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Law, Politics and Violence in Israel/Palestine
by Maayan GevaThis book investigates the Israeli engagement with international law in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) between 1967 and 2009. Grounded in a field-based study of the military International Law Department, it examines the dynamic position and impact that international law has had in the OPT. By analysing the Israeli 2008/9 offensive in Gaza as an example of contemporary warfare, the author argues that law and military agenda have become intertwined in 'lawfare', a condition sanctioning new forms of law and violence. The military legal system is central to the Israeli management of the OPT, yet despite the great interest in the legal aspects of the Israeli occupation, scholarly accounts of this institution are scarce. This discussion also has wider international relevance, particularly in the backdrop of the contemporary prominence of international law in Western militaries' operations. This book will appeal to researchers, practitioners and students interested in international relations, political theory, human rights, Middle Eastern politics, and legal studies.
Law, Politics and the Gender Binary
by Petr AghaThe distinction between male and female, or masculinity and femininity, has long been considered to be foundational to society and the organization of its institutions. In the last decades, the massive literature on gender has challenged this discursive construction. Gender has been disassembled and reassembled, variously considered as social practice, performance, ideology. Yet the binary relationship ‘man/woman’ continues to be a characteristic trait of Western societies. This book gathers together contributions by experts in various fields – including law, sociology, philosophy and anthropology – to pin down the relationship between institutions and the gender binary. Centrally, it examines the way in which the present-day gender binary is shored up by the conceptualization and regulation of sex and gender at societal and institutional levels. Based on this examination, it tackles the issue of what the practices and processes of subjectivation are that preserve this binary distinction as the foundation of gender. Each of the chapters discusses this pressing question with a view to considering whether current equality policies challenge hierarchical and hegemonic understandings of gender or are the residue of a sexist understanding of gender. This analysis then paves the way for a more general and crucial question: whether institutions can, or should, contribute to the process of deconstructing the gender binary.
Law, Politics, and Morality in Judaism (Ethikon Series in Comparative Ethics)
by Michael WalzerJewish legal and political thought developed in conditions of exile, where Jews had neither a state of their own nor citizenship in any other. What use, then, can this body of thought be today to Jews living in Israel or as emancipated citizens in secular democratic states? Can a culture of exile be adapted to help Jews find ways of being at home politically today? These questions are central in Law, Politics, and Morality in Judaism, a collection of essays by contemporary political theorists, philosophers, and lawyers. How does Jewish law accommodate--or fail to accommodate--the practice of democratic citizenship? What range of religious toleration and pluralism is compatible with traditional Judaism? What forms of coexistence between Jews and non-Jews are required by shared citizenship? How should Jews operating within halakha (Jewish law) and Jewish history judge the use of force by modern states? The authors assembled here by prominent political theorist Michael Walzer come from different points on the religious-secular spectrum, and they differ greatly in their answers to such questions. But they all enact the relationship at issue since their answers, while based on critical Jewish texts, also reflect their commitments as democratic citizens. The contributors are Michael Walzer, David Biale, the late Robert M. Cover, Menachem Fisch, Geoffrey B. Levey, David Novak, Aviezer Ravitzky, Adam B. Seligman, Suzanne Last Stone, and Noam J. Zohar.
Law, Politics, and Perception: How Policy Preferences Influence Legal Reasoning (Constitutionalism and Democracy)
by Eileen BramanAre judges' decisions more likely to be based on personal inclinations or legal authority? The answer, Eileen Braman argues, is both. Law, Politics, and Perception brings cognitive psychology to bear on the question of the relative importance of norms of legal reasoning versus decision markers' policy preferences in legal decision-making. While Braman acknowledges that decision makers' attitudes--or, more precisely, their preference for policy outcomes--can play a significant role in judicial decisions, she also believes that decision-makers' belief that they must abide by accepted rules of legal analysis significantly limits the role of preferences in their judgements. To reconcile these competing factors, Braman posits that judges engage in "motivated reasoning," a biased process in which decision-makers are unconsciously predisposed to find legal authority that is consistent with their own preferences more convincing than those that go against them. But Braman also provides evidence that the scope of motivated reasoning is limited. Objective case facts and accepted norms of legal reasoning can often inhibit decision makers' ability to reach conclusions consistent with their preferences.
