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Legal Traditions, Legal Reforms and Economic Performance
by Diego Romero-Ávila Daniel Oto-PeralíasThis book investigates whether legal reforms intended to create a market-friendly regulatory business environment have a positive impact on economic and financial outcomes. After conducting a critical review of the legal origins literature, the authors first analyze the evolution of legal rules and regulations during the last decade (2006-2014). For that purpose, the book uses legal/regulatory indicators from the World Bank's Doing Business Project (2015). The findings indicate that countries have actively reformed their legal systems during this period, particularly French civil law countries. A process of convergence in the evolution of legal rules and regulations is observed: countries starting in 2006 in a lower position have improved more than countries with better initial scores. Also, French civil law countries have reformed their legal systems to a larger extent than common law countries and, consequently, have improved more in the majority of the Doing Business indicators used. Second, the authors estimate fixed-effects panel regressions to analyze the relationship between changes in legal rules and regulations and changes in the real economy. The findings point to a lack of systematic effects of legal rules and regulations on economic and financial outcomes. This result stands in contrast to the widespread belief that reforms aiming to strengthen investor and creditor rights (and other market-friendly policies) systematically lead to better economic and financial outcomes.
Legal Violence and the Limits of the Law: Cruel and Unusual
by Amy Swiffen Joshua NicholsWhat is the meaning of punishment today? Where is the limit that separates it from the cruel and unusual? In legal discourse, the distinction between punishment and vengeance—punishment being the measured use of legally sanctioned violence and vengeance being a use of violence that has no measure—is expressed by the idea of "cruel and unusual punishment." This phrase was originally contained in the English Bill of Rights (1689). But it (and versions of it) has since found its way into numerous constitutions and declarations, including Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the Amendment to the US Constitution. Clearly, in order for the use of violence to be legitimate, it must be subject to limitation. The difficulty is that the determination of this limit should be objective, but it is not, and its application in punitive practice is constituted by a host of extra-legal factors and social and political structures. It is this essential contestability of the limit which distinguishes punishment from violence that this book addresses. And, including contributions from a range of internationally renowned scholars, it offers a plurality of original and important responses to the contemporary question of the relationship between punishment and the limits of law.
Legal and Economic Principles of World Trade Law
by Petros C. Mavroidis Henrik HornThe World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement covers international commerce in goods and services including measures that directly affect trade, such as import tariffs and quotas, and almost any type of internal measure with an impact on trade. Legal and Economic Principles of World Trade Law contributes to the analysis of the texts of World Trade Law in law and economics, reporting work done to identify improvements to the interpretation of the Agreement. It starts with background studies, the first summarizes The Genesis of the GATT, which highlights the negotiating history of the GATT 1947-1948; the second introduces the economics of trade agreements. These are followed by two main studies. The first, authored by Bagwell, Staiger, and Sykes discusses legal and economic aspects of the GATT regulation of border policy instruments, such as import tariffs and import quotas. The second, written by Grossman, Horn, and Mavroidis, focuses on the core provision for the regulation of domestic policy instruments – the National Treatment principles in Art. III GATT.
Legal and Political Challenges of Governing the Environment and Climate Change: Ruling Nature
by Gary Wickham Jo-Ann GoodieThe environment has not always been protected by law. It was not until the middle of the 20th century that ‘the environment’ came to be understood as an entity in need of special care, and the law-politics duo firmly fixed its focus on this issue. In this book Wickham and Goodie tell the story of how law and politics first came upon the environment as an object in need of special attention. They outline the unlikely intersection of aesthetics and science that made ‘the environment’ into the matter of great concern it is today. The book describes the way private common-law strategies and public-law legislative strategies have approached the task of protecting the environment, and explore the greatest environmental challenge to have so far confronted environmental law and politics; the threat of global climate change. The book offers descriptions of many of the strategies being deployed to meet this challenge and present some troubling assessments of them. The book will be of great interest to students, teachers, and researchers of environmental law, socio-legal studies, environmental studies, and political theory.
