Resisting Reality Social Construction and Social Critique

di: Sally Haslanger

                    

Contemporary theorists use the term "social construction" with the aim of exposing how what's purportedly "natural" is often at least partly social and, more specifically, how this masking of the social is politically significant. In these previously published essays, Sally Haslanger draws on insights from feminist and critical race theory to explore and develop the idea that gender and race are positions within a structure of social relations. On this interpretation, the point of saying that gender and race are socially constructed is not to make a causal claim about the origins of our concepts of gender and race, or to take a stand in the nature/nurture debate, but to locate these categories within a realist social ontology. This is politically important, for by theorizing how gender and race fit within different structures of social relations we are better able to identify and combat forms of systematic injustice. Although the central essays of the book focus on a critical social realism about gender and race, these accounts function as case studies for a broader critical social realism. To develop this broader approach, several essays offer reworked notions of ideology, practice, and social structure, drawing on recent research in sociology and social psychology. Ideology, on the proposed view, is a relatively stable set of shared dispositions to respond to the world, often in ways that also shape the world to evoke those very dispositions. This looping of our dispositions through the material world enables the social to appear natural. Additional essays in the book situate this approach to social phenomena in relation to philosophical methodology, and to specific debates in metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of language. The book as a whole explores the interface between analytic philosophy and critical theory.

La cura letale

di: Mario Seminerio

                    

L'economia italiana rischia il collasso e attingere a piene mani dalle tasche dei cittadini non è certo la soluzione per uscire dalla crisi. L'ennesima stagione del "rigore", inaugurata dal governo Monti sotto la pressione di un'Europa dietro la quale vi sono le ansie e le reticenze della Germania, non è altro che una formula rimasticata, che già in passato si è rivelata inefficace. Oggi può diventare una ricetta sicura per il disastro. Quello di cui l'Italia ha disperatamente bisogno sono imprese libere dalla rete della burocrazia e della corruzione; un sistema di tassazione che premi chi produce e non chi gestisce una rendita; una visione politica coraggiosa, che non si accontenti di traghettarci verso la successiva tornata elettorale, ma sappia mettere in campo riforme autentiche, in grado di affrancare il nostro sistema produttivo dai parassitismi che lo infestano. Mario Seminerio, analista e consulente finanziario, ci svela i retroscena e i meccanismi reali dell'economia. E avverte: il tempo per salvare il Paese sta per scadere.

Quartiere e identità. Per una rilettura del decentramento a Palermo

di: Marco Picone - Filippo Schilleci

                    

Cos'è oggi il quartiere? Si tratta di un concetto che ha ancora senso? Che cosa s'intende per decentramento? A chi spetta il compito di ritagliare la città in parti? Questo libro non è rivolto solo agli specialisti di studi urbani, ma anche ai cittadini e a chi fa della politica il proprio mestiere. Perché un politico dovrebbe occuparsi di quartieri, tanto più che oggi la norma lo obbliga a ragionare per circoscrizioni? Perché nel quartiere sta la risposta alla disaffezione verso l'idea stessa di politica, di spazio pubblico e di decentramento che stiamo sperimentando nella società contemporanea. Il campo di applicazione delle riflessioni qui presentate è Palermo. Nel 1976 il Comune ha deliberato una suddivisione della città in 25 quartieri. Nel 1997, seguendo le indicazioni nazionali, si è passati a un nuovo ritaglio in 8 circoscrizioni. Oggi sembra che né la prima né la seconda suddivisione possano funzionare adeguatamente, soprattutto se ci si vuole confrontare con i paesaggi identitari che compongono un quadro complesso all'interno della città. Questo libro ha l'obiettivo di ridefinire il concetto di quartiere sulla base di una lettura interdisciplinare, che coniuga i campi tecnico/urbanistico, geografico/sociale e politico/amministrativo. L'obiettivo è finalizzato alla costruzione di un quadro di conoscenza da utilizzare per un'ipotesi progettuale concreta: il ripensamento del decentramento e il ridisegno delle circoscrizioni di Palermo.