Law, Politics, and Responding to Injustice
by Wojciech Sadurski Kevin Walton Coel KirkbyThis book examines the issue of injustice, and our responses to it, in a range of contemporary contexts.In her ground-breaking book The Faces of Injustice (1990), Judith Shklar draws attention to our tendency to view injustice as an abnormality. Of course it is not: injustice is ubiquitous. But how should we respond to it? The book brings together leading legal and political theorists to explore the nature of injustice, its relationship to law, and responses to it, in a variety of contexts. Their chapters cover issues such as protest, resistance, violence, the moral obligation to obey the law, civil disobedience, democratic reform, and transitional justice. They all, though, share a concern to examine such issues through a Shklar-inspired focus on injustice.This book will appeal to academics and advanced students in law, politics, and philosophy.
Law, Populism, and the Political in Central and Eastern Europe (Birkbeck Law Press)
by Rafał Mańko, Adam Sulikowski, Przemysław Tacik, and Cosmin CercelThis book addresses the variety of right-wing illiberal populism which has emerged in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Against the backdrop of weak institutional traditions, frequent and profound transformations, and deep historical traumas affecting the law, politics, economy and society in the region, the book critically examines the entanglements of legality in the region’s transformation from state socialism to neoliberalism and Western-style democracy. Drawing on critical legal theory, as well as legal history, legal theory, sociology of law, history of ideas, anthropology of law, comparative law, and constitutional theory, the book goes beyond conventional analyses to offer an in-depth account of this important contemporary phenomenon. This book will be of interest to legal researchers, especially of a critical or socio-legal perspective, political scientists, sociologists and (legal) historians, as well as policy makers seeking to understand the regional specificity and deeper roots of Central and Eastern European illiberal populism.
Law, Practice and Politics of Forensic DNA Profiling: Forensic Genetics and their Technolegal Worlds
by Matthias Wienroth Victor Toom Amade M’charekThis collection reviews developments in DNA profiling across jurisdictions with a focus on scientific and technological developments as well as their political, ethical, and socio-legal aspects. Written by leading scholars in the fields of social studies of forensic science, science and technology studies and socio-legal studies, the book provides state-of-the-art analyses of forensic DNA practices in a diverse range of jurisdictions, new and emerging forensic genetics technologies and issues of legitimacy. The work articulates the various forms of technolegal politics involved in the everyday, standardised and emerging practices of forensic genetics and engages with the most recent scholarly and policy literature. In analyses of empirical cases, and by taking into account the most recent technolegal developments, the book explores what it means to live in a world that is increasingly governed through anticipatory crime control and its related risk management and bio-surveillance mechanisms, which intervene with and produce political and legal subjectivities through human bodies in their DNA. This volume is an invaluable resource for those working in the areas of social studies of forensic science, science and technology studies, socio-legal studies, sociology, anthropology, ethics, law, politics and international relations.
Law, Property and Disasters: Adaptive Perspectives from the Global South
by Daniel Fitzpatrick Caroline ComptonThis book re-considers property law for a future of environmental disruption. As slogans such as “build the wall” or “stop the boats” affect public policy, there are counter-questions as to whether positivist or statist notions of property are fit for purpose in a time of human mobility and environmental disruption. State-centric property laws construct legal fictions of sovereign control over land, notwithstanding the persistent reality of informal settlements in many parts of the Global South. In a world affected by catastrophic disasters, this book develops a vision of adaptive governance for property in land based on a critical re-assessment of state-centric property law. This book will appeal to a broad readership with interests in legal theory, property law, adaptive governance, international development, refugee studies, postcolonial studies, and natural disasters.
