This book examines what makes the United States an exceptional society, what impact it has had abroad, and why these issues have mattered to Americans. With historical and comparative evidence, Frank J. Lechner describes the distinctive path of American institutions and tracks changes in the country’s national identity in order to assess claims about America’s ‘exceptional’ qualities. The book analyzes several focal points of exceptionalist thinking about America, including the importance of US Constitution and the American sense of mission, and explores several aspects of America’s distinctive global impact; for example, in economics and film. In addition to discussing the distinctive global impact of the US, this first volume delves into religion, law, and sports.
Information Law Series Volume 45 In a copyright system characterised by broad and long-lasting exclusive rights, exceptions provide a vital counterweight, especially in times of rampant technological change. The EU’s controversial InfoSoc Directive – now two decades old – lists exceptions in which an unauthorised user will not have infringed the rightholder’s copyright. To reform or not to reform this legal framework – that is the question considered in great depth in this book, providing detailed theoretical and normative analysis of the Directive, the national and CJEU case law arising from it, and meticulously thought-out proposals for change. By breaking down the concepts of ‘flexibility’ and ‘legal certainty’ into a set of policy objectives and assessment criteria, the author thoroughly examines such core aspects of the framework as the following: the justifications for exceptions, e.g., safeguarding the fundamental rights of users; the regimes established in legislation and case law for key exceptions; the need to promote technological development; the importance of avoiding re-fragmentation caused by uncoordinated national legislative responses to technological changes; the legal status of digital technologies that rely on unauthorised uses of copyright-protected works; and the pros and cons of importing a fair use standard modelled after that of the United States. In an invaluable concluding chapter, the author puts forward a set of reform proposals, articulating their advantages and responding to potential objections. In doing so, the chapter also identifies, synthesises and critically examines the various proposals that have been advanced in the academic literature. In its decisive contribution to the debate around the InfoSoc Directive and the rules that guide its implementation, interpretation, and application, this book isolates the contentious structural features of the framework and examines them in a critical fashion. The author’s systematised review of scholarly and policymaking proposals for increasing flexibility and legal certainty in EU copyright law will be welcomed by practitioners in intellectual property law and other areas of economic law, as well as by interested policymakers and scholars.
In the process of resolving disputes, it is not uncommon for parties to justify actions otherwise in breach of their obligations by invoking the need to protect some aspect of the elusive concept of public order. Until this thoroughly researched book, the criteria and factors against which international dispute bodies assess such claims have remained unclear. Now, by providing an in-depth comparative analysis of relevant jurisprudence under four distinct international dispute resolution systems – trade, investment, human rights and international commercial arbitration – the author of this invaluable book identifies common core benchmarks for the application of the public order exception. To achieve the broadest possible scope for her analysis, the author examines the public order exception’s function, role and application within the following international dispute resolution systems: relevant World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements as enforced by the organization’s Dispute Settlement Body and Appellate Body; international investment agreements as enforced by competent Arbitral Tribunals and Annulment Committees under the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes; provisions under the Inter-American Convention of Human Rights and the European Convention of Human Rights as enforced by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights, respectively; and the New York Convention as enforced by national tribunals across the world. Controversies, tensions and pitfalls inherent in invoking the public order exception are elucidated, along with clear guidelines on how arguments may be crafted in order to enhance prospects of success. Throughout, tables and graphs systematize key aspects of the relevant jurisprudence under each of the dispute resolution systems analysed. As an immediate practical resource for lawyers on any side of a dispute who wish to invoke or strengthen a public order exception claim, the book’s systematic analysis will be welcomed by lawyers active in WTO disputes, international investment arbitration, human rights law or enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. Academics and policymakers will find a signal contribution to the ongoing debate on the existence, legal basis, content and functions of the transnational public order.
