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Books > Law > Jurisprudence & general issues > Legal history
Facsimile edition. Volume III.WITH one important exception the
three volumes here published practically represent the whole mass
of Maitland's scattered writing. A few very short notices have been
omitted, but wherever an article, however brief, contains a new
grain of historical knowledge or reveals Maitland's original
thought upon some problem of law or history, it has been included
in this collection.
We begin with a philosophical dissertation submitted by a young
Cambridge graduate to the examiners for a Trinity Fellowship and
end with the tribute to the memory of a pupil composed only a few
days before his last illness by a great master of history, by one
of the greatest scholars in the annals of English scholarship.
These papers cover a wide surface. Some are philosophical,
others biographical, but for the most part they belong to
Maitland's special sphere of legal and social history. Some pieces
are confessedly popular, such as the brilliant outline of English
legal history which concludes the second volume; others, and of
such is the bulk of the collection, are concerned with problems the
simplest terms of which are not apprehended without special
study.
The first full-scale historical account of the rise and growth of
the jury system in England. The American edition adds a number of
notes, as well as making several corrections to American
references.
During the Victorian era, new laws allowed more witnesses to
testify in court cases. At the same time, an emerging cultural
emphasis on truth-telling drove the development of new ways of
inhibiting perjury. Strikingly original and drawing on a broad
array of archival research, Wendie Schneider's examination of the
Victorian courtroom charts this period of experimentation and how
its innovations shaped contemporary trial procedure. Blending
legal, social, and colonial history, she shines new light on
cross-examination, the most enduring product of this time and the
"greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth."
As our society becomes more global, international law is taking on
an increasingly significant role, not only in world politics but
also in the affairs of a striking array of individuals,
enterprises, and institutions. In this comprehensive study, David
J. Bederman focuses on international law as a current, practical
means of regulating and influencing international behavior. He
shows it to be a system unique in its nature - nonterritorial but
secular, cosmopolitan, and traditional. Part intellectual history
and part contemporary review, The Spirit of International Law
ranges across the series of cyclical processes and dialectics in
international law over the past five centuries to assess its
current prospects as a viable legal system. After addressing
philosophical concerns about authority and obligation in
international law, Bederman considers the sources and methods of
international lawmaking. Topics include key legal actors in the
international system, the permissible scope of international legal
regulation (what Bederman calls the ""subjects and objects"" of the
discipline), the primitive character of international law and its
ability to remain coherent, and the essential values of
international legal order (and possible tensions among those
values). Bederman then measures the extent to which the rules of
international law are formal or pragmatic, conservative or
progressive, and ignored or enforced. Finally, he reflects on
whether cynicism or enthusiasm is the proper attitude to govern our
thoughts on international law. Throughout his study, Bederman
highlights some of the canonical documents of international law:
those arising from famous cases (decisions by both international
and domestic tribunals), significant treaties, important diplomatic
correspondence, and serious international incidents. Distilling the
essence of international law, this volume is a lively, broad,
thematic summation of its structure, characteristics, and main
features.
When, in Obergefell v. Hodges, the US Supreme Court held that bans
on same-sex marriage violate the Constitution, Christian
conservative legal organizations (CCLOs) decried the ruling.
Foreseeing an “assault against Christians,” Liberty Counsel
president Mat Staver declared, “We are entering a cultural civil
war.” Many would argue that a cultural war was already well
underway; and yet, as this timely book makes clear, the stakes, the
forces engaged, and the strategies employed have undergone profound
changes in recent years. In Defending Faith, Daniel Bennett shows
how the Christian legal movement (CLM) and its affiliated
organizations arrived at this moment in time. He explains how CCLOs
advocate for issues central to Christian conservatives, highlights
the influence of religious liberty on the CLM’s broader agenda,
and reveals how the Christian Right has become accustomed to the
courts as a field of battle in today’s culture wars. On one level
a book about how the Christian Right mobilized and organized an
effective presence on an unavoidable front in battles over social
policy, the courtroom, Defending Faith is also a case study of
interest groups pursuing common goals while maintaining unique
identities. As different as these proliferating groups might be,
they are alike in increasingly construing their efforts as a
defense of religious freedom against hostile forces throughout
American society—and thus as benefitting society as a whole
rather than limiting the rights of certain groups. The first
holistic, wide-angle picture of the Christian legal movement in the
United States, Bennett’s work tells the story of the growth of a
powerful legal community and of the development of legal advocacy
as a tool of social and political engagement.
According to the accepted legal theory, the American colonists
claimed the English common law as their birthright, brought with
them its general principles and adopted so much of it as was
applicable to their condition. Although this theory is universally
adopted by the courts, a close study of the subject reveals among
the early colonists a far different attitude toward the common law
from that which is usually attributed to them. In none of the
colonies, perhaps, was this more marked than in early
Massachusetts. Here the binding force of English law was denied,
and a legal system largely different came into use. It is the
purpose of this work to trace the development of that system during
the period of the first charter.
The last two decades changed the post-Soviet legal orders both
quantitatively and qualitatively in such a manner, which can rarely
be experienced in history. Though some of its aspects have already
been analyzed, a comprehensive study of one of these legal orders
in English is still missing. This volume attempts to fill this gap
by analyzing the transformation of the Hungarian legal order
between 1985 and 2005. It attempts to present the transformation of
the Hungarian legal order from three different aspects. Firstly, it
analyzes concrete legal questions, like the constitutional problems
of accession to the European Union, dealing with the past, the
status law, the development of minority protection, and the
relationship between international and municipal law. Secondly, it
tries to give a general theoretical overview on the last 20 years
-- in the issues of law and politics, law and economy, legitimacy
of the Constitution, law importation, culture and European
integration, changes in legal thinking, and sociological and
criminological characteristics of the transitions. Thirdly, it
takes account of changes in the established areas of Hungarian
legal science -- like constitutional law, agricultural law,
criminal law, criminal procedure, consumer protection,
environmental law, administrative law, financial law, civil law,
civil procedure and social law.
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