I diritti sociali: un percorso filosofico-giuridico

di: Thomas Casadei

                    

La controversa nozione di diritti sociali si colloca al cuore dei rapporti tra alcune categorie-chiave del lessico filosofico-giuridico come quelle di eguaglianza, solidarietà, cittadinanza, Stato sociale. Dalla trattazione della loro genesi sul finire del Settecento, con particolare attenzione alle argomentazioni di Thomas Paine, si passa alla disamina del loro sviluppo, della loro configurazione giuridica e delle critiche ad essi rivolte nel corso del Novecento, fino ad arrivare alle teorie del basic income (o "reddito minimo garantito"), intese come proposte alternative e di superamento dei diritti sociali (e delle forme giuridico-costituzionali in cui essi hanno preso corpo). La questione è in tal modo affrontata fino al contesto della globalizzazione e dei complicati processi di unificazione europea, anche al fine di individuare percorsi di rilancio 'dal basso' della democrazia stessa. L'idea di fondo è che i diritti sociali siano, a pieno titolo, "diritti fondamentali" e "umani" e che per essere esigibili abbiano bisogno di due condizioni strutturali: essere concepiti come "indivisibili", "interdipendenti" e "interconnessi" rispetto agli altri diritti fondamentali (ciò che è sancito dalla Dichiarazione di Vienna del 1993) ed essere radicati contestualmente entro uno spazio sociale e istituzionale che oggi non può che essere multilevel ma che, al tempo stesso, non prescinde dal potere regolatore e attuativo degli Stati.

Precari. La nuova classe esplosiva

di: Guy Standing

A cura di: F. Barbera

                    

In molti paesi, almeno un quarto della popolazione vive oggi in condizioni di precarietà. Dovuta non solo a lavori instabili, scarsamente (o per nulla) protetti dal welfare, ma anche al venir meno di carriere lavorative con un orizzonte temporale soddisfacente, all'erosione delle identità professionali, alla crescente esiguità delle prestazioni pubbliche e aziendali, considerate come diritti acquisiti dalle generazioni precedenti. Di fronte a un futuro spogliato di ogni sicurezza, questo nuovo precariato - inteso come vera e propria classe sociale, alla stregua del proletariato - potrebbe cercare rifugio nel populismo e nell'intolleranza, come mostrano molti indizi in Europa, negli Stati Uniti e altrove.

Le trappole della meritocrazia

di: Carlo Barone

                    

In un paese come il nostro, in cui prevale l'ereditarietà sociale e il talento fatica a emergere, la questione della meritocrazia è cruciale. Ma in che cosa consiste l'ideale meritocratico? Il volume presenta diverse declinazioni della meritocrazia e ne illustra i rispettivi punti di forza, ma anche le possibili debolezze. Vengono discussi poi gli inconvenienti degli incentivi al merito, ad esempio l'indebolimento delle motivazioni intrinseche: ci si impegna per vincere un premio, non per realizzare un progetto. Meritocrazia può significare però anche pari opportunità: l'indagine, dati alla mano, evidenzia il ruolo fondamentale dell'istruzione come ascensore sociale per chi proviene dal basso e approfondisce temi assai dibattuti quali la riforma delle scuole e delle università o le liberalizzazioni del commercio e delle professioni.

La financiarización de las relaciones salariales           
Una perspectiva internacional

di: Luís Enrique Alonso

                    

La financiarización de las relaciones salariales aborda el estudio de la crisis actual más como un ataque del sector financiero para obtener los recursos que todavía no controla (públicos, sociales, comunitarios) que como una simple depresión del ciclo de negocios; ataque que, como se está observando, es capaz de derrumbar Estados y de desarticular instituciones nacionales y supranacionales. En este libro, Luis Enrique Alonso y Carlos J. Fernández Rodríguez han compilado las aportaciones de destacados economistas y sociólogos para estudiar cómo el proceso de financiarización ha tenido consecuencias sociales irreversibles en las relaciones laborales, e incluso, de manera más general, en el lugar que el trabajo ocupa en las sociedades salariales contemporáneas. Asimismo, se analiza la forma en la que el actual proceso de hegemonía del sector financiero ha generado un nuevo uso intensivo y precario de la fuerza de trabajo, una ruptura efectiva del pacto distributivo (sobre todo de los restos del pacto keynesiano), una degradación genérica de las instituciones públicas estatales y, en su conjunto, un hundimiento de lo social como valor orgánico, independiente y supremo a proteger.