Legal and Political Reforms in Saudi Arabia
by Joseph KéchichianThe fractious relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia has long been a central concern in Washington. In the aftermath of 9/11 and amongst ongoing wars, the United States confronts an acute dilemma: how to cooperate with Riyadh against terrorism whilst confronting acute anti-Americanism? Using information gathered from extensive interviews with a plethora of officials, this book aims to analyze Saudi domestic reforms. It addresses the significant deficiency of information on such diverse matters as the judiciary and ongoing national dialogues, but also provides an alternative understanding of what motivates Saudi policy makers. How these reforms may impact on future Saudi decision-making will surely generate a slew of policy concerns for the United States and this study offers a few clarifications and solutions. This book will be of interest to anyone seeking a new perspective on the motivation behind legal and political reforms in Saudi Arabia, and the effects of these reforms beyond the Middle East.
Legal and Rhetorical Foundations of Economic Globalization: An Atlas of Ritual Sacrifice in Late-Capitalism (Globalization: Law and Policy)
by Keren WangThis book examines the subtle ways in which rhetorics of sacrifice have been re-appropriated into the workings of the global political economy in the 21st century. It presents an in-depth analysis of the ways in which ritual practices are deployed, under a diverse set of political and legal contexts, as legitimation devices in rendering exploitative structures of the prevailing political-economic system to appear inescapable, or even palatable. To this end, this work explores the deeper rhetorical and legal basis of late-capitalist governmentality by critically interrogating its mythical and ritual dimensions. The analysis gives due consideration to the contemporary incarnations of ritual sacrifice in the transnational neoliberal discourse: from those exploitative yet inescapable contractual obligations, to calendrical multi-billion dollar 'offerings' to the insatiable needs of 'too-big-to-fail' corporations.The first part of the book provides a working interpretative framework for understanding the politics of ritual sacrifice – one that not only accommodates multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary knowledge of ritual practices, but that can also be employed in the integrated analysis of sacrificial rituals as political rhetoric under divergent historical and societal contexts. The second conducts a series of case studies that cut across the wide variability of ritual public takings in late-capitalism. The book concludes by highlighting several key common doctrines of public ritual sacrifice which have been broadly observed in its case studies. These common doctrines tend to reflect the rhetorical and legal foundations for public takings under hegemonic market-driven governance. They define 'appropriate and proper' occasions for suspending pre-existing legal protections to regularize otherwise transgressive transfers of rights and possessions for the 'greater good' of the economic order.
Legal-Economic Institutions, Entrepreneurship, and Management: Perspectives on the Dynamics of Institutional Change from Emerging Markets (Contributions to Management Science)
by Nezameddin Faghih Ali Hussein SamadiThe study of dynamics of institutional change in emerging markets are subjects of great interest in contemporary political economy. The dynamics and quality of institutional change can have significant impacts on the long-run performance of economies, economic growth and development of nations, and play a fundamental role in societies. It provides a comprehensive understanding of legal-economic institutions, and sheds light on the way to global peace by producing a better understanding of the dynamics of historical change. Topics range from institutional uncertainty, hybrid market order and labor market institutions, to good governance of institutions and WTO rules as trade institutions, as well as entrepreneurship and institutional change in emerging markets, and the role of modern technologies.This edited volume emphasizes legal-economic institutions, and the role of management and entrepreneurship on dynamics, trends, and implications of institutional change in emerging markets. Presenting research articles by eminent scholars and experts engaged in education and research, who address and discuss the most recent issues in the field, they reveal new insights into the dynamics of institutional change for researchers interested in development of new theories and comparative studies, especially in the era of emerging markets. The book is appealing to a wide range of global audience, can serve as a useful reference work in education and research, offers innovative and productive discussions, and can satisfy scholarly and intellectual interests, regarding institutional development and a broad spectrum of its interactions with functioning of markets and economies.
