The Unwritten Law examines the values and assumptions of mid-Victorian England as revealed in the actual workings of the criminal justice system. The working definitions of criminality and justice were often influenced more by certain tacit assumptions than by the written law. Through a careful study of the ways that the status and circumstances of victims and suspects influenced judicial decisions, Conley provides important new insights into Victorian attitudes toward violence, women, children, community, and the all-important concept of respectability. She also addresses issues that continue to be of concern in today's society: How can equal justice be preserved when social and economic conditions and expectations are not equal? How can the rights of the accused be reconciled with those of victims--especially children? Can and should the courts interfere with the traditions of family and community? What standards can determine the criminality of a particular act and the justice and efficacy of punishment? This original analysis will hold special interest for students and scholars of British history, social history, and criminality and the law.
The Historic Trial that Divided the Women of America Pearl, a stunning flapper in the Roaring Twenties, has danced for Rudolph Valentino, and enjoys the company of any man she chooses--until she decides to carry on an affair with Morgan, a married rural man with two children. Morgan's wife, Ina, disguised in borrowed clothing, guns Pearl down when she finds her on a midnight train with her arms around Morgan. The next day, Pearl's body is placed on public display for a town of strangers, and her killer is applauded in the streets by hundreds of country women. A "dream team" of defense attorneys is hired, and the stage is set for a sensational jazz era clash between two distinct views of a woman's role in modern society-that of the "virtuous" rural mother dressed in gingham and the "scarlet woman" from the city who would deny a mother and her babies the necessities of life. Should death ever be the price for adultery? That is the question the jury-and readers-are faced with in THE UNWRITTEN LAW.
Originally published posthumously in 1954, this book presents a study of the unwritten law of the Albanian mountain tribes by the renowned Scottish anthropologist, classical scholar and ethnographer Margaret Hasluck (1885-1948). In recording the legal aspects of tribal life, Hasluck also provides detailed information on the everyday existence of the tribes. Four chapters are given to the vendetta system, describing minutely the obligations of vengeance, the manner of conducting a feud, the degrees of expiation and the ways of ending. Other chapters give information about the daily life of the household; the laws governing the division of property; the administrative hierarchy; oaths, verdicts and penalties; theft and murder. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the writings of Hasluck, anthropology and the Albanian mountain tribes.
If it's not broke, don't fix it. Eighty percent of success is in showing up. Don't look back; something might be gaining on you. No legislature ever enacted these laws, yet they continue to shape human affairs. Hugh Rawson documents more than 500 rules, strategies, and ironic insights into the way the world really works.
This book seeks to re-appreciate the concept of customary international law as a form of spontaneous societal self-organisation, and to develop the methodological consequences that ensue from this conception for the practice of its application. In pursuing this aim, the author draws from three different strands of scholarship that have not yet been considered in connection with one another: First, general jurisprudential theories of customary law; second, theories of customary international law, especially as they relate to international relations scholarship; and third, methodological approaches to the interpretation of international law. This expansive, philosophical layout of the book enables the author to put the conceptual enigmas of customary international law into a broader perspective. Among the issues discussed in the book are the dichotomy of its traditional and modern forms and the respective benefits and disadvantages of inductive and deductive approaches to its ascertainment. In the course of this analysis, the author draws insights from Friedrich August Hayek’s theory of law as a ‘spontaneous order’, an information-processing device which enables the participants of a legal system to make use of decentralised knowledge. The book argues that the major advantage of custom as a source of international law lies in the fact that it is the result of a gradual process of trial and error, rather than the product of deliberate planning. This makes it a particularly apposite source of law in a time of seismic shifts in the distribution of power within a vastly diverse community of States, when a new global order is expected to emerge, the contours of which are not yet clearly discernible. This book applies general concepts of legal philosophy to explain the continuing relevance of custom as a source of international law while at the same time inferring from this theoretical framework concrete practical and methodological consequences, the most important of which is the special role that purposive interpretation plays with respect to rules of international custom. Given this broad approach, the book will be of interest to several groups of potential readers including academics interested in the philosophy of customary law in general, academic international lawyers and legal practitioners, especially judges, scholars of international relations and all those interested in how the international community of States organises itself.
Unwritten Laws is a wonderfully entertaining treasury ofmore than 500 rules, axioms and insights, each associatedwith a particular individual. None of the laws appears onthe Statute Book, yet they shape human affairs moreprofoundly than any Act of Parliament or by-law. AsCatt's Law states: No written law has ever been morebinding than ......
"Six Texas trials from 1896 to 1968 illuminate how "unwritten law" permitted violence toward offenders of Southern notions of female virtue, male honor, or sanctity of marriage. Explores the maneuvers of defense lawyers who managed to extricate guilty clients when there appeared no legal basis for a defense"--Provided by publisher.
