Studying Chinese law from a linguistic and communicative perspective, this book examines meaning and language in Chinese law. It investigates key notions and concepts of law, the rule of law, and rights and their evolutionary meanings. It examines the linguistic usage and textual features in Chinese legal texts and legal translation, and probes the lawmaking process and the Constitution as speech act and communicative action. Taking a cross-cultural approach, the book applies major Western philosophical thought to Chinese law, in particular the ideas concerning language and communication by such major thinkers as Peirce, Whorf, Gadamer, Habermas, Austin and Searle. The focus of the study is contemporary People's Republic of China; however, the study also traces and links the inherited and introduced cultural and linguistic values and configurations that provide the context in which modern Chinese law operates.

This book focuses on animal laws and animal welfare in major jurisdictions in the world, including the more developed legal regimes for animal protection of the US, UK, Australia, the EU and Israel, and the regulatory regimes still developing in China, South Africa, and Brazil. It offers in-depth analyses and discussions of topical and important issues in animal laws and animal welfare, and provides a comprehensive and comparative snapshot of some of the most important countries in the world in terms of animal population and worsening animal cruelty. Among the issues discussed are international law topics that relate to animals, including the latest WTO ruling on seal products and the EU ban, the Blackfish story and US law for cetaceans, the wildlife trafficking and crimes related to Africa and China, and historical and current animal protection laws in the UK and Australia. Bringing together the disciplines of animal law and animal welfare science as well as ethics and criminology with contributions from some of the most prominent animal welfare scientists and animal law scholars in the world, the book considers the strengths and failings of existing animal protection law in different parts of the world. In doing so it draws more attention to animal protection as a moral and legal imperative and to crimes against animals as a serious crime.

This book focuses on animal laws and animal welfare in major jurisdictions in the world, including the more developed legal regimes for animal protection of the US, UK, Australia, the EU and Israel, and the regulatory regimes still developing in China, South Africa, and Brazil. It offers in-depth analyses and discussions of topical and important issues in animal laws and animal welfare, and provides a comprehensive and comparative snapshot of some of the most important countries in the world in terms of animal population and worsening animal cruelty. Among the issues discussed are international law topics that relate to animals, including the latest WTO ruling on seal products and the EU ban, the Blackfish story and US law for cetaceans, the wildlife trafficking and crimes related to Africa and China, and historical and current animal protection laws in the UK and Australia. Bringing together the disciplines of animal law and animal welfare science as well as ethics and criminology with contributions from some of the most prominent animal welfare scientists and animal law scholars in the world, the book considers the strengths and failings of existing animal protection law in different parts of the world. In doing so it draws more attention to animal protection as a moral and legal imperative and to crimes against animals as a serious crime.

Just as China is called the world factory for manufactured goods, it is also a world factory for manufactured animal cruelty in a new phenomenon of globalized animal cruelty. Animals in China examines animal protection in China in its legal, social and cultural contexts.

The study of legal semiotics emphasizes the contingency and fluidity of legal concepts and stresses the existence of overlapping, competing and coexisting legal discourses. New problems, changing power structures and societal norms and new faces of injustice - all these force reconsideration, reformulation and even replacement of established doctrines. This book focuses on the application of law in a wide variety of contexts, including international politics and diplomatic practice.

Legal semiotics emphasizes the contingency and fluidity of legal concepts and stresses the existence of overlapping, competing and coexisting legal discourses. In response to new problems, changing power structures, changing societal norms and new faces of injustice established doctrines are reconsidered, reformulated and partly replaced by competing doctrines and hypotheses. Given the relative indeterminacy of law, it is no surprise that the problem of interpretation has always been one of the focal points of attention for legal semiotics. Who has the power to define words and concepts? Who can successfully assume the power to speak on behalf of the legal community? Which methods are used to justify the power to define?

This book discusses the questions mentioned above from three, related perspectives:

• Legal theory (Part I). This part discusses how more traditional approaches have dealt with the problem of legal interpretation and indeterminacy, questions the methods applied in traditional legal theory and offers new theoretical tools to understand the problem of legal interpretation.

• Judicial reasoning (Part II). The insights discussed in Part I are refined using legal semiotics, speech act theory and rhetorics and applied to the legal reasoning of courts and tribunals either in common law and civil law traditions.

• Application of law in politics and diplomatic practice (Part III). Traditionally, the study of legal reasoning has focussed on the application of law by courts and tribunals. However, legal reasoning also takes place outside the courtroom and takes up in the politicaland diplomatic arena. Who is included and excluded by particular conceptions of law? How does law deal with the phenomenon of interculturality?

"Combining theoretical inspiration with a keen interest in case law, this volume will appeal to scholars and students of legal theory, jurisprudence, legal anthropology, postcolonial studies, indeed to anyone whoa (TM)s interested in problems of interpretation in legal and political theory and practice. It should also come in very handy in the classroom." Ronnie Lippens, Professor of Criminology, Keele University

The translation of law has played an integral part in the interaction among nations in history and is playing a greater role in our increasingly interconnected world today. The book investigates legal translation in its many facets as an intellectual pursuit and a profession. It examines legal translation from an interdisciplinary perspective, covering theoretical and practical grounds and linguistic as well as legal issues. It analyses legal translation competence and various types of legal texts including contracts, statutes and multilateral legal instruments, presents a comparative analysis of the Common Law and the Civil Law and examines the case law from Canada, Hong Kong and the European Court of Justice. It attempts to demonstrate that translating law is a complex act that can enrich law, culture and human experience as a whole.

The book explores some of the intricacies, dilemmas, and idiosyncrasies of the Chinese language used in the legal context, analyzing linguistic matters in both monolingual Chinese context and cross-linguistically when Chinese and English are compared. It investigates the linguistic and cultural landscape through an examination of a number of keywords and linguistic usage associated with Chinese law. It is suggested that to understand Chinese society and law, we need to understand the rich and idiosyncratic Chinese language and cultural traditions and the legal and political context and subtext, and also to be cognizant of the tension and interaction between legal norms and cultural and linguistic values in their legal realization in the changing Chinese society. The book is a collection of the author's interpretation of Chinese law from a linguistic and cultural perspective, both as a user and interpreter of this ancient and changing language.