Law, Registration, and the State: Making Identities through Space, Place, and Movement (Social Justice)
by Jess SmithThis book provides an original and compelling analysis of registration as a dynamic process which makes and unmakes legal identities. Critical legal and socio-legal scholarship tends to assume that registration is a textually mediated act of statecraft which governs through the technology of writing. Taking a different approach, this book develops movement as socio-legal method to illustrate the legal, social, and bureaucratic layers of movement which unfold in everyday engagements with the law. The book presents empirical and theoretical analysis of historical, contemporary, and future-oriented places of registration: a community hub, a city of pilgrimage, and the General Register Office. Drawing from diverse perspectives across anthropology, geography, sociology, architecture, and mobility studies, the book argues for an understanding of registration as evolving, socially constructed, and shaped by spatial imaginaries which are materialised in its architecture. This mobile understanding of registration expands conceptual discussions of legal materiality whilst opening up possibilities for legal identities unconstrained by the assumed desirability of stability or endurance. This interdisciplinary book will appeal primarily to a sociolegal, critical legal, and legal geography readership; but it will also be of interest to those in other disciplines concerned with materiality, movement, and statecraft.
Law, Religion, and Freedom: Conceptualizing a Common Right (ICLARS Series on Law and Religion)
by W. Cole Durham, Jr., Javier Martínez-Torrón, and Donlu ThayerThis book examines major conceptual challenges confronting freedom of religion or belief in contemporary settings. The volume brings together chapters by leading experts from law, religious studies, and international relations, who provide perspectives from both sides of the Atlantic. At a time when the polarization of ‘culture wars’ is aggravating tensions between secular and religious views about accommodating the conscientious claims of individuals and groups, and when the right to freedom of religion itself is facing misunderstanding and erosion, the work provides welcome clarity and depth. Some chapters adopt a primarily conceptual and historical approach; others analyze particular difficulties or conflicts that have emerged in European and American jurisdictions, along with concrete applications and recommendations for the future. The book will be a valuable resource for students, academics, and policy-makers with an interest in law, religion, and human rights.
Law, Religion, and Health in the United States
by Cohen Lynch Holly Fernandez I. Glenn Elizabeth SepperWhile the law can create conflict between religion and health, it can also facilitate religious accommodation and protection of conscience. Finding this balance is critical to addressing the most pressing questions at the intersection of law, religion, and health in the United States: should physicians be required to disclose their religious beliefs to patients? How should we think about institutional conscience in the health care setting? How should health care providers deal with families with religious objections to withdrawing treatment? In this timely book, experts from a variety of perspectives and disciplines offer insight on these and other pressing questions, describing what the public discourse gets right and wrong, how policymakers might respond, and what potential conflicts may arise in the future. It should be read by academics, policymakers, and anyone else - patient or physician, secular or devout - interested in how US law interacts with health care and religion.
Law, Religious Freedoms and Education in Europe (Cultural Diversity and Law)
by Myriam Hunter-HeninThis collection considers how contemporary cultural and religious diversity challenges and redefines national constitutional and legal frameworks and concepts, within the context of education. It offers a critical reflection on the extent and meanings given to religious freedom in education across Europe. The contributions deal primarily with Western Europe although the book also includes a study of the US vibrant debates on Creationism. This volume considers issues such as religious expression, faith schooling and worship in schools, in a multidisciplinary and comparative approach. The book first examines key concepts, before presenting national models of religion and education in Europe and analyzing case studies relating to religious symbols worn at school and to the teaching of religious education. Legal questions are examined in a wider context, in the light of the intentions of state policy and of current national and transnational debates. Controversies on the legal implications of personal and national identities are for example analyzed. From a comparative perspective, the chapters examine the possible converging power of human rights and anti-discrimination discourses and reveal the difficulties and risks involved in seeking to identify the best model for Europe. This topical study of a highly sensitive area of education presents a valuable insight for students, researchers and academics with an interest in cultural and religious diversity, human rights and education.
