A myth exists that Jews can embrace the cultural components of Judaism without appreciating the legal aspects of the Jewish tradition. This myth suggests that law and culture are independent of one another. In reality, however, much of Jewish culture has a basis in Jewish law. Similarly, Jewish law produces Jewish culture. A cultural analysis paradigm provides a useful way of understanding the Jewish tradition as the product of both legal precepts and cultural elements. This paradigm sees law and culture as inextricably intertwined and historically specific. This perspective also emphasizes the human element of law's composition and the role of existing power dynamics in shaping Jewish law. In light of this inevitable intersection between culture and law, The Myth of the Cultural Jew: Culture and Law in Jewish Tradition argues that Jewish culture often lacks grounding in Jewish law. Roberta Rosenthal Kwall develops and applies a cultural analysis paradigm to the Jewish tradition that departs from the understanding of Jewish law solely as the embodiment of Divine command. Her paradigm explains why both law and culture must matter to those interested in forging meaningful Jewish identity and transmitting the tradition.

This volume of Studies in Law, Politics and Society brings together an international spread of legal scholars, presenting a varied collection of chapters. Chapters include: child abduction during the military dictatorship in Argentina; a novel approach to empirical research on legal framing from the University of California, Berkeley; the role of silence in law and film from Israel; a chapter from Sweden on the use of video in the court of appeal; and finally two chapters on the supreme court in the USA, one looking at influences through social capital on supreme court decision makers and the second looking at the self-perception and public perception of the supreme court.

This book introduces and develops the paradigm of the organisational contract in European contract law. Suggesting that a more radical distinction should be made between contracts which regulate single or spot exchanges and contracts that organize complex economic activities without creating a new legal entity, the book argues that this distinction goes beyond that between spot and relational contracts because it focuses on the organizational dimension of contracting and its governance features. Divided into six parts, the volume brings together a group of internationally renowned experts to examine the structure of long-term contractual cooperation; networks of contracts; knowledge exchange in long-term contractual cooperation; remedies and specific governance rules in long-term relationships; and the move towards legislation. The book will be of value to academics and researchers in the areas of private law, economic theory and sociology of law, and organizational theory. It will also be a useful resource for practitioners working in international contract law and international business transaction law.

"Comparative Deviance" represents a systematic attempt to survey public perceptions of deviant behavior cross-culturally: in India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Yugoslavia, and the United States. There is extensive diversity in both law and perception concerning such deviances as taking drugs, homosexuality, and abortion, yet there is evidence for a basically invariant structure in perception of deviance across "all" cultures. Within the countries studied in this volume, Graeme Newman discovers that the strength of religious belief and urban rural background accounted for major differences in the perception of deviance--when differences were identified.

Contrary to popular academic opinion in the United States, Newman finds that those countries with the most liberal laws on deviance (i.e., the least punitive sanctions) are also those highly economically developed and least totalitarian (United States and Italy). But when public opinion is considered, the public favors harsher punishments than the law provides. In contrast, in the developing countries of India, Iran and Indonesia, where penal sanctions are more severe, public opinion is much more liberal. The crucial question is the role criminal law plays in the process of modernization: whether law is a stable cultural influence, round which public opinion wavers in a startling fashion, depending on the stage of modernization.

These findings challenge many assumptions of conflict theory in sociology, of cultural relativism in anthropology, and of ethical relativism in moral philosophy. All findings are examined in relation to research on modernization, social development, and the evolution of law. These fundamental issues are thus important to many different disciplines across the board.

Comparative Law and Society, part of the Research Handbooks in Comparative Law series, is a pioneering volume that comprises 19 original essays written by expert authors from across the world. This innovative handbook offers both a history of the field of comparative law and society and a thorough exploration of its methods, disciplines, and major issues, presenting the most comprehensive look into this contemporary field to date. In Part I, Methods and Disciplines, contributors approach critical issues in comparative law and society from a variety of academic fields, including sociology, criminology, anthropology, economics, political science, and psychology. This multidisciplinary approach highlights the importance of addressing the variance of perspectives inherent to the field. In Part II, Core Issues, chapters offer an exploration of major legal institutions, processes, professionals, and cultures associated with particular legal subjects. Since authors utilize the perspective of at least two different legal systems, this book offers a truly thorough and wide-ranging focus. The general reader, as well as students and scholars, will find this handbook useful in their continuing explorations into the interaction between law and society. Practitioners such as lawyers and judges with an interest in global perspectives of law will also find much to admire in this innovative volume. Contributors: M. Adler, N. Brewer, D.S. Clark, R. Cotterrell, B.L. Cutler, T. Ginsburg, M. Goodale, C. Guarnieri, R. Horry, B. Luppi, S.C. McCaffrey, E. Mertz, D. Nelken, F. Pakes, M.A. Palmer, F. Parisi, J.T. Polk, J.C. Reitz, R.E. Salcido, S. Stendahl, J.C. Suk, G.A. Tarr, S.C. Thaman, K. van Aeken, H.J. Wiarda