The fifth edition of Understanding Criminal Procedure is new in many respects. Most significantly, it has been enlarged to two volumes. The first volume is intended for use in criminal procedure courses focusing primarily or exclusively on police investigatory process. Such courses are variously titled: Criminal Procedure I; Criminal Procedure: Investigation; Criminal Procedure: Police Practices; Constitutional Criminal Procedure; etc. Because some such courses also cover the defendant's right to counsel at trial and appeal, the first volume includes a chapter on this non-police-practice issue. (The latter chapter is also included in Volume Two.) The second volume of Understanding Criminal Procedure covers the criminal process after the police investigation ends, and the adjudicative process commences. This book is useful in criminal procedure courses (variously entitled Criminal Procedure II; Criminal Procedure: Adjudication; etc.) that follow the criminal process through the various stages of adjudication, commencing with pretrial issues — such as charging, pretrial release and discovery — and continuing with the trial itself and then post-conviction proceedings: sentencing and appeals. Understanding Criminal Procedure is primarily designed for law students. The authors have written the Text so that students can use it with confidence that it will assist them in course preparation, and professors can recommend or assign the volumes to students with confidence that they will improve classroom dialogue. Based on comments that the authors received in the past from students and professors alike, they predict that this new, expanded edition of Understanding Criminal Procedure will serve the needs of students and professors even better. Also, based on the experience of prior editions, including citations to this Text in scholarly literature and judicial opinions, we are confident that the two volumes will prove useful to scholars, practicing lawyers, and courts. Understanding Criminal Procedure covers the most important United States Supreme Court cases in the field. Where pertinent, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, federal statutes, and lower federal and state court cases are considered. The broad overarching policy issues of criminal procedure are laid out; and some of the hottest debates in the field are considered in depth and, we think, objectively. Readers should find the Text user-friendly. Students who want a thorough grasp of a topic can and should read the relevant chapter in its entirety. However, each chapter is divided into subsections, so that readers with more refined research needs can find answers to their questions efficiently. The authors also include citations to important scholarship, both classic and recent, into which readers may delve more deeply regarding specific topics. And, because so many of the topics interrelate, cross-referencing footnotes are included, so that readers can easily move from one part of the Text to another, if necessary.
AILC is an annual case law reporter that provides the full text of U.S. court opinions involving international law issues. The courts covered include all U.S. federal district courts, federal appellate courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as some state courts, the U.S. Court of Claims, the U.S. Court of International Trade, and the U.S. Tax Court. The series seeks to provide not every single case in which a court refers to international law but rather all cases that analyze at least one international law issue in depth. The list of subjects addressed by these volumes is vast and changes from year to year, with the inclusion and prominence of most topics turning on their prevalence in a given year's jurisprudence. Some consistently prominent topics are personal jurisdiction over foreign defendants, deportation procedure, and double taxation. Over the last three editions (2006, 2007, and 2008), many topics have developed rapidly and constitute a correspondingly larger portion of the volumes, particularly Terrorism, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Forum Non Conveniens, and an entirely new, added topic: the National Security Exception (to deportation eligibility). The 2008 edition of AILC also features expanded sections on family law and on the detention of terrorist suspects. The U.S. war on terror and the crisis at Guantanamo have made that last topic a significant and dynamic component of AILC. Each edition of AILC also comes framed with two practical resources for students and scholars. The first is an introductory editor's note that both reviews international law's major developments for the given year and explains to readers how to use the volumes. The second is a subject index to allow for targeted research. Volume One of AILC consists of cases involving international law in general and territories, trusteeships, boundaries and navigable waters. For example, in Abdullahi v. Pfizer, Inc., the Plaintiff-Appellants sued under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), claiming defendants violated a customary international law norm prohibiting involuntary medical experimentation on humans. Among other rulings, the appellate court ruled that the district court incorrectly determined that the prohibition in customary international law against nonconsensual human medical experimentation cannot be enforced through the ATS, and reversed and remanded for further proceedings. In Cunzhu Zheng v. Yahoo! Inc., the plaintiffs alleged that Yahoo! China disclosed to the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) specific personal information about plaintiffs, and that, as a result of the disclosures, plaintiffs were subjected by the PRC to serious injuries and serious economic damages. The court examined whether the Electronic Communications Privacy Act applies outside the United States and ruled that it did not.
