Understanding the skills development act contains an accessible, non-legalistic commentary on the skills development act, which promotes the advancement of the skills of the South African workforce. The act is systematically covered with FAQs and key point summaries to aid understanding. The 2nd edition includes: Explanations of the major re-alignments of the legislation including extensions to the SETA landscape and National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS) III; Analysis of the current SETA regulations on mandatory and discretionary grants; The structures created by the National Qualifications Framework Act: SAQA, quality council for trade & occupations and National artisan moderation body; An explanation of the National Skills Authority role and potential developments to the SETA landscape and NSDS post March 2018.

The National Health Insurance, commonly known as the NHI, aims to ensure that all South Africans have access to appropriate, efficient and quality health services. The right to health, as an economic, social and cultural right to a universal minimum standard of health to which all individuals are entitled, requires government action and that the state provides welfare to the individual. Section 27 of the Bill of Rights affirms the right of everyone to have access to health care services. An obligation is placed on the state to achieve the progressive realisation of this right. While some legislative measures have been instituted, the National Health Insurance (NHI), however, is the direct and most germane response to that directive and towards realising universal health coverage. The NHI underpins the establishment of a unified health system in the country based on the principles of social solidarity, progressive universalism, equity and health as a public good and a social investment, thereby underscoring the values of justice, fairness and equity. Based on its principle of equity, the NHI will need to ensure a fair and just health care system for all and access to health services within reasonable periods. This book is timely as it will serve to inform stakeholders and communities of the key elements of the NHI, its structure, processes and plans for implementation

Philip Pettit has drawn together here a series of interconnected essays on three subjects to which he has made notable contributions. The first part of the book discusses the rule-following character of thought. The second considers how choice can be responsive to different sorts of factors, while still being under the control of thought and the reasons that thought marshals. The third examines the implications of this view of choice and rationality for the normative regulation of social behaviour.

The Commission on European Family Law published its Principles of European Family Law Regarding Divorce and Maintenance Between Former Spouses in 2004 as a contribution towards the establishment of a European Family Law. Only by empirical testing of the Principles in a number of legal systems can one demonstrate whether they are acceptable and/or are regarded as an improvement on existing national laws. This edited volume seeks to test the Principles in a range of legal systems, some already considered by the CEFL: France, Scandinavia, England, Scotland; some untested: Malta, Estonia, Lithuania and Turkey; and in so doing to assess these legal systems in view of the Principles, and the Principles in view of these legal systems. The final part of the volume is a comparative assessment of the findings, looking at the Principles first as harmonious ideals, and then as shortfalls in these ideals and at the obstacles to harmonisation

This book addresses the myriad controversies and examines the evidence regarding capital punishment in America. It answers questions regarding topics like the efficacy of capital punishment in deterring violent crime, the risks of mistakes, legal issues related to capital punishment, and the monetary costs of keeping inmates on death row. Does the possibility of being put to death deter crime? Do the methods of execution matter? Is it possible for a state-ordered execution to be botched? Are innocent people ever sent to death row? Are there racial biases or other prejudices associated with the death penalty? This book examines the history of capital punishment in the United States; describes the significant issues, events, and cases; and addresses the controversies and legal issues surrounding capital punishment, making this important topic accessible to a wide range of readers. The book presents both sides of the argument on whether capital punishment should continue or be abolished, looking at the evidence regarding whether it is necessary for carrying out justice and deterring violent crime or whether the practice is inhumane, ineffective, biased in its application, and costly. Readers will gain insights into how capital punishment should be used, if at all; whether effective safeguards are in place to ensure that only the guilty receive the death penalty; what crimes deserve this sentence; whether juveniles or individuals with diminished mental capacity should ever be sentenced to death; potentially viable alternatives to the death penalty; and the hidden costs involved in our capital punishment system that make it so expensive. The book also contains primary documents relevant to capital punishment, such as excerpts from documents like the U.S. Constitution, the Hittite case laws, and the Code of Hammurabi, as well as descriptions of and excerpts from key cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Presents "Perspectives" from various writers, allowing readers to consider opinions from many informed individuals-including judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and professors-who are concerned with capital punishment Supplies easy-to-understand information for general readers seeking to learn more about the history, purposes, effects, methods, and costs of capital punishment Provides a balanced, objective discussion of the arguments and complex issues regarding capital punishment, enabling readers to reach their own opinions and conclusions