Debtor Nation The History of America in Red Ink

di: Louis Hyman

                    

Before the twentieth century, personal debt resided on the fringes of the American economy, the province of small-time criminals and struggling merchants. By the end of the century, however, the most profitable corporations and banks in the country lent money to millions of American debtors. How did this happen? The first book to follow the history of personal debt in modern America, "Debtor Nation" traces the evolution of debt over the course of the twentieth century, following its transformation from fringe to mainstream--thanks to federal policy, financial innovation, and retail competition.

How did banks begin making personal loans to consumers during the Great Depression? Why did the government invent mortgage-backed securities? Why was all consumer credit, not just mortgages, tax deductible until 1986? Who invented the credit card? Examining the intersection of government and business in everyday life, Louis Hyman takes the reader behind the scenes of the institutions that made modern lending possible: the halls of Congress, the boardrooms of multinationals, and the back rooms of loan sharks. America's newfound indebtedness resulted not from a culture in decline, but from changes in the larger structure of American capitalism that were created, in part, by the choices of the powerful--choices that made lending money to facilitate consumption more profitable than lending to invest in expanded production.

From the origins of car financing to the creation of subprime lending, "Debtor Nation" presents a nuanced history of consumer credit practices in the United States and shows how little loans became big business.

The Civic Minimum On the Rights and
Obligations of Economic Citizenship

di: Stuart White

                    

Many governments today are engaged in far-reaching programs of 'welfare reform'. But what would a just program of welfare reform consist in? Is the current emphasis on linking welfare 'rights' to 'responsibilities' justifiable? In this book, Stuart White reconsiders the principles of economic citizenship appropriate to a democratic society, and explores the radical implications of these principles for public policy. According to White, justice demands that economic cooperation satisfy a standard of 'fair reciprocity'. Against a background of institutions that are sufficiently just in other respects, those citizens who share in the social product have an obligation to make a productive contribution back to the community in return: every citizen should 'do her bit'. While prominent in the work of many past egalitarian thinkers, this duty to contribute has not received much attention in recent political theory. White seeks to redress this neglect, and to show why and how the claims of reciprocity should be integrated with other important concerns that have featured more prominently in recent literature. These include the concerns to prevent brute luck disadvantage and economic vulnerability. From the standpoint of fair reciprocity, it is not necessarily unjust to link welfare rights with the performance of work-related responsibilities. But the justice of such a linkage depends on how far economic institutions meet other requirements of justice. In policy terms, fair reciprocity thus calls for a generous 'civic minimum' in which work-related welfare benefits are complemented by other policies designed to prevent poverty and vulnerability, secure opportunity for meaningful work, and eliminate class-based inequalities in educational opportunity and inherited wealth. In concluding, White contests the fashionable view that egalitarian reform is unfeasible in contemporary circumstances. The philosophy of fair reciprocity provides the basis for a new public conversation about economic citizenship, in which all citizens - not just those currently amongst the welfare poor - are encouraged to confront their responsibility to others.

The Margin of Appreciation Doctrine in the
Dynamics of European Human Rights Jurisprudence

di: Howard Charles Yourow

                    

"The Margin of Appreciation Doctrine in the Dynamics of European Human Rights Jurisprudence" is a full-length monograph to treat this subject, which is of importance to the interpretation and application of the European Convention on Human Rights. It should aid the understanding and appreciation of judges, advocates, civil servants, scholars, researchers, students, and of anyone whose life and work is affected by national and international human rights adjudication. This analysis synthesizes the work of the Strasbourg judicial organs, proceeding in the light of the ongoing debates on the appropriate place of the margin doctrine in the Strasbourg jurisprudence. The text is written in a clear and precise style which should be appreciated by the novice and specialist alike. The newcomer to human rights and to the Convention may find it a useful introduction to complex material; the expert should gain new and expanded insights into the development of the case law.

