This volume discusses the theory, practice, and interpretation of customary international law, as well as new developments and future research trajectories. Combining discussions of familiar concepts with new ideas, it is useful for researchers, scholars, and practitioners of international law. Available Open Access on Cambridge Core.
This book is about international humanitarian law or - as it is also called - the "law of armed conflict"or "law of war". It emerged from a series of lectures delivered at the Hague Academy of International Law. The author deals with war and the means by which international law attempts to contain and, as it were, "humanize" organized violence. But the ambitions of the author go beyond the battlefield. The book explores the many complex ways in which law functions to regulate warfare, in theory and practice. The author looks into treaties and other sources of international law, but he also tries to step outside the boundaries of "black-letter law"to deal broadly with such matters as the influence of culture in shaping the norms on war, the institutions that develop those norms and work for their universal acceptance, the networks of humanitarian actors in this area and the legal procedures in which the law of war and its various institutions are embedded. The book demonstrates that even wars are, in various ways, conducted in "the shadow of the law".
This book engages the field of practice theory in order to consider law as a social practice. Taking up the theoretical concept of practices, the contributors to this volume maintain that law can be fruitfully understood as one among other social practices. Including perspectives from philosophers of language, experts in practice theory, linguists and legal philosophers, the book examines the twin questions of what it means for law to be considered a practice, and what law’s place is among other social practices. The book is comprised of three parts. The first provides a broad methodological framework for discussing how the concept of practice is used in the social sciences, and in law. The second deals with specific problems arising from the use of the concept of practice in the legal context, and from the intersection of different social practices. The third part identifies and addresses the consequences of applying insights from practice theory to law. Together, they offer a comprehensive consideration of what is at stake in understanding law as a social practice. This book will appeal to sociolegal scholars, sociologists of law, philosophers of language and action, as well as philosophers of law and legal theorists.
The Continuity of Legal Systems in Theory and Practice examines a persistent and fascinating question about the continuity of legal systems: when is a legal system existing at one time the same legal system that exists at another time? The book's distinctive approach to this question is to combine abstract critical analysis of two of the most developed theories of legal systems, those of Hans Kelsen and Joseph Raz, with an evaluation of their capacity, in practice, to explain the facts, attitudes and normative standards for which they purport to account. That evaluation is undertaken by reference to Australian constitutional law and history, whose diverse and complex phenomena make it particularly apt for evaluating the theories' explanatory power. In testing whether the depiction of Australian law presented by each theory achieves an adequate 'fit' with historical facts, the book also contributes to the understanding of Australian law and legal systems between 1788 and 2001. By collating the relevant Australian materials systematically for the first time, it presents the case for reconceptualising the role of Imperial laws and institutions during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and clarifies the interrelationship between Colonial, State, Commonwealth and Imperial legal systems, both before and after Federation.
Theory, Law and Practice of Maritime Arbitration The Case of International Contracts for the Carriage of Goods by Sea Eva Litina It is estimated that over 80% of global trade by volume is carried by sea, making maritime transport a cornerstone of the global economy. Most disputes in the shipping industry are settled by distinctive, private arbitral proceedings that are best understood by a close examination of the standard form contracts that are used in practice and of the case law arising therefrom. Extrapolating insightfully from these sources, the author of this book examines in depth the phenomenon of maritime arbitration with a specific focus on contracts for the carriage of goods by sea. She offers the first comprehensive and comparative analysis of arbitral practice in the three jurisdictions where the most frequently selected maritime arbitral seats are located: London, New York, and Singapore. An analysis of the applicable rules and relevant case law in each jurisdiction provides the basis from which a comparative assessment of maritime arbitral seats is achieved. The book addresses the following key aspects of maritime arbitration: maritime arbitration’s definition, origins, theoretical underpinnings, socioeconomic context, and significance; the maritime-specific reasons for wide use of ad hoc versus institutional arbitration; the international instruments governing arbitration in contracts for the carriage of goods by sea; the shipping industry’s pursuit of self-regulation via standard form contracts; the arbitration agreement contained in standard form charterparties and bills of lading; maritime arbitration’s unique approach to judicial review, confidentiality, and arbitrator impartiality; the specific dispute resolution objectives that compel a comparative assessment of maritime arbitral seats; and the future of maritime arbitration in light of international political, financial, and technological developments. In addition to the three main maritime arbitral seats, the analysis touches on maritime arbitration in other relevant jurisdictions, such as Hong Kong, Greece, Japan, and Korea, thus affording a comparison of the process in common and civil law jurisdictions. The book concludes by considering the potential impact of the current international political landscape, and suggesting future perspectives and research in international maritime arbitration. An important addition to scholarship in this field of law, the book’s thorough assessment of the merits of the competing maritime arbitral seats—and its specific focus on maritime disputes—will prove of significant importance to arbitrators, law firms, in-house counsel of shipping companies, international organizations, and arbitration institutions and associations. Practitioners will discover all tools necessary to examine any case before the main maritime arbitral seats with full awareness of each applicable legal regime and its distinguishing features.
