This updated and revised second edition provides a comprehensive scholarly framework for analyzing the theory and history of international law. Featuring an array of legal and interdisciplinary analyses, it focuses on those theories and developments that illuminate the central and timeless basic concepts and categories of the international legal system, highlighting the interdependency of various aspects of theory and history and demonstrating the connections between theory and practice. With contributions from renowned experts, this Research Handbook explores the essence and development of international legal theory, taking account of the key shifts and advances since the era of classical legal scholarship. Contributors examine several major areas of international law in depth, before transferring their focus to the history of international law from the medieval period up to the present day. Coverage has been expanded to include analysis of the origins of and Eurocentric narratives surrounding the present system, and to discuss significant developments of the 21st century. Scholars and students of international law and politics looking for an in-depth understanding of the current international legal system and its history will find this Research Handbook to be crucial reading. Its theoretical approach will also be of interest to legal theorists, as well as researchers in ethics and philosophy.

This illuminating book explores the theme of social constructionism in legal theory. It questions just how much freedom and power social groups really have to construct and reconstruct law. Michael Giudice takes a nuanced approach to analyse what is true and what is false in the view that law is socially constructed. He draws on accounts of European Union law as well as Indigenous legal orders in North America to demonstrate the contingency of particular concepts of law. Utilising evidence from a range of social and natural sciences, he also considers how law may have a naturally necessary core. The book concludes that while law would not exist without beliefs, intentions, and practices, it must always exist as a social rule, declaration, or directive; much, but not all, of law is socially constructed. This book will be a valuable resource for academics and students of law and philosophy as well as researchers interested in the intersections between analytical legal theory, socio-legal studies, and empirical legal studies.

Besides his renowned prosecution of Gaius Verres, Cicero also appeared as defence counsel in a number of cases in which former governors were accused of misconduct in the provinces. This volume unites two such defences, both incompletely preserved, from an early phase of Cicero's career (ca. 69 BC) and from his maturity (54 BC). The first speech is on behalf of Marcus Fonteius. Fonteius was governor of Transalpine Gaul probably from 74 to 72 BC, a time when the Romans were consolidating their control of that province and simultaneously fighting a bitter war with rebels under Sertorius in the Iberian Peninsula. Cicero defends Fonteius with the argument that his measures, though severe, were in the state interest. The second speech is on behalf of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, governor of Sardinia in 55, whose charges included not only peculation but also cruelty and hounding a woman to suicide through his unwanted attentions. In both cases Cicero seeks to stir Roman prejudice against the foreign witnesses testifying for the prosecution. The outcome of Fonteius' case is not clear from surviving evidence, but Scaurus was acquitted, only to be condemned and exiled on charges of corrupt electoral practices three years later. Dyck's volume provides a general introduction on the Roman extortion court and, for each speech, an introduction, English translation, and the first detailed commentary in English.

In seven pioneering dialogues, Bert van Roermund resumes the conversations he has had over the last twenty-five years on reconciliation after political oppression. Questions of time are predominant here: How does memory relate to both past and future? Can one be a victim and perpetrator at the same time? Is reconciliation ultimately based on an original bond among humans that enables survivors to forgive their former oppressors? Does this entail a betrayal of past sufferings? Such questions are discussed in this book by a group of philosophers from (former) conflict areas around the globe. Both the characters and the dialogues are fictional, but at the same time, they are as real as can be. They originate in conversations with many colleagues and intensive research within an international network of scholars, writers, artists, and political activists. Chapters provide philosophical discussions on the highly relevant topic of law, time, and reconciliation. The book reaches out to all those who wish to reflect on the challenges of peace work, restorative and transitional justice, refugee policies and military interventions, as well as students and teachers of relevant disciplines including social ethics, political philosophy, human rights and international relations.