Food, water, health, housing, and education are fundamental to human freedom and dignity, yet only recently have legal systems begun to secure these fundamental individual interests as rights. This book analyses the transformation of socio-economic rights into constitutional rights, and their impact on public law and constitutional theory.
This book is devoted to the theory of legal theory, also referred to as the "meta-theory of law". The aim of this emerging discipline is to determine the objectives, aims and methods of legal theory, and to establish the conditions of possibility as well as the validity criteria for theoretical discourse on law. The contributions in this book provide an overview of these aspects through different perspectives and approaches. The very purpose of legal theory has been disputed and the subject area is currently subject to increasing cross-fertilization between different, and sometimes diverging, traditions. Meta-theory of Law assesses these emerging trends by questioning two basic objects of legal theory, the "nature" and the "science" of law.
Judges and lawyers have to shape their moral competences in order to maintain their professional ethics at a high standard if they want to effectively meet the challenges that modern society will throw at them. This requirement is due to the growing expectation that they will be socially and morally responsible for the law. Thus, the need to place ethics at the heart of legal education, and to make ethical reflection pervasive in academic courses, becomes more obvious every day. Using the concept and examples of moral dilemmas is a way of facilitating this task. The main purpose of this book is to analyse the concept of moral dilemma in context of judicial and legal ethics, and to provide material for legal education. The structure of this book is designed with this double aim in mind. The theoretical part presents the concept of dilemmas on grounds of metaethics and the perspectives for its application in a professional legal context. The former encompasses situations of conflict of duties or obligations, in which the choice of one conduct necessarily prevents a different conduct, and therefore leads to an unacceptable outcome. Hence, the situation of dilemma always involves an issue of moral responsibility and the problem of “dirty hands”. How such situations are present in legal practice and how to deal with them is the main concern of this part. The considerations are divided into three levels of reflection – deontological, axiological, and moral responsibility. The practical part of the book contains an overview of 150 dilemmas that can be useful in legal ethics or other legal courses. The dilemmas are divided into chapters covering the following branches of law: criminal law, civil and commercial law, family and custody law, labour and social security law, and constitutional law. Every dilemma presents a description of the facts, a reconstruction of dilemma, its standard solution and some critical remarks from a meta-ethical perspective. The dilemmas cover situations regularly met in everyday practice, as well as examples of more exceptional challenges in connection with constitutional crises that have occurred in Poland in recent years.
This book sets out to defend the claim that Equity ought to remain a separate body of law; the temptation to iron-out the differences between neighbouring doctrines on the two sides of the Equity/Common Law divide should, in most cases, be resisted. The theoretical part of the book is argues that the characteristics of Equity, namely, appeal to conscience, flexibility, retroactivity and the use of morally-freighted jargon, are essential for the implementation of a legal ideal that has been neglected by the Common Law: âAccountability Correspondenceâ. According to this fundamental legal ideal, liability imposed by legal rules should correspond to the pattern of moral duty in the circumstances to which the rules apply. Equity promotes this ideal in the fields of property and obligations by disallowing parties to exploit the rule-like nature of Common Law norms in a way that breaches their moral duty to the other party. By reference to various equitable doctrines, it is argued that the faults identified by critics of Equity, especially from the perspective of the Rule of Law, are highly exaggerated, and that the criticism often reflects a political belief in the supremacy of individualism and free market over empathy and social justice. The theoretical part is followed by three chapters, each dedicated to an in-depth analysis of the equitable doctrines of fiduciary duties, proprietary estoppel, and clean hands. For each doctrine, it is shown how their equitable characteristics are indispensable for achieving their social, ethical and economic purpose.
A systematic analysis considers the objectivity of ethics, the relationship between the moral point of view and a scientific or naturalist worldview and its role in a person's rational lifespan.