From June 28 until July 4, 1972, a group of scholars, all of them acade micians committed to the critical study of man and society which may be called political theory, met at The Rockefeller Foundation's VillaSerbelloni in Bellagio, Italy, to present papers on and discuss the subject of "The Open Society. " These papers, as revised, are published here, most of them for the first time. They reflect no consensus of view, nor were they intended to do so. That such a consensus did not emerge from the conference is not in our judgment a cause for regret; it may rather be regarded as a manifestation of a healthy and desirable plurality of approaches which itself indirectly tells us something important about the nature of the open society. All the papers deal in different contexts and from a variety of philosophi cal and theoretical perspectives with the interrelated themes of openness and the open society. Some of the panelists are skeptical of the capacity of modern industrial, or "post-industrial," society, with its heavy emphasis upon technological rationality to foster authentic openness under currently prevailing assumptions about man and nature.
This volume addresses the structural interrelations of Islamic theoretical and practical legal reasoning, based on an analysis of six works of Islamic jurisprudence by authors who lived in Uzbekistan, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Algeria between 970 and 1600 CE.
This multi-disciplinary, multi-jurisdictional collection offers the first ever full-scale analysis of legal fictions. Its focus is on fictions in legal practice, examining and evaluating their roles in a variety of different areas of practice (e.g. in Tort Law, Criminal Law and Intellectual Property Law) and in different times and places (e.g. in Roman Law, Rabbinic Law and the Common Law). The collection approaches the topic in part through the discussion of certain key classical statements by theorists including Jeremy Bentham, Alf Ross, Hans Vaihinger, Hans Kelsen and Lon Fuller. The collection opens with the first-ever translation into English of Kelsen’s review of Vaihinger’s As If. The 17 chapters are divided into four parts: 1) a discussion of the principal theories of fictions, as above, with a focus on Kelsen, Bentham, Fuller and classical pragmatism; 2) a discussion of the relationship between fictions and language; 3) a theoretical and historical examination and evaluation of fictions in the common law; and 4) an account of fictions in different practice areas and in different legal cultures. The collection will be of interest to theorists and historians of legal reasoning, as well as scholars and practitioners of the law more generally, in both common and civil law traditions.
Legal transplantation and reform in the name of globalisation is central to the transformation of Asian legal systems. The contributions to "Examining Practice, Interrogating Theory: Comparative Legal Studies in Asia" analyse particular legal changes in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, and Vietnam. The contributions also concurrently critically analyse the utility of scholarly developments in comparative legal studies, particularly discourse analysis; regulatory theory; legal pluralism; and socio-legal approaches, in the study of Asian legal systems. While these approaches are regularly invoked in the study of transforming European legal systems, the debate of their relevance and explanatory capacity beyond the European context is recent. By bringing together these diverse analytical tools and enabling a comparison of their insights through Asian empirical case studies, this book makes an invaluable contribution to the debates concerning legal change and the methods by which it is analysed globally, and within Asia.