Legalising Mitochondrial Donation: Enacting Ethical Futures In Uk Biomedical Politics
by Rebecca Dimond Neil StephensIn 2015 the UK became the first country in the world to legalise mitochondrial donation, a controversial germ line reproductive technology to prevent the transmission of mitochondrial disease. Dimond and Stephens track the intense period of scientific and ethical review, public consultation and parliamentary debates preceeding the decision. They draw on stakeholder accounts and public documents to explore how patients, professionals, institutions and publics mobilised within ‘for’ and ‘against’ clusters, engaging in extensive promissory, emotional, bureaucratic, ethical, embodied and clinical labour to justify competing visions of an ethical future. They describe how this decision is the latest iteration of a UK sociotechnical imaginary in which the further liberalization of human embryo research and use is rendered legitimate and ethical through modes of consultation and permissive but strictly regulated licensing. Overall, this book presents a timely, multi-dimensional, and sociological account of a globally significant landmark in the history of human genetics, and will be relevant to those with an interest in genetics, Science, Technology and Society, the sociology of medicine, reproductive technology, and public policy debate.
Legality And Legitimacy
by Carl SchmittCarl Schmitt ranks among the most original and controversial political thinkers of the twentieth century. His incisive criticisms of Enlightenment political thought and liberal political practice remain as shocking and significant today as when they first appeared in Weimar Germany. Unavailable in English until now, Legality and Legitimacy was composed in 1932, in the midst of the crisis that would lead to the collapse of the Weimar Republic and only a matter of months before Schmitt's collaboration with the Nazis. In this important work, Schmitt questions the political viability of liberal constitutionalism, parliamentary government, and the rule of law. Liberal governments, he argues, cannot respond effectively to challenges by radical groups like the Nazis or Communists. Only a presidential regime subject to few, if any, practical limitations can ensure domestic security in a highly pluralistic society. Legality and Legitimacy is sure to provide a compelling reference point in contemporary debates over the challenges facing constitutional democracies today. In addition to Jeffrey Seitzer's translation of the 1932 text itself, this volume contains his translation of Schmitt's 1958 commentary on the work, extensive explanatory notes, and an appendix including selected articles of the Weimar constitution. John P. McCormick's introduction places Legality and Legitimacy in its historical context, clarifies some of the intricacies of the argument, and ultimately contests Schmitt's claims regarding the inherent weakness of parliamentarism, constitutionalism, and the rule of law.
Legalization of Human Rights in Africa: The Institutionalization of Laws Prohibiting State-Sanctioned Violence and Torture (Routledge Contemporary Africa)
by Stacey M. Mitchell Veraline Nchotu Lem Lilian AtangaMost countries on the African continent have ratified or acceded to several human rights treaties, including the Torture Convention and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights. This book assesses the progress African countries have made in institutionalizing human rights laws prohibiting torture, extrajudicial killings, and disappearances domestically.States ratify human rights treaties for a variety of reasons. Some commentators defend an honest sincerity of purpose, whereas others might point to material incentives. The contributors to this volume go beyond the ratification puzzle to instead reframe legalization according to Lon Fuller’s conceptualization of congruence. Congruence is an interactive variable that measures the continuous efforts of government and the public to shape the law and its implementation. By reframing legalization as an ongoing process, the model created by the authors is used to test several hypotheses about what impacts legalization in Africa more broadly, and in countries such as Mali, Cameroon, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Tunisia, more specifically. The contributors to this volume demonstrate that the legalization of human rights is never a finished product, but is a moving target influenced by exogenous and endogenous phenomena.This volume is useful for researchers of genocide, human rights, and atrocity prevention, as well as for those interested in legalization and democratization both within Africa and other regions of the world.
Legalization of International Law and Politics: Multi-Level Governance of Human Rights and Aggression
by Stacey M. Mitchell Henry (Chip) CareyThis book provides an expanded conceptualization of legalization that focuses on implementation of obligation, precision, and delegation at the international and domestic levels of politics. By adding domestic politics and the actors to the international level of analysis, the authors add the insights of Kenneth Waltz, Graham Allison, and Louis Henkin to understand why most international law is developed and observed most of the time. However, the authors argue that law-breaking and law-distorting occurs as a part of negative legalization. Consequently, the book offers a framework for understanding how international law both produces and undermines order and justice. The authors also draw from realist, liberal, constructivist, cosmopolitan and critical theories to analyse how legalization can both build and/or undermine consensus, which results in either positive or negative legalization of international law. The authors argue that legalization is a process over time and not just a snapshot in time.