This book examines the origins of the controversial practice of plea bargaining, a procedure that appears to reward the guilty. Contrary to popular perception of plea bargaining as an innovation or corruption of the post-World War II years, this study shows that the practice emerged early in the American Republic. It argues that plea bargaining should be seen as part of a larger repertoire of techniques in the Anglo-American legal tradition through which law might be used as a vehicle of rule.

What are the rights of religious institutions? Should those rights extend to for-profit corporations? Houses of worship have claimed they should be free from anti-discrimination laws in hiring and firing ministers and other employees. Faith-based institutions, including hospitals and universities, have sought exemptions from requirements to provide contraception. Now, in a surprising development, large for-profit corporations have succeeded in asserting rights to religious free exercise. The Rise of Corporate Religious Liberty explores this "corporate" turn in law and religion. Drawing on a broad range perspectives, this book examines the idea of "freedom of the church," the rights of for-profit corporations, and the implications of the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby for debates on anti-discrimination law, same-sex marriage, health care, and religious freedom.

Curing systemic inequalities in the criminal justice system is the unfinished business of the Civil Rights movement. No part of that system highlights this truth more than the current implementation of the death penalty. At the Cross tells a story of the relationship between the death penalty and race in American politics that complicates the common belief that individual African Americans, especially poor African Americans, are more subject to the death penalty in criminal cases. The current death penalty regime operates quite differently than it did in the past. The findings of this research demonstrate the the racial inequity in the meting out of death sentences has legal and political externalities that move beyond individual defendants to larger numbers of African Americans. At the Cross looks at the meaning of the death penalty to and for African Americans by using various sites of analysis. Using various sites of analysis, Price shows the connection between criminal justice policies like the death penalty and the political and legal rights of African Americans who are tangentially connected to the criminal justice system through familial and social networks. Drawing on black politics, legal and political theory and narrative analysis, Price utilizes a mixed-method approach that incorporates analysis of media reports, capital jury selection and survey data, as well as original focus group data. As the rates of incarceration trend upward, Black politics scholars have focused on the impact of incarceration on the voting strength of the black community. Local, and even regional, narratives of African American politics and the death penalty expose the fractures in American democracy that foment perceptions of exclusion among blacks.

The material compiled in this volume provides a chronological record of events and documents of the Group of 77 since its creation in 1963. This Third Volume focuses on the North-South Dialogue and other negotiations regarding trade, tariffs, international finance, foreign aid, and governance of multinationals.

Twenty per cent of all the people in the world live under Islamic law. Going beyond steroetypes of rigid doctrine punishment the author explores the connections between everyday social life and contemporary Muslim ideas of justice and reason. Islamic law is thus seen as a kind of common law system closely attached to the cultural history of its adherents.

When governments use eminent domain to transfer property between private owners, Americans are outraged-or so most media and academic accounts would have us believe. But these accounts obscure a much more complex reality in American conceptions of property. In this book, Debbie Becher presents the first comprehensive study of a city's eminent domain acquisitions, exploring how and why the City of Philadelphia took properties between 1992 and 2007 and which takings led to protests. She uses original data-collected from city offices and interviews with over a hundred residents, business owners, community leaders, government representatives, attorneys, and appraisers-to explore how eminent domain really works. Becher surprises readers by finding that the city took over 4,000 private properties, or one out of every hundred such properties in Philadelphia, during her study period. Furthermore, these takings only rarely provoked opposition-a fact that established views on property are ill-equipped to explain. To investigate how Americans judge the legitimacy of eminent domain, Becher devotes several chapters to two highly controversial sets of takings for redevelopment projects. The American Street takings were intended to win popular support for redevelopment and initially succeeded in doing so, but it ended as a near total failure and embarrassment. The Jefferson Square takings initially faced vociferous opposition, but they eventually earned residents' approval and became a political showpiece. Becher uncovers evidence that Americans judge eminent domain through a social conception of property as an investment of value, committed over time, that government is responsible for protecting. This conception has never been described in sociological, legal, political, or economic scholarship, and it stands in stark contrast to the arguments of libertarian and left-leaning activists and academics. But recognizing property as investment, Becher argues, may offer a firm new foundation for more progressive urban policies.