Law can be seen to consist not only of rules and decisions, but also of a framework of institutions providing a structure that forms the conditions of its workable existence and acceptance. In this book, Olsen and Toddington conduct a philosophical exploration and critique of these conditions: what they are and how they shape our understanding of what constitutes a legal system and the role of justice within it.

This book offers the best and most influential writings of Richard Delgado, one of the founding figures of the critical race theory movement and one of the earliest scholars to address the harms of hate speech. With excerpts from his classic law review articles, conversations with his famous alter ego Rodrigo Crenshaw, and comments on the vicissitudes of academic life, this book spans topics such as hate speech, affirmative action, the war on terror, the endangered status of black men, and the place of Latino/as in the civil rights equation.

This volume examines the evolution of reproductive law in Italy from the 'far west' of the 1980s and 90s through to one of the most potentially restrictive systems in Europe. The book employs an array of sociological, philosophical and legal material in order to discover why such a repressive piece of legislation has been produced at the end of a period of substantial change in the dynamic of gender relations in Italy. The book also discusses Italian policy within the wider European policy framework.

This interdisciplinary and cross-national volume brings together theory and research by prominent scholars within the areas of distributive and procedural justice, not only featuring work within each area separately, as is commonly done, but also showing how combinations of the two justice orientations might operate to affect justice judgments and guide behaviour. Chapters cover various levels of analysis, from intra-personal to interpersonal to group and societal levels. The volume is divided into four sections: distributive justice, procedural justice, distributive and procedural justice, and methodological issues. Each section is subdivided into two parts, basic research and applied research re: current and important societal issues. Each chapter contains an overview of theoretical and empirical research on a particular topic. The volume is designed for use on courses in social psychology, psychology, sociology, political philosophy, and law.

This collection of essays brings together Zygmunt Bauman and a number of internationally distinguished legal scholars who examine the influence of Bauman's recent works on social theory of law and socio-legal studies. Contributors focus on the concept of 'liquid society' and its adoption by legal scholars. The volume opens with Bauman's analysis of fears and policing in 'liquid society' and continues by examining the social and legal theoretical context and implications of Bauman's theory.

Capturing a unique historical moment, this book examines the changes in urban life since the collapse of the Soviet Union from an ethnographic perspective, thus addressing significant gaps in the literature on cities, Central Asia and post-socialism. It encompasses Tashkent, Almaty, Astana and Ulan-Ude: four cities with quite different responses to the fall of the Soviet Union. Each chapter takes a theme of central significance across this huge geographical terrain, addresses it through one city and contextualizes it by reference to the other sites in this volume. The structure of the book moves from nostalgia and memories of the Soviet past to examine how current changes are being experienced and imagined through the shifting materialities, temporalities and political economies of urban life. Privatization is giving rise to new social geographies, while ethnic and religious sensibilities are creating emergent networks of sacred sites. But, however much ideologies are changing, cities also provide a constant lived mnemonic of lost configurations of ideology and practice, acting as signposts to bankrupted futures. Urban Life in Post-Soviet Asia provides a detailed account of the changing nature of urban life in post-Soviet Asia, clearly elucidating the centrality of these urban transformations to citizens' understandings of their own socio-economic condition.

After colonization, indigenous people faced an extractive property rights regime for both their land and knowledge. This book outlines that regime, and how the symbolic function of international intellectual property continues today to assist states to enclose indigenous peoples' knowledge. Drawing on more than 200 interviews, Peter Drahos examines the response of indigenous people to the colonizer's non-developmental property rights. The case studies reveal how they have adapted to the state's extractive order through a process of regulatory bricolage. In order to create a new developmental future for themselves, indigenous developmental networks have been forged - high trust networks that include partnerships with science. Intellectual Property, Indigenous People and their Knowledge argues for a developmental intellectual property order for indigenous people based on a combination of simple rules, principles and a process of regulatory convening.

