The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 (or Belfast Agreement) promises the people of Northern Ireland a fresh start underpinned by guarantees on human rights, equality, and participation. Scholars from Ireland and England examine developments in Northern Ireland stemming from the Agreement and identify key themes in the current law and politics of Northern Ireland. Topics discussed include Northern Ireland and the European Union, the role of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, and policing in Northern Ireland. Harvey teaches constitutional and human rights law at the University of Leeds. Distributed by ISBS. c. Book News Inc.
This collection addresses the present and the future of the concept of intersectionality within socio-legal studies. Including contributions from a range of international scholars, this book interrogates what has become a key organizing concept across a range of disciplines, most particularly law, political theory, and cultural studies.
This book provides an account and analysis of policing in Northern Ireland, following the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) from the start of 'the troubles' in the 1960s up to 1999. It focuses on three key aspects of the police legitimation process: reform measures which are implemented to redress a legitimacy crisis; representational strategies which are invoked to offer positive images of policing; and public responses to these various strategies. The book also makes a powerful contribution to wider current debates about police legitimacy, police-community relations, community resistance, and conflict resolution.
Democratic design is increasingly seen as the key to crafting stability in the fragile states of the developing world. Getting the democratic institutions right may not guarantee success but getting them wrong has led to violent collapse in many socially divided states. The Architecture of Democracy brings together both theory and case study evidence to provide the reader with an excellent overview of the cutting edge of academic debate and its practical implications for democratic design in the 21st century. The discipline of constitutional engineering reached maturity in the 1990s with theories of ethnic polarization and democratic conflict management being applied in trouble spots across the globe. Andrew Reynolds brings together the leading lights of the discipline to discuss the successes and failures of constitutional design. The two icons of modern constitutional design, Arend Lijphart and Donald Horowitz, lead off by debating their own contributions to the field. Then Olga Shvetsova, Timothy Frye, and José Antônio Cheibub, present important new evidence from Europe, the Central and Eastern Europe/Asia, and Latin America. Steven Solnick, Yash Ghai, Pippa Norris, and Rein Taagepera analyze the effects of presdential and parliamentary systems, issues of federalism and autonomy, and the varying impact of electoral systems. The book concludes with Brij Lal's case study of Fiji, Brendan O'Leary on Northern Ireland, Bereket Habte Selassie on Eritrea, William Liddle on Indonesia, Rotimi Suburu and Larry Diamond on Nigeria, and David Stuligross and Ashutosh Varshney on India. The Architecture of Democracy is the culmination of the study of constitutional engineering in the third wave of democracy and sets parameters for this crucial research as democracy diffuses across the world.
The United Kingdom has been a member of the European Union for forty three years. Although EU membership has brought numerous indisputable benefits, anti-EU sentiment, simmering for decades, has now reached the point where an upcoming referendum could quite possibly lead to exit from the Union - an enormously topical issue dubbed 'Brexit'. This very timely book addresses the major concerns and uncertainties associated with this looming prospect. Outstanding scholars of British constitutional law and EU law discuss such factors as the impact of EU membership on the UK constitution and the perspectives of the UK's constituent regions, along with numerous practical issues of economics and administration. Specific topics covered include: - the EU and the sovereignty debate; - the impact of Brexit in the devolved United Kingdom; - options available to the UK; - residence rights post-Brexit; - debates over the structure of the referendum; - existing and potential role of jurisprudence (domestic and EU); - environmental law; - negotiating treaties; - judicial protection; - Opt-outs; - EU criminal law; - labour rights; - equal protection; - human rights under the Charter of Fundamental Rights; and - financial and economic governance. With Brexit becoming the largest single issue to affect the United Kingdom's place in the world, this volume is certain to be widely read and referenced in the time before, during, and after the referendum. It will also remain of great value as social, political, and economic events unfold in the post-referendum United Kingdom.
This text explains why Northern Ireland's national divisions have made the achievement of a consociational agreement particularly difficult. The issues raised in the book are central to a proper understanding of Northern Ireland's past and future.
The Northern/Irish Feminist Judgments Project inaugurates a fresh dialogue on gender, legal judgment, judicial power and national identity in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Through a process of judicial re-imagining, the project takes account of the peculiarly Northern/Irish concerns in shaping gender through judicial practice. This collection, following on from feminist judgments projects in Canada, England and Australia takes the feminist judging methodology in challenging new directions. This book collects 26 rewritten judgments, covering a range of substantive areas. As well as opinions from appellate courts, the book includes fi rst instance decisions and a fi ctional review of a Tribunal of Inquiry. Each feminist judgment is accompanied by a commentary putting the case in its social context and explaining the original decision. The book also includes introductory chapters examining the project methodology, constructions of national identity, theoretical and conceptual issues pertaining to feminist judging, and the legal context of both jurisdictions. The book, shines a light on past and future possibilities - and limitations - for judgment on the island of Ireland. 'This book provides a rich and expansive addition to the feminist judgments catalogue. The ... judgments demonstrate powerfully how Northern/Irish judges have contributed to the gendered politics of national identity, and how the narrow subject-positions they have created for women and 'others' could have been so much wider and more open.' Professor Rosemary Hunter, School of Law, Queen Mary University London. 'The Northern/Irish Feminist Judgments Project is inspirational reading for anyone interested in feminism or Irish studies ... It is a model of how to conduct feminist enquiry. Its most innovative contribution to scholarship and politics is how the rewriting of landmark legal judgments from a feminist perspective allows us to imagine (and therefore begin to construct) a more egalitarian, a more just, future.' Associate Professor Katherine O'Donnell, School of Philosophy, University College Dublin. If you let it, this book will make you think. ... It made me think – it reminded me, I suppose – that legal writing can be wonderful: rigorous, creative, deeply observant, provocative. Read it and see what it makes you think. Professor Thérèse Murphy, School of Law, Queen's University Belfast
Law making is a primary function of government, and how well the three devolved UK legislatures exercise this function will be a crucial test of the whole devolution project. This book provides the first systematic study and authoritative data to start that assessment. It represents the fruits of a four-year collaboration between top constitutional lawyers from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and leading researchers in UCL's Constitution Unit. The book opens with detailed studies of law making in the period 1999–2004 in the Scottish Parliament and the Assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland, and how they interact with Westminster. Later contributions look at aspects of legislative partnership in the light of the UK's strongly asymmetric devolutionary development, and also explain the unexpected impact of devolution on the courts. Individual chapters focus on various constitutional aspects of law making, examining the interplay of continuity and change in political, legal and administrative practice, and the competing pressures for convergence and divergence between the different parliaments and assemblies. This book is essential reading for academics and students in law and in politics, and for anyone interested in the constitutional and legal aspects of UK devolution, not least the practitioners and policymakers in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast.
This volume provides a timely and revealing account of women's constitutional strategies and struggles. It compares and contrasts the latest constitutional developments within the United Kingdom with women's past and present struggles in countries including Canada, the United States and South Africa. Through theoretical engagement and practical experiences, the contributors develop crucial arguments on the nature and effect of constitutional change, equality, women's rights and representation. This shows how women, through their words and deeds, have challenged and shaped the nature and forms of constitutionalism.