This study deals with the phenomenon of genocide denialism, and in particular how it operates in the context of the genocide against the Tutsi. The term genocide denialism denotes that we are not dealing with a single act or type of (genocide) denial but with a more elaborate process of denial that involves a variety of denialist and denial-like acts that are part of the process of genocide. From this study it becomes clear that the process of genocide thrives on a more elaborate denial dynamic than recognized in expert literature until now. This study consists of three parts. The first theoretical part analyses what the elements of denial and genocide entail and how they are (inter)related. The exploration results in a typology of genocide denialism. This model clarifies the different functions denial performs throughout the process of genocide. It furthermore explains how actors engage in denial and on which rhetorical devices speech acts of denial rely. The second part of the study focuses on denial in practice and it analyses how denial operates in the particular case of the genocide against the Tutsi. The analysis reveals a complex denial dynamic: not only those who perpetrated the genocide are involved in its denial, but also certain Western scholars, journalists, lawyers, etc. The latter were originally not involved in the genocide but recycle (elements of) the denial discourse of the perpetrators. The study addresses the implications of such recycling and discusses whether these actors actually have become involved in the genocidal process. This sheds light on the complex relationship between genocide and denial. The insights gained throughout the first two parts of this study have significant implications for many other actors that through their actions engage with the flow of meaning concerning the specific events in Rwanda or genocide in general. The final part of this study critically reflects on the actions of a variety of actors and their significance in terms of genocide denialism. These actors include scholars from various fields, human rights organisations, the ICTR, and the government of Rwanda. On a more fundamental level this study critically highlights how the revisionist scientific climate, in which knowledge and truth claims are constantly questioned, is favourable to genocide denialism and how the post-modern turn in academia has exacerbated this climate. Ultimately, this study reveals that the phenomenon of genocide denial involves more than perpetrators denying their genocidal crimes and the scope of actors and actions relevant in terms of genocide denialism is much broader than generally assumed.

Modern states claim rights of jurisdiction and control over particular geographical areas and their associated natural resources. Boundaries of Authority explores the possible moral bases for such territorial claims by states, in the process arguing that many of these territorial claims in fact lack any moral justification. The book maintains throughout that the requirement of states' justified authority over persons has normative priority over, and as a result severely restricts, the kinds of territorial rights that states can justifiably claim, and it argues that the mere effective administration of justice within a geographical area is insufficient to ground moral authority over residents of that area. The book argues that only a theory of territorial rights that takes seriously the morality of the actual history of states' acquisitions of power over land and the land's residents can adequately explain the nature and extent of states' moral rights over particular territories. Part I of the book examines the interconnections between states' claimed rights of authority over particular sets of subject persons and states' claimed authority to control particular territories. It contains an extended critique of the dominant "Kantian functionalist " approach to such issues. Part II organizes, explains, and criticizes the full range of extant theories of states' territorial rights, arguing that a little-appreciated Lockean approach to territorial rights is in fact far better able to meet the principal desiderata for such theories. Where the first two parts of the book concern primarily states' claims to jurisdiction over territories, Part III of the book looks closely at the more property-like territorial rights that states claim - in particular, their claimed rights to control over the natural resources on and beneath their territories and their claimed rights to control and restrict movement across (including immigration over) their territorial borders.

This volume is based on the symposium, "The Write Thing to Do: Ethical Considerations in Authorship & the Assignment of Credit," held at the 253rd National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in 2017. Both editors, serving on the ACS Committee on Ethics, felt that there was a need for more focused, in-depth resources on critical ethical issues, such as assignment of credit. Patricia Ann Mabrouk and Judith Currano then set a goal to develop a robust resource that explores the central issues from a variety of perspectives within the greater chemical community of practice encouraging a healthy discussion of the key issues related to assignment of credit including authorship, contributor-ship, inventorship, and copyright.

The Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce has become an important forum for international commercial arbitration, with parties from more than 30 countries, especially Western European countries and increasingly Russia, other Eastern European Countries, and China. The author offers practitioners several background chapters on commercial arbitration in Sweden and a detailed analysis of each section of the Swedish Arbitration Act (SAA).
This is a ready-reference handbook analyzing Swedish arbitration- the SAA, the Rules, and cases-and also includes references and commentary with respect to international commercial arbitration in general. The author's intention is to help practitioners "in search of rapid guidance regarding the interpretation of a particular provision or who wish to solve a practical problem."
"This Third Edition of Commercial Arbitration in Sweden provides us all with a valuable and up-to-date understanding of the Swedish system in operation, and a comprehensive commentary on the SCC Rules, both new and existing. World business has the means, through this work, to see why Sweden and Stockholm are good choices for their international arbitrations."-- ? Phillip Capper, Head of International Arbitration, Lovells; Nash Professor of Engineering Law, King's College, University of London; former Chairman of the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford

The thirteen essays by Allen Buchanan collected here are arranged in such a way as to make evident their thematic interconnections: the important and hitherto unappreciated relationships among the nature and grounding of human rights, the legitimacy of international institutions, and the justification for using military force across borders. Each of these three topics has spawned a significant literature, but unfortunately has been treated in isolation. In this volume Buchanan makes the case for a holistic, systematic approach, and in so doing constitutes a major contribution at the intersection of International Political Philosophy and International Legal Theory.
A major theme of Buchanan's book is the need to combine the philosopher's normative analysis with the political scientist's focus on institutions. Instead of thinking first about norms and then about institutions, if at all, only as mechanisms for implementing norms, it is necessary to consider alternative "packages" consisting of norms and institutions. Whether a particular norm is acceptable can depend upon the institutional context in which it is supposed to be instantiated, and whether a particular institutional arrangement is acceptable can depend on whether it realizes norms of legitimacy or of justice, or at least has a tendency to foster the conditions under which such norms can be realized. In order to evaluate institutions it is necessary not only to consider how well they implement norms that are now considered valid but also their capacity for fostering the epistemic conditions under which norms can be contested, revised, and improved.

The World Heritage Convention (WHC) is the most comprehensive and widely ratified among UNESCO treaties on the protection of cultural and natural heritage. The Convention establishes a system of identification, presentation, and registration in an international List of cultural properties and natural sites of outstanding universal value. Throughout the years the WHC has progressively attained almost universal recognition by the international community, and even the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has recently considered sites inscribed in the World Heritage List as "values especially protection by the international community." Besides, the WHC has been used as a model for other legal instruments dealing with cultural heritage, like the recently adopted (2003) Convention on the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. During its more than 30 years of life, the Convention has undergone extensive interpretation and evolution in its scope of application. Operational Guidelines, which are the implementing rules governing the operation of the Convention, have been extensively revised. New institutions such as the World Heritage Centre, have been established. New links, with the World Bank and the United Nations, have developed to take into account the economic and political dimension of world heritage conservation and management. However, many legal issues remain to be clarified. For example, what is the meaning of "outstanding universal value" in the context of cultural and natural heritage? How far can we construe "universal value" in terms of representivity between the concept of "World Heritage" and the sovereignty of the territorial state? Should World Heritage reflect a reasonable balance between cultural properties and natural sites? Is consent of the territorial state required for the inscription of a World Heritage property in the List of World Heritage in Danger? What is the role of the World Heritage Centre in the management of the WHC? No comprehensive work has been produced so far to deal with these and many other issues that have arisen in the interpretation and application of the WHC. This Commentary is intended to fill this gap by providing article by article analysis, in the light of the practice of the World Heritage Committee, other relevant treaty bodies, as well as of State parties and in the hope that it may be of use to academics, lawyers, diplomats and officials involved in the management and conservation of cultural and natural heritage of international significance.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States and the United Kingdom detained suspected terrorists in a manner incompatible with the due process, fair trial, and equality requirements of the Rule of Law. The legality of the detentions was challenged and found wanting by the highest courts in the US and UK. The US courts approached these questions as matters within the law of war, whereas the UK courts examined them within a human rights criminal law context.
In Terror Detentions and the Rule of Law: US and UK Perspectives, Dr. Robert H. Wagstaff documents President George W. Bush's and Prime Minister Tony Blair's responses to 9/11, alleging that they failed to protect the human rights of individuals suspected of terrorist activity. The analytical focus is on the four US Supreme Court decisions involving detentions in Guantanamo Bay and four House of Lords decisions involving detentions that began in the Belmarsh Prison. These decisions are analyzed within the contexts of history, criminal law, constitutional law, human rights and international law, and various jurisprudential perspectives. In this book Dr. Wagstaff argues that time-tested criminal law is the normatively correct and most effective means for dealing with suspected terrorists. He also suggests that preventive, indefinite detention of terrorist suspects upon suspicion of wrongdoing contravenes the domestic and international Rule of Law, treaties and customary international law. As such, new legal paradigms for addressing terrorism are shown to be normatively invalid, illegal, unconstitutional, counter-productive, and in conflict with the Rule of Law.