Offering a novel, transdisciplinary approach to environmental law, its principles, mechanics and context, as tested in its application to the urban environment, this book traces the conceptual and material absence of communication between the human and the natural and controversially includes such an absence within a system of law and a system of geography which effectively remain closed to environmental considerations. The book looks at Niklas Luhmann's theory of autopoiesis. Introducing the key concepts and operations, contextualizing them and opening them up to critical analysis. Indeed, in contrast to most discussions on autopoiesis, it proposes a radically different reading of the theory, in line with critical legal, political, sociological, urban and ecological theories, while drawing from writings by Husserl and Derrida, as well as Latour, Blanchot, Haraway, Agamben and Nancy. It explores a range of topics in the areas of environmental law and urban geography, including: environmental risk, environmental rights, the precautionary principle, intergenerational equity and urban waste discourses on community, nature, science and identity. The author redefines the traditional foundations of environmental law and urban geography and suggests a radical way of dealing with scientific ignorance, cultural differences and environmental degradation within the perceived need for legal delivery of certainty.

Studies in Law, Politics, and Society provides a vehicle for the publication of scholarly articles within the broad parameters of interdisciplinary legal scholarship. In this latest edition of this highly successful research series, articles examine a diverse range of legal issues and their impact on and intersections with society. Topics covered include: marriage equality and the demise of civil unions; the LGBTQ community in the 1980s; the landscape of choice regarding reproductive rights and vaccine refusal; the rights of unvaccinated children; a socio-legal framework for understanding the social control of pleasure; and a data re-use and its impact on group identity. This volume brings together leading scholars and will be vital reading for all those researching in this subject area.

This book offers the best and most influential writings of Richard Delgado, one of the founding figures of the critical race theory movement and one of the earliest scholars to address the harms of hate speech. With excerpts from his classic law review articles, conversations with his famous alter ego Rodrigo Crenshaw, and comments on the vicissitudes of academic life, this book spans topics such as hate speech, affirmative action, the war on terror, the endangered status of black men, and the place of Latino/as in the civil rights equation.

Moving beyond the question of whether an area of scholarly investigation can truly be characterized as 'legal', Exploiting the Limits of Law combats the often unhelpful constraints of law's subject-matter and formal processes. Through a process of reflection on the limits of law and repeated efforts to redraw them, this book challenges the general sense of pessimism among feminists and others about the usefulness of law as an instrument of change. The work combines theoretical analysis of the law's boundaries with investigation of the practical settings for changing legal and policy environments. Both the empirical focus of this volume, and its underlying theoretical concern with the limits of the law and its gender implications, render it of interest to legal scholars throughout the world, whether of EU law, feminism, social policy or philosophy.

This volume argues that legislation on abortion, adultery, and rape has been central to the formation of the modern citizen. The author draws on rights literature, biopolitical scholarship, and a gender-studies perspective as a foundation for rethinking the sovereign relationship. In approaching the politicization of reproductive space from this direction, the study resituates the role of rights and rights-granting within the sovereign relationship. A second theme running throughout the book explores the international implications of these arguments and addresses the role of abortion, adultery and rape legislation in constructing civilizational relationships. In particular, by focusing on the Ottoman Empire, Turkey, France and Italy as case studies, the book presents a discussion of what 'Europe' is and the role of sexuality and reproduction in defining it.

On 5 November 2002, the European Court of Justice delivered its 'open-skies' judgment, a landmark decision which may be the beginning of a new era in the regulation of international air law. The consequences of this judgment may not only affect the European Union and its Member States; this book shows how it could change the future regulation of international aviation worldwide. The first part of this book describes the difficulties arising from the fact that the competence for the regulation of air transportation in Europe is divided between the EU and the Member States. This division of power will also affect the conclusion of air-service agreements made with countries outside of Europe. In the second part of the book, the author examines a subject that was not part of the 'open-skies' judgment, but which he believes will become a problematic consequence: the distribution of air-traffic rights within the European Union.

