This text is a study of the public/private law divide in the common law tradition. Its starting point is that substantive duties of legality, fairness and rationality are imposed by the common law on bodies discharging public functions, but not always on bodies discharging 'private' functions.
"This publication is a collection of papers of the second meeting of the Dornburg Research Group on New Administrative Law which was held in London in May 2007"--Acknowledgments.
The rapidly transforming legal landscape calls into question the conceptual and value structures modern concepts of public law are built upon. Examining the nature and scope of public law, this volume casts new light on the contemporary and future status of public law, asking what might come after public law in a global legal world.
International rules on trade in services and intellectual property arenew additions to the multilateral trading system, but both have played an important role in the system since their entry. Accompanied by a detailed introduction, this volume contains essays which cover not only the law and jurisprudence of these topics but also the underlying economics and politics behind their incorporation into the multilateral system and continued prominence. The volume provides readers with a comprehensive overview of the development of these controversial and increasingly important areas of international trade law.
The reader is invited to follow a route that visits Fish's view of theory and practice,Raz's legal reasoning thesis, theoretical models of judicial review, Dworkin's right answer thesis, the law of the excluded middle and Lukasiewicz's development of three-valued logic, Wittgenstein's language games, and Moore's metaphysical realism. The destination is the practice at the heart of legal reasoning. It is suggested that this manifests the way in which the limitations of language and the incompleteness of human experience allow the opportunity for coherent development of the law and at the same time produce an inherent incoherence within the law. The central part of the book seeks to demonstrate how the problems of understanding legal reasoning replicate difficulties encountered in the philosophy of language, but challenges the attempts that have been made to harness approaches from within that discipline to illuminate legal reasoning. Instead it is argued that law provides an unrivalled test-bed for examining the limits of the capacity of our words, and that the study of law may be used to confront in a robust and illuminating manner the limitations of that discipline. The final chapter considers some of the implications of recognising the incoherence at the heart of legal reasoning, commenting on an institutional approach to law, the legitimacy of law, legal definitions, different approaches to legal reasoning, the role of appellate courts, the general possibility of providing a theoretical model of law, the use of legal rules, and the nature of law's critical aperture. The book should be of interest to advanced undergraduate students (particularly on jurisprudence courses), postgraduate students, academics, and practitioners concerned to reflect on the nature of the discipline they practice.
This book provides a general overview of accountability, a key concept in modern democratic governance. Richard Mulgan draws on examples and analyses from the United States and the United Kingdom as well as other 'Westminster' countries. Major topics discussed include the contrast between accountability in the public and private sectors, the effects of public management reforms on accountability, accountability for collective actions, accountability in networks and the limits of accountability.
Whether examining election outcomes, the legal status of terrorism suspects, or if (or how) people can be sentenced to death, a judge in a modern democracy assumes a role that raises some of the most contentious political issues of our day. But do judges even have a role beyond deciding the disputes before them under law? What are the criteria for judging the justices who write opinions for the United States Supreme Court or constitutional courts in other democracies? These are the questions that one of the world's foremost judges and legal theorists, Aharon Barak, poses in this book. In fluent prose, Barak sets forth a powerful vision of the role of the judge. He argues that this role comprises two central elements beyond dispute resolution: bridging the gap between the law and society, and protecting the constitution and democracy. The former involves balancing the need to adapt the law to social change against the need for stability; the latter, judges' ultimate accountability, not to public opinion or to politicians, but to the "internal morality" of democracy. Barak's vigorous support of "purposive interpretation" (interpreting legal texts--for example, statutes and constitutions--in light of their purpose) contrasts sharply with the influential "originalism" advocated by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. As he explores these questions, Barak also traces how supreme courts in major democracies have evolved since World War II, and he guides us through many of his own decisions to show how he has tried to put these principles into action, even under the burden of judging on terrorism.
The abuse of workers in export processing zones in developing countries, the undignified treatment of elderly people in care homes, and the dangers for internet users' privacy arising from private companies' control of their data are prominent examples of how our most fundamental interests are increasingly jeopardized by powerful private actors. Jean Thomas argues that, while these interests are protected by human and constitutional rights in relation to the state, no similar protections exist in relations among private actors. To address this problem, she develops a theoretical framework for the application of human and constitutional rights among private actors. The author proposes a theory of private liability for public rights violations that allows us to answer the question: who should bear the duties associated with human and constitutional rights in the private sphere? And what do private actors owe one another in respect of the interests protected by these rights? In advancing a model of rights that makes the application of public rights among private actors morally plausible and institutionally feasible, the book also illuminates the broader conceptual question of what rights are.
This book considers the extent to which religious interests are protected at work, with particular reference to the protection against religious discrimination provided by the Equality Act 2010. It establishes a principled basis for determining the proper scope of religious freedom at work, and considers the interaction of freedom of religion with the right not to be discriminated against on grounds of religion and belief. The book locates the debates surrounding religion and belief equality within a philosophical and theoretical framework in which the importance of freedom of religion and its role within the workplace are fully debated. This second edition is fully revised and updated in the light of recent case law from the UK and the European Court of Human Rights, which deals with religious discrimination and freedom of religion.
This collection of fifteen essays by leading experts in regulation is unique in its focus on the constitutional implications of recent regulatory developments in the UK, the EU, and the US. The chapters reflect current developments and crises which are significant in many areas of public policy, not only regulation. These include the development of governance in place of government in many policy areas, the emergence of networks of public and private actors, the credit crunch, techniques for countering climate change, the implications for fundamental rights of regulatory arrangements and the development of complex accountability mechanisms designed to promote policy objectives. Constitutional issues discussed in The Regulatory State include regulatory governance, models of economic and social regulation, non-parliamentary rule-making, the UK's devolution arrangements and regulation, the credit crisis, the rationing of common resources, regulation and fundamental rights, the European Competition Network, private law making and European integration, innovative regulator sanctions recently introduced in the UK, the auditing of regulatory reform, and parliamentary oversight and judicial review of regulators. The introductory chapter focuses on testing times for regulation, and the concluding chapter draws ten lessons from the substantive chapters, noting the importance of regulatory diversity, the complexity of networks and relations between regulatory actors and the executive, the new challenges to regulatory habits posed by climate change and the credit crisis, the wider economic and legal context in which regulation takes place and the accountability networks - including judicial review, parliamentary oversight and audit - within which regulation operates.