Legalizing Sex: Sexual Minorities, AIDS, and Citizenship in India
by Chaitanya LakkimsettiHow the rise of HIV in India resulted in government protections for gay groups, transgender people, and sex workers This original ethnographic research explores the relationship between the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the rights-based struggles of sexual minorities in contemporary India. Sex workers, gay men, and transgender people became visible in the Indian public sphere in the mid-1980s when the rise of HIV/AIDS became a frightening issue. The Indian state started to fold these groups into national HIV/AIDS policies as “high-risk” groups in an attempt to create an effective response to the epidemic. Lakkimsetti argues that over time the crisis of HIV/AIDS effectively transformed the relationship between sexual minorities and the state from one that was focused on juridical exclusion to one of inclusion. The new relationship then enabled affected groups to demand rights and citizenship from the Indian state that had been previously unimaginable. By illuminating such tactics as mobilizing against a colonial era anti-sodomy law, petitioning the courts for the recognition of gender identity, and stalling attempts to criminalize sexual labor, this book uniquely brings together the struggles of sex workers, transgender people, and gay groups previously studied separately. A closely observed look at the machinations behind recent victories for sexual minorities, this book is essential reading across several fields.
Legally Poisoned: How the Law Puts Us at Risk from Toxicants
by Carl F. CranorTake a random walk through your life and you’ll find it is awash in industrial, often toxic, chemicals. Sip water from a plastic bottle and ingest bisphenol A. Prepare dinner in a non-stick frying pan or wear a layer of Gore-Tex only to be exposed to perfluorinated compounds. Hang curtains, clip your baby into a car seat, watch television—all are manufactured with brominated flame-retardants. Cosmetic ingredients, industrial chemicals, pesticides, and other compounds enter our bodies and remain briefly or permanently. Far too many suspected toxic hazards are unleashed every day that affect the development and function of our brain, immune system, reproductive organs, or hormones. But no public health law requires product testing of most chemical compounds before they enter the market. If products are deemed dangerous, toxicants must be forcibly reduced or removed—but only after harm has been done. In this scientifically rigorous legal analysis, Carl Cranor argues that just as pharmaceuticals and pesticides cannot be sold without pre-market testing, other chemical products should be subject to the same safety measures. Cranor shows, in terrifying detail, what risks we run, and that it is entirely possible to design a less dangerous commercial world.
Legends Of People, Myths Of State
by Bruce KapfererThe civil war in Sri Lanka and the part that nationalism seemed to play in it inspired the writing of this book some twenty-three years ago. The argument was developed through a comparative analysis of nationalism in Sri Lanka with the author's native Australia. At the time this constituted an innovative approach to comparison in anthropology, as well as to nationalism and its possibilities. It was not based on differences but on the way in which perspectives from within the two nationalisms, when seen side-by-side, could present an understanding of their implication in producing the violence of war, racism, and social exclusion. The book has lost none of its importance and urgency as proven by the chapters in the Appendix, written by top scholars working in Sri Lanka and in Australia. These contributions bring together new material and critically explore the book's themes and their continued relevance to the various trajectories in nationalist processes since the first publication of the book.