Law, Responsibility and Vulnerability: State Accountability and Responsiveness (Gender in Law, Culture, and Society)
by James Gallen Tanya Ní MhuirthileThis book addresses how law and public policy cause or exacerbate vulnerability in individuals and groups. Bringing together scholars, judges and practitioners, it identifies how individuals and groups can become vulnerabilised through the operation of law, and examines how the State can acknowledge and remedy that impact. The book offers not only a theoretical, ethical and normative conception of vulnerability in law, but also an evaluation of the diverse practices of responding to vulnerability in law through accountability mechanisms and public campaigns. The analysis of vulnerability contained in this volume is enhanced by the common use of Ireland as a case study. Despite the robust rights protections available at national, regional and international level, Ireland remains a State where at risk people have experienced vulnerability across a range of thematic areas, such as criminal law, migration and asylum, historical abuse, LGBTI rights and austerity. Drawing on comparative analyses and a consideration of the role of international law in domestic settings, this book offers a comparison of diverse national and transnational attempts to ensure State accountability and responsiveness to legally created vulnerabilities. The book demonstrates lessons learned from theory and practice regarding how vulnerability can be experienced by individuals and groups, structured by law and addressed through legal and political action. This book will be of considerable interest to socio-legal and "law and society" scholars, as well as others working in international human rights, jurisprudence, philosophy, legal theory, political theory, feminist theory, and ethics.
Law, Rights and Ideology in Russia: Landmarks in the Destiny of a Great Power
by Bill BowringLaw, Rights and Ideology in Russia: Landmarks in the destiny of a great power brings into sharp focus several key episodes in Russia’s vividly ideological engagement with law and rights. Drawing on 30 years of experience of consultancy and teaching in many regions of Russia and on library research in Russian-language texts, Bill Bowring provides unique insights into people, events and ideas. The book starts with the surprising role of the Scottish Enlightenment in the origins of law as an academic discipline in Russia in the eighteenth century. The Great Reforms of Tsar Aleksandr II, abolishing serfdom in 1861 and introducing jury trial in 1864, are then examined and debated as genuine reforms or the response to a revolutionary situation. A new interpretation of the life and work of the Soviet legal theorist Yevgeniy Pashukanis leads to an analysis of the conflicted attitude of the USSR to international law and human rights, especially the right of peoples to self-determination. The complex history of autonomy in Tsarist and Soviet Russia is considered, alongside the collapse of the USSR in 1991. An examination of Russia’s plunge into the European human rights system under Yeltsin is followed by the history of the death penalty in Russia. Finally, the secrets of the ideology of ‘sovereignty’ in the Putin era and their impact on law and rights are revealed. Throughout, the constant theme is the centuries long hegemonic struggle between Westernisers and Slavophiles, against the backdrop of the Messianism that proclaimed Russia to be the Third Rome, was revived in the mission of Soviet Russia to change the world and which has echoes in contemporary Eurasianism and the ideology of sovereignty.
Law, Security and Migration: The Nationalistic Turn in the International Order
by Laura Planas GifraThis book analyzes the impact of the increasing securitization of migration within the international legal and political order.Migration has increasingly become a security issue. Examining this tendency towards the securitization of migration around the world, this book argues that it is indicative of a shift in the international order towards geopolitical and security strategies, and away from cooperation and multilateralism. States are now more inclined to produce national legislation in the fields of countering terrorism, migration, and security, than dealing with such global issues through international cooperation and international norm-making. As such, this book demonstrates, they tend to prioritize national rather than international interests in a radical shift away from the universal rights and liberal values that were dominant at the end of the 20th century, to a model based on geopolitical interests. The securitization of migration is a process that not only affects the rights of migrants, but ushers in a new international legal and political order.This book will be of considerable interest to scholars and professionals in the fields of international law, international relations, migration, security, and human rights.