In Queers in Court, Susan Gluck Mezey examines the contemporary battle for gay and lesbian rights in the United States, tracing the evolution of issues from same sex marriage and privacy rights to military service and employment discrimination. By combining analyses of nearly three hundred cases from both federal and state courts with detailed explorations of the paths these issues have taken through legislative and executive bodies, she provides the most comprehensive analysis of queer rights in law and policy to date. Both scholars seeking a case study in minority rights and those looking for a primer in gay and lesbian politics will find Mezey's book of interest.

The first book of its kind dedicated to an assessment of the legality of boxing, The Legality of Boxing: A Punch Drunk Love? assesses the legal response to prize fighting and undertakes a current analysis of the status of boxing in both criminal legal theory and practice.

In this book, Anderson exposes boxing's 'exemption' from contemporary legal and social norms. Reviewing all aspects of boxing - historical, legal, moral, ethical, philosophical, medical, racial and regulatory - he concludes that the supposition that boxing has a (consensual) immunity from the ordinary law of violence, based primarily on its social utility as a recognised sport, is not as robust as is usually assumed.

It:

• suggests that the sport is extremely vulnerable to prosecution and might in fact already be illegal under English criminal law
• outlines the physical and financial exploitation suffered by individual boxers both inside and outside the ring, suggesting that standard boxing contracts are coercive thus illegal and that boxers do not give adequate levels of informed consent to participate
• advocates a number of fundamental reforms, including possibly that the sport will have to consider banning blows to the head
• proposes the creation of a national boxing commission in the US and a similar entity in the United Kingdom, which together would attempt to restore the credibility of a sport long know as the red-light district of sports administration.

An excellent book, it is a must read for all those studying sports law, popular culture and the law and jurisprudence.

In Queers in Court, Susan Gluck Mezey examines the contemporary battle for gay and lesbian rights in the United States, tracing the evolution of issues from same sex marriage and privacy rights to military service and employment discrimination. By combining analyses of nearly three hundred cases from both federal and state courts with detailed explorations of the paths these issues have taken through legislative and executive bodies, she provides the most comprehensive analysis of queer rights in law and policy to date. Both scholars seeking a case study in minority rights and those looking for a primer in gay and lesbian politics will find Mezey's book of interest.

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.

Attacks can backfire on attackers-sometimes spectacularly. In March 1991, an observer videotaped several Los Angeles police beating Rodney King with their batons. Shown on television, the beating caused enormous damage to the reputation of the police and led to the chief's resignation. This incident and others, such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the 1965 surveillance of Ralph Nader, prove that all sorts of attacks can backfire, from torture and massacres to job dismissals and reprisals against whistle-blowers. Through numerous detailed case studies, Justice Ignited presents the first comprehensive treatment of the dynamics of backfire, as it reveals the most promising tactics for causing the backfire of unfair attacks. Understanding backfire-both promoting and inhibiting it-is vitally important for activists and everyone else who wants to be effective in the face of injustice.

Attacks can backfire on attackers_sometimes spectacularly. In March 1991, an observer videotaped several Los Angeles police beating Rodney King with their batons. Shown on television, the beating caused enormous damage to the reputation of the police and led to the chief's resignation. This incident and others, such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the 1965 surveillance of Ralph Nader, prove that all sorts of attacks can backfire, from torture and massacres to job dismissals and reprisals against whistle-blowers. Through numerous detailed case studies, Justice Ignited presents the first comprehensive treatment of the dynamics of backfire, as it reveals the most promising tactics for causing the backfire of unfair attacks. Understanding backfire_both promoting and inhibiting it_is vitally important for activists and everyone else who wants to be effective in the face of injustice.

Private Law in Theory and Practice explores important theoretical issues in tort law, the law of contract and the law of unjust enrichment and relates the theory to judicial decision-making in these areas of private law. Topics covered include the politics and philosophy of tort law reform, the role of good faith in contract law, comparative perspectives on setting aside contracts for mistake and the theory and practice of proprietary remedies in the law of unjust enrichment. Contributors to the book bring a variety of theoretical approaches to bear on the analysis of private law. They include: economic analysis, corrective justice theory, comparative analysis of law, socio-legal inquiry, social history, political theory as well as doctrinal analysis of the law. In all cases the theoretical approaches are applied to recent case law developments in England, Australia and Canada, or, in the case of tort law, proposals in all these jurisdictions to reform the law. The book presents the theory of private law and the application of theory to practical legal problems in an accessible form to teachers and students of tort, contract and the law of unjust enrichment, legal researchers and law reformers.