Winner of the 2022 Commendation for Excellence by the International Association for Legal and Social Philosophy (IVR). What is the value of fictions, metaphors, figures and scenarios in adjudication? This book develops three models to help answer that question: inquiry, artefacts and imagination. Legal language, it is argued, contains artefacts – forms that signal their own artifice and call upon us to do things with them. To imagine, in turn, is to enter a distinctive epistemic frame where we temporarily suspend certain epistemic norms and commitments and participate actively along a spectrum of affective, sensory and kinesic involvement. The book argues that artefacts and related processes of imagination are valuable insofar as they enable inquiry in adjudication, ie the social (interactive and collective) process of making insight into what values, vulnerabilities and interests might be at stake in a case and in similar cases in the future. Artefacts of Legal Inquiry is structured in two parts, with the first offering an account of the three models of inquiry, artefacts and imagination, and the second examining four case studies (fictions, metaphors, figures and scenarios). Drawing on a broad range of theoretical traditions – including philosophy of imagination and emotion, the theory and history of rhetoric, and the cognitive humanities – this book offers an interdisciplinary defence of the importance of artefactual language and imagination in adjudication.
The post-Cold War proliferation of international adjudicatory bodies and increase in litigation has greatly affected international law and politics. A growing number of international courts and tribunals, exercising jurisdiction over international crimes and sundry international disputes, have become, in some respects, the lynchpin of the international legal system. The Oxford Handbook of International Adjudication charts the transformations in international adjudication that took place astride the twentieth and twenty-first century, bringing together the insight of 47 prominent legal, philosophical, ethical, political, and social science scholars. Overall, the 40 contributions in this Handbook provide an original and comprehensive understanding of the various contemporary forms of international adjudication. The Handbook is divided into six parts. Part I provides an overview of the origins and evolution of international adjudicatory bodies, from the nineteenth century to the present, highlighting the dynamics driving the multiplication of international adjudicative bodies and their uneven expansion. Part II analyses the main families of international adjudicative bodies, providing a detailed study of state-to-state, criminal, human rights, regional economic, and administrative courts and tribunals, as well as arbitral tribunals and international compensation bodies. Part III lays out the theoretical approaches to international adjudication, including those of law, political science, sociology, and philosophy. Part IV examines some contemporary issues in international adjudication, including the behavior, role, and effectiveness of international judges and the political constraints that restrict their function, as well as the making of international law by international courts and tribunals, the relationship between international and domestic adjudicators, the election and selection of judges, the development of judicial ethical standards, and the financing of international courts. Part V examines key actors in international adjudication, including international judges, legal counsel, international prosecutors, and registrars. Finally, Part VI overviews select legal and procedural issues facing international adjudication, such as evidence, fact-finding and experts, jurisdiction and admissibility, the role of third parties, inherent powers, and remedies. The Handbook is an invaluable and thought-provoking resource for scholars and students of international law and political science, as well as for legal practitioners at international courts and tribunals.
This volume is a collection of chapters all contributed by individuals who have presented their ideas at conferences and who take moderate stands with the use of animals in research. Specifically the chapters bear of the issues of: notions of the moral standings of animals, history of the methods of argumentation, knowledge of the animal mind, nature and value of regulatory structures, how respect for animals can be converted from theory to action in the laboratory. The chapters have been tempered by open discussion with individuals with different opinions and not audiences of true believers. It is the hope of all, that careful consideration of the positions in these chapters will leave reader with a deepened understanding--not necessarily a hardened position.
This book offers a critical appraisal of Karl Olivecrona’s legal philosophy. Based on Olivecrona’s critique of the view that law has binding force, the analysis of the concept and function of a legal rule, and the idea that law is a matter of organized force, the book argues that Olivecrona’s legal philosophy is a unique contribution to twentieth century legal philosophy. It shows how Olivecrona’s philosophy can be used in the assessment of contemporary theories of law, such as those put forward by Hart, Raz, Dworkin, and Alexy. In addition, the book argues that Olivecrona’s various discussions of theories defended by key people in the history of legal and political philosophy are highly interesting contributions. They not only increase our understanding of the legal and political philosophy of previous generations, but also enhances our insight into legal-philosophical questions that remain with us today.