This work provides an analysis of how foreign law should be pleaded and dealt with in the litigation process of another country. What weight should the trial court give to the relevant foreign law, and how should it decide what the foreign law actually is? The way foreign law is procedurally treated in court indicates to a certain extent the degree of tolerance of a legal system towards foreign ideas. The book compares how these issues are handled in different national systems, with particular focus upon civil litigation rules in the US, UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

This book provides an overview of the state of EU migration law in 2014. It explores the meaning of EU legislation on migration in the light of fundamental rights and principles of Union law as explained in leading case-law of the European courts. It is especially aimed at students, but may likewise be useful for practitioners, policy makers or others interested in the legal foundations of migration in Europe. Today's Union law contains a comprehensive and almost all-encompassing migration law system. It governs both voluntary and forced migration. It controls entry, residence and return. It covers both Union citizens and third-country nationals. Though there are fields not affected by Union law and left to the Member States, the overall picture drawn by the existing EU instruments is fairly complete. The book purports to present as lucidly as possible, in one framework, the different regimes as they pertain to the free movement of Union citizens, the association agreement with Turkey, the migration of third country nationals for reasons of work, study, family reunification and asylum, the regulation of movement of third country nationals to, from and within the Schengen area, and instruments to control migration. This second edition is written by the same authors who wrote the first edition. Pieter Boeles, Emeritus Professor of Migration law at the University of Leiden, is now Visiting Professor at VU University Amsterdam; Maarten den Heijer is Assistant Professor of International Law at the Amsterdam Center for International Law (University of Amsterdam); Gerrie Lodder is Senior Lecturer in Immigration Law at the University of Leiden and Kees Wouters is Senior Refugee Law adviser at the Division of International Protection of UNHCR in Geneva.

The close connection between philosophy of language and philosophy of law has been recognized for decades through the work of many influential legal philosophers. This volume brings recent advances in philosophy of language to bear on contemporary debates about the nature of law and legal interpretation. The book builds on recent work in pragmatics and speech-act theory to explain how, and to what extent, legal content is determined by linguistic considerations. At the same time, the analysis shows that some of the unique features of communication in the legal domain - in particular, its strategic nature - can be employed to put pressure on certain assumptions in philosophy of language. This enables a more nuanced picture of how semantic and pragmatic determinants of communication work in complex and large-scale systems such as law. Chapters build on explanations of key elements of statutory language, such as the distinction between what is said and what is implicated, the possibility of ascribing truth-values to legal prescriptions and the structure of legal inferences, the various forms of vagueness in the law, the distinctions between vagueness, ambiguity, and polysemy in legal language, and the distinction between concept and conceptions, mostly in the context of constitutional interpretation. The book demonstrates that paying close attention to the kind of speech acts legal directives are, and how they determine the content of the law, enables a better understanding of the boundaries between normative and linguistic determinants of legal content.