Legends of the Security Services Industry: Profiles in Leadership
by Keith Oringer Michael HymansonThe global contract security market now totals over $200 billion, with the number of private security officers exceeding that of public law enforcement officers. But this wasn’t always the case.Legends of the Security Services Industry: Profiles in Leadership presents the unique stories of 15 industry legends, who transformed the industry from early private detective and small night watch companies into large-scale contract security companies. The large-scale companies include, but are not limited to, Pinkerton, Burns International, The Wackenhut Corporation, Guardsmark, Wells Fargo, and U.S. Security Associates; as well as today’s leading security companies, Allied Universal, Securitas, G4S, Prosegur, and GardaWorld.The book begins in the nineteenth century, with early U.S. legendary detectives: Allan Pinkerton and William Burns. Then, the book focuses largely from the mid-twentieth century to the present, where successive generations of legends built large-scale contract security companies which competed with, and then acquired, those formed by the early legends. Part II legends George Wackenhut, Ira Lipman, and Tom Wathen; Part III legends, Charles Schneider, Kenneth W. Oringer, William Whitmore, Jr., and Albert Berger; and Part IV, Scandinavian legends Jørgen Philip-Sørensen, Lars Nørby Johansen, and Thomas Berglund, all developed major security companies. Part V includes current global security leaders Helena Revoredo Gut, Stephan Crétier, and Steve Jones. Part VI reviews the timelines and successful leadership of these legendary leaders, with a look at the future of the industry.The legends’ personal stories contain colorful insight into how they capitalized on the industry’s explosive growth. While each generation of legends faced unique social and competitive landscapes, their personal stories illustrate how they respectively succeeded. Their leadership and management prowess enabled them to achieve great success, as they displayed vision and achieved their goals through grit, determination, hard work, charisma, organizational skills, and calculated risk-taking.Each chapter has been extensively researched and includes firsthand accounts based on interviews with living legends, colleagues, and family of deceased legends. Personal, company and signature event photos add further color to the moving narrative. Their stories are not only highly interesting, but also provide a framework for current leaders, and the next generation of entrepreneurs, on how to build and lead large-scale security service companies. With a Foreword from Robert D. McCrie, PhD, longtime John Jay Professor and editor of the renowned industry publication The Security Letter.
Legerdemain: The President's Secret Plan, The Bomb, And what The French Never Knew
by James Heaphey“The kind of history that you will only find in the deepest part of the archives;” Herbert Werlin, PhD - World Bank ResearchThink James Bond on his first assignment. Then think again of Casablanca, secret atomic bombs, beautiful women spies and high political stakes and you have a sense of what this book is about…and it’s a true story. It takes Jim Heaphey (no, not James Bond) through the alleyways and bathhouses of Casablanca, the exotic Arabian Nights - like fair in Marrakech, the settings of the privileged in Cairo and the hillside villages of Cyprus. The story unveils the workings of MI6, the CIA, French Security Force, the Mossad and the KGB. In so doing, Legerdemain brings to the reader an understanding of the Islamist mind set and sets the stage for the affairs of the Twenty-First Century.
Leggings Revolt (Orca Currents)
by Monique PolakEric and his buddies have left behind their all boys school to attend high school with girls. Eager to find his place in this exciting new world, Eric joins the student life committee, unaware that he is expected to enforce the school's strict dress code. The dress code is particularly harsh on the girls he is keen to get to know. Eric finds this awkward, but it's nothing compared to the position he finds himself in when the whole school revolts.
Legibility: An Antifascist Poetics (Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics)
by John KinsellaThis Pivot book provides a wide-ranging and diverse commentary on issues of legibility (and illegibility) around poetry, antifascist pacifist activism, environmentalism and the language of protest. A timely meditation from poet John Kinsella, the book focuses on participation in protest, demonstration and intervention on behalf of human rights activism, and writing and acting peacefully but persistently against tyranny. The book also examines how we make records and what we do with them, how we might use poetry to act or enact and/or to discuss such necessities and events. A book about community, human and animal rights and the way poetry can be used as a peaceful and decisive means of intervention in moment of public social and environmental crisis. Ultimately, it is a poetics against fascism with a focus on the well-being of the biosphere and all it contains.
Legion of Peace: 20 Paths to Super Happiness
by Muhammad Yunus Kabir Sehgal Monica Yunus Camille ZamoraNobel Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus profiles 20 Nobel Peace Prize laureates with Multi-Grammy-winning producer and New York Times bestselling author Kabir Sehgal, Monica Yunus, and Camille Zamora, teaching readers to incorporate lessons from each laureate's life into their own. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Times} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Times; min-height: 13.0px} When Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred B. Nobel passed in 1896, he left several millions in his will to establish the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded annually in six concentrations: peace, literature, physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, and economic science. Since its establishment, there have been over 130 Nobel Peace laureates selected, each bringing his/her own unique experiences and lessons forward as an example to others. In LEGION OF PEACE, Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, Kabir Sehgal, Monica Yunus, and Camille Zamora profile 20 prize recipients in a narrative accompanied by songs inspired by these great leaders, composed by Grammy-nominated children's artist Lori Henriques Quintet and three-time Grammy-nominated pianist Joey Alexander. Through this lyrical narrative, the authors share stories of these laureates' seemingly ordinary actions that transformed their lives and communities. The authors assign a superpower to each laureate that exemplifies the one basic principle that guided their actions, demonstrating to readers that all people from vastly different backgrounds can be connected by a common thread to come together to form a legion of peace.