Law, Security and the State of Perpetual Emergency
by Linda S. BishaiPresenting diverse contributors from legal, academic, and practitioner sectors, this book illustrates how the distinctions between international and domestic law are falling away in the context of security, particularly in the responses to terrorism, and explores the implications of these dramatic shifts in the normative order. Fundamental changes in the powers of the state and the rights of populations have accelerated since the globalized response to 9/11, creating effects that spread beyond borders and operate in a new, as yet under-conceptualized space. Although these altered practices were said to be in response to exceptional circumstances — a response to terrorism — they have become increasingly established in an altered baseline norm. This book explores the (inter)national implications of exceptional legal efforts to protect states’ domestic space in the realm of security.
Law, Selfhood and Feminist Philosophy: Monstrous Aberrations
by Janice RichardsonAt the intersection of law, feminism and philosophy, this book analyses the ways in which certain bodies and ‘selves’ continue to be treated as monstrous aberrations from the ‘ideal’ figure or norm. Employing contemporary feminist philosophy to rethink accepted legal ideas, the book is divided into three sections. The first focuses on the different relational ontologies of philosophers Adriana Cavarero and Christine Battersby – also considering their work via a third term: Spinoza. The second turns to diverse feminist engagements with the social contract theorists. The third section employs insights from throughout the book to focus more explicitly on law – and, in particular privacy law and the so-called ‘wrongful birth’ cases. Bringing together more than twenty years of sustained reflection, this book offers an insightful account of how contemporary feminist philosophy can contribute to a richer understanding of law. It will be of enormous interest to scholars and students working in the areas of legal theory, feminist thought and philosophy.
Law, Social Movements and the Politics of the Commons: Cases from the Italian South
by Veronica PecileThis book reinterprets the notion of the commons by tracing how it has been mobilised in the aftermath of economic crisis. In a period of widespread activism against the privatisation of resources and services implemented through austerity policies, the reconceptualisation of property as a non-absolute and non-individualistic institution has attracted a great deal of attention. Drawing on the case of the Italian South, and in the wake of economic crisis, this book offers a critical analysis of the struggle for the commons. More specifically, as it details how discourses, legal tools and policies based on disciplinary ideas of the commons are deployed in the neoliberal restructuring of societies, the book considers how conflicting ideas of the commons express different, and often clashing visions, of urban space. In this regard, moreover, it shows how law plays a central, albeit ambivalent, role in the struggle for the commons: as both a governmental technique to regulate urban space and its residents and as an emancipatory tactic to advance non-proprietary visions of ownership.This book will be of interest to scholars in socio-legal studies, property law, legal sociology and politics, as well as others with more general interests in the critical potential of contemporary social movements.
Law, Socialism and Democracy (Routledge Library Editions: Political Science #9)
by Paul,Q,HirstThis book explores the political and legal institutions necessary for a democratic socialism in advanced industrial societies. It argues that a democratic socialist society needs a firm framework of public law, and a formal constitution. Populist conceptions of direct democracy and informal justice are argued to be inadequate as the primary means of democratic control in a complex society; likewise Marxist views of the "withering away of the state" are challenged as utopian. The book maintains that radical reforms in political institutions are necessary in order to effect social change.
Law, Society & Politics: A Critical Analysis of U.S. Supreme Court Power in the Political & Legal Process
by Marvin L. AstradaThis book explores critical questions pertaining to the character and content of the “American People” as posited in the US Supreme Court’s interpretation of the fundamental law. What exactly is an American? Who or what comprise the People? What are the constitutive sociocultural, political, and economic ordering principles of the American People and society? How does the Court impact the nationalist character and content of law and policy? From a sociocultural, economic, political, and ideological perspective, the Court’s singular proclamations as to what the US Constitution means, what is its purpose, and how it is to be perceived and implemented have profound consequences for representational politics and notions of what exactly constitutes the American polity. This book employs a critical, conceptual, and structural approach, critically examining the notion of the People in constitutional discourse, and its impact on government, politics, law, and society in the present.
