching implications for how we understand the justiciability of 'soft law', participation rights, the legitimacy of governance measures, and the role of courts beyond the nation-state, this book argues that, far from undermining the power of the courts, governance regimes assist their functioning. Its analysis will therefore be of considerable interest for lawyers, political scientists and anyone interested in the transformation of the judiciary in the era of new governance.

Family Law provides a comprehensive foundation in the key topics covered by courses. It explains the basic principles of the law and practice in their social, economic and historic context, enabling the reader to understand the doctrinal and practical impact of current radical changes in family law in response to cultural and other influences. This second edition has been fully updated in the light of on-going changes to the family justice system including: the modernisation of family justice including the new Family Court Atypical formation of the contemporary family: genetic, adoptive, social or through HAR the proposed administrative extra-judicial divorce process financial orders on married and unmarried family relationship breakdown enhanced parental responsibility, 'Parental Agreements' and 'Child Arrangement Orders' the treatment of post separation parenting (and the new DWP child support system) reforms to public child law, including changes to adoption same-sex marriage and the impact on traditional marriage and cohabitation Visit the companion website for practice questions, updates to the law and podcasts by the author at http://www.routledge.com/cw/burton-9780415583640

This book develops a new framework for analyzing the spatio-temporal workings of law and other forms of governance. Chronotopes of Law argues that studies of law and governance can be reinvigorated by drawing on a bundle of quite heterogenous analytical tools that do not have a single provenance or a single political or normative aim but that work well in combination. Analyses of legal temporality carried out by anthropologists and studies of law and space undertaken by geographers and legal scholars have proliferated in recent years, but these research traditions have remained largely separate. By adapting notions such as intertextuality, dialogism, and the 'chronotope' from Mikhail Bakhtin, notions designed specifically to synthesize considerations of space and time in a framework that is open-ended, interactive and dynamic, Mariana Valverde develops an anti-metaphysical theory and method for legal studies. This approach will be useful both to theorists and to researchers seeking to illuminate the actual workings of law and other forms of governance. Indeed, a key aim of the book is to break down the institutional and disciplinary barriers that prevent theorists from learning from empirical studies and viceversa. Written by one of the foremost sociolegal scholars writing today, this theoretically innovative work constitutes a major contribution to contemporary studies in law and society.

A vexing problem in contract law is modification. Two parties sign a contract but before they fully perform, they modify the contract. Should courts enforce the modified agreement? A private remedy is for the parties to write a contract that is robust to hold-up or that makes the facts relevant to modification verifiable. Provisions accomplishing these ends are renegotiation-design and revelation mechanisms. But implementing them requires commitment power. Conventional contract technologies to ensure commitment - liquidated damages - are disfavored by courts and themselves subject to renegotiation. Smart contracts written on blockchain ledgers offer a solution. We explain the basic economics and legal relevance of these technologies, and we argue that they can implement liquidated damages without courts. We address the hurdles courts may impose to use of smart contracts on blockchain and show that sophisticated parties' ex ante commitment to them may lead courts to allow their use as pre-commitment devices.

This book develops a new framework for analyzing the spatio-temporal workings of law and other forms of governance. Chronotopes of Law argues that studies of law and governance can be reinvigorated by drawing on a bundle of quite heterogenous analytical tools that do not have a single provenance or a single political or normative aim but that work well in combination. Analyses of legal temporality carried out by anthropologists and studies of law and space undertaken by geographers and legal scholars have proliferated in recent years, but these research traditions have remained largely separate. By adapting notions such as intertextuality, dialogism, and the 'chronotope' from Mikhail Bakhtin, notions designed specifically to synthesize considerations of space and time in a framework that is open-ended, interactive and dynamic, Mariana Valverde develops an anti-metaphysical theory and method for legal studies. This approach will be useful both to theorists and to researchers seeking to illuminate the actual workings of law and other forms of governance. Indeed, a key aim of the book is to break down the institutional and disciplinary barriers that prevent theorists from learning from empirical studies and viceversa. Written by one of the foremost sociolegal scholars writing today, this theoretically innovative work constitutes a major contribution to contemporary studies in law and society.