Legislated Rights: Securing Human Rights through Legislation
by Grégoire Webber Bradley W. Miller Paul Yowell Richard Ekins Maris Köpcke Francisco J. UrbinaThe important aspects of human wellbeing outlined in human rights instruments and constitutional bills of rights can only be adequately secured as and when they are rendered the object of specific rights and corresponding duties. It is often assumed that the main responsibility for specifying the content of such genuine rights lies with courts. Legislated Rights: Securing Human Rights through Legislation argues against this assumption, by showing how legislatures can and should be at the centre of the practice of human rights. This jointly authored book explores how and why legislatures, being strategically placed within a system of positive law, can help realise human rights through modes of protection that courts cannot provide by way of judicial review.
Legislating Authority: Sin and Crime in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey
by Ruth MillerLegislation Authority addresses issues of law, state violence, and state authority within the Ottoman and Turkish context.
Legislating Foreign Policy
by Hoyt Purvis Steven J. BakerBeginning with the premise that Congress has reasserted its role in U.S. foreign policy, the authors of this book describe, analyze, and evaluate how Congress is exercising its formal and informal powers and responsibilities. Five policy studies examine congressional action in major policy areas, placing Congress's behavior in the institutional and
Legislating Instability: Adam Smith, Free Banking, and the Financial Crisis of 1722
by Tyler Beck GoodspeedFrom 1716 to 1845 Scottish banks were among the most dynamic and resilient in Europe, effectively absorbing economic shocks that rocked markets in London and on the continent. Tyler Beck Goodspeed explains the paradox that Scotland’s banking system achieved this success without the regulations Adam Smith considered necessary for economic stability.
Legislating Privacy: Technology, Social Values, and Public Policy
by Priscilla M. ReganWhile technological threats to personal privacy have proliferated rapidly, legislation designed to protect privacy has been slow and incremental. In this study of legislative attempts to reconcile privacy and technology, Priscilla Regan examines congressional policy making in three key areas: computerized databases, wiretapping, and polygraph testing. In each case, she argues, legislation has represented an unbalanced compromise benefiting those with a vested interest in new technology over those advocating privacy protection. Legislating Privacy explores the dynamics of congressional policy formulation and traces the limited response of legislators to the concept of privacy as a fundamental individual right. According to Regan, we will need an expanded understanding of the social value of privacy if we are to achieve greater protection from emerging technologies such as Caller ID and genetic testing. Specifically, she argues that a recognition of the social importance of privacy will shift both the terms of the policy debate and the patterns of interest-group action in future congressional activity on privacy issues.Originally published in 1995.A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
Legislating in the Dark: Information and Power in the House of Representatives (Chicago Studies in American Politics)
by James M. CurryThe 2009 financial stimulus bill ran to more than 1,100 pages, yet it wasn't even given to Congress in its final form until thirteen hours before debate was set to begin, and it was passed twenty-eight hours later. How are representatives expected to digest so much information in such a short time. The answer? They aren't. With Legislating in the Dark, James M. Curry reveals that the availability of information about legislation is a key tool through which Congressional leadership exercises power. Through a deft mix of legislative analysis, interviews, and participant observation, Curry shows how congresspersons--lacking the time and resources to study bills deeply themselves--are forced to rely on information and cues from their leadership. By controlling their rank-and-file's access to information, Congressional leaders are able to emphasize or bury particular items, exploiting their information advantage to push the legislative agenda in directions that they and their party prefer. Offering an unexpected new way of thinking about party power and influence, Legislating in the Dark will spark substantial debate in political science.