Law, Society and Corruption: Lessons from the Central Asian Context (Law, Justice and Power)
by Rustamjon Urinboyev Måns SvenssonThis book presents new socio-legal perspectives and insights on the social life of corruption and anticorruption in authoritarian regimes.This book takes up the case of Uzbekistan—an authoritarian regime in Central Asia and one of the most corrupt countries in the world according to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index—and examines the corruption that developed in a tightly closed authoritarian regime permeated by a large-scale shadow economy, a weak rule of law, and a collectivist legal culture. Building on socio-legal frameworks of legal compliance, living law and legal pluralism, the central argument of the book is that the roles, meanings, and logics of corruption are fluid, and depend on a myriad of structural variables, and contextual and situational factors.This book will be of value to researchers, academics, and students in the fields of sociology of law, legal anthropology, and Central Asian studies, especially those with an interest in the intersection of law, society, and corruption in authoritarian regime contexts.
Law, State and Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina (ICLARS Series on Law and Religion)
by Nedim Begović Emir KovačevićThis book explores relations between state, religion and law in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Historically, multi-religiousness has been a constant feature of the Bosnian polity, from its creation in 12th century until modern times. Since the middle of the 19th Century, Catholics have tended to self-identify as Croats, Orthodox Christians as Serbs, and Muslims as Bosniaks. Moreover, in a region that has undergone significant recent transformation, from the communist to the liberal political system, Bosnia and Herzegovina represents a very interesting case for the study of the relationship between state and religion. This book includes a short overview of historical aspects of these relations and a detailed analysis of the existing constitutional and legal framework on freedom of religion and relations between the state and religious communities. It assesses the actual implementation in practice, including the relevant national courts’ case-law. The work covers both the developments of new legal standards, while also identifying the main obstacles in their implementation. At a time when the region is again the subject of much interest, this book will be essential reading for those working in the areas of Law and Religion, Constitutional Law and Transitional Justice.
Law, State, and Society in Modern Iran
by Hadi EnayatUsing a 'Historical Institutionalist' approach, this book sheds light on a relatively understudied dimension of state-building in early twentieth century Iran, namely the quest for judicial reform and the rule of law from the 1906 Constitutional Revolution to the end of Reza Shah's rule in 1941.
Law, Technology and Society: Reimagining the Regulatory Environment (Law, Science and Society)
by Roger BrownswordThis book considers the implications of the regulatory burden being borne increasingly by technological management rather than by rules of law. If crime is controlled, if human health and safety are secured, if the environment is protected, not by rules but by measures of technological management—designed into products, processes, places and so on—what should we make of this transformation? In an era of smart regulatory technologies, how should we understand the ‘regulatory environment’, and the ‘complexion’ of its regulatory signals? How does technological management sit with the Rule of Law and with the traditional ideals of legality, legal coherence, and respect for liberty, human rights and human dignity? What is the future for the rules of criminal law, torts and contract law—are they likely to be rendered redundant? How are human informational interests to be specified and protected? Can traditional rules of law survive not only the emergent use of technological management but also a risk management mentality that pervades the collective engagement with new technologies? Even if technological management is effective, is it acceptable? Are we ready for rule by technology? Undertaking a radical examination of the disruptive effects of technology on the law and the legal mind-set, Roger Brownsword calls for a triple act of re-imagination: first, re-imagining legal rules as one element of a larger regulatory environment of which technological management is also a part; secondly, re-imagining the Rule of Law as a constraint on the arbitrary exercise of power (whether exercised through rules or through technological measures); and, thirdly, re-imagining the future of traditional rules of criminal law, tort law, and contract law.
Law, Violence and Constituent Power: The Law, Politics And History Of Constitution Making (Comparative Constitutional Change)
by Héctor López BofillThis book challenges traditional theories of constitution-making to advance an alternative view of constitutions as being founded on power which rests on violence. The work argues that rather than the idea of a constitution being the result of political participation and deliberation, all power instead is based on violence. Hence the creation of a constitution is actually an act of coercion, where, through violence, one social group is able to impose itself over others. The book advocates that the presence of violence be used as an assessment of whether genuine constitutional transformation has taken place, and that the legitimacy of a constitutional order should be dependent upon the absence of killing. The book will be essential reading for academics and researchers working in the areas of constitutional law and politics, legal and political theory, and constitutional history.