Coherence Insights from Philosophy, Jurisprudence and Artificial Intelligence

A cura di: Michal Araszkiewicz - Jaromir Savelka

                

This book is a thorough treatise concerned with coherence and its significance in legal reasoning. The individual chapters present the topic from the general philosophical perspective, the perspective of legal-theory as well as the viewpoint of cognitive sciences and the research on artificial intelligence and law. As it has turned out the interchange of knowledge among these disciplines is very fruitful for each of them, providing mutual inspiration and increasing understanding of a given topic. This book is a unique resource for anyone interested in the concept of coherence and the role it plays in reasoning. As this book captures important contemporary issues concerning the ongoing discussion on coherence and law, those interested in legal reasoning should find it particularly helpful. By presenting such a broad scope of views and methods on approaching the issue of coherence we hope to promote the general interest in the topic as well as the academic research that centers around coherence and law.

Routledge Handbook of Leisure Studies

A cura di: Tony Blackshaw

                    

This landmark publication brings together some of the most perceptive commentators of the present moment to explore core ideas and cutting edge developments in the field of Leisure Studies. It offers important new insights into the dynamics of the transformation of leisure in contemporary societies, tracing the emergent issues at stake in the discipline and examining Leisure Studies' fundamental connections with cognate disciplines such as Sociology, Cultural Studies, History, Sport Studies and Tourism. This book contains original work from key scholars across the globe, including those working outside the Leisure Studies mainstream. It showcases the state of the art of contemporary Leisure Studies, covering key topics and key thinkers from the psychology of leisure to leisure policy, from Bourdieu to Baudrillard, and suggests that leisure in the 21st century should be understood as centring on a new 'Big Seven' (holidays, drink, drugs, sex, gambling, TV and shopping). No other book has gone as far in redefining the identity of the discipline of Leisure Studies, or in suggesting how the substantive ideas of Leisure Studies need to be rethought. The Routledge Handbook of Leisure Studies should therefore be the intellectual guide of first choice for all scholars, academics, researchers and students working in this subject area.

Petitions, Litigation, and Social Control in Roman Egypt

di: Benjamin Kelly

                    

This book examines the contribution that petitioning and litigation made to the maintenance of the social order in Roman Egypt between 30 BC and AD 284. Through the analysis of the many hundreds of documents surviving on papyrus, especially petitions, reports of court proceedings, and letters, Kelly focuses on how the legal system achieved its formal goals (that is, the resolution of disputes through judgments), and discusses in detail the contribution made by the litigation process to informal methods of social control. With particular emphasis on the roles that this process played in the transmission of political ideologies, in the maintenance of family solidarity, and in the fostering of 'private' mechanisms of dispute resolution, the book argues that although the legal system was less than successful when judged by its formal aims, it did have a real social impact by contributing indirectly to some of the informal mechanisms that ensured order in this province of the Roman Empire. However, arguing that, on occasion, one can also see petitioning and litigation being abused for the pursuit of feud and vengeance, Kelly also recognizes that the social impacts of petitioning and litigation were multifaceted, and in some senses even contradictory.

International Justice and the
International Criminal Court Between Sovereignty
and the Rule of Law

di: Bruce Broomhall

                    

Since the Nuremberg Trials of top Nazi leaders following the Second World War, international law has affirmed that no-one, whatever their rank or office, is above accountability for their crimes. Yet the Cold War put geopolitical agendas ahead of effective action against war crimes and major human rights abuses, and no permanent system to address impunity was put in place. It was only with the Cold War's end that governments turned again to international institutions to address impunity, first by establishing International Criminal Tribunals to prosecute genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and then by adopting the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in 1998. Domestic courts also assumed a role, notably through extradition proceedings against former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet in London, then in Belgium, Senegal, and elsewhere. At the same time, as some have announced a new era in the international community's response to atrocities, fundamental tensions persist between the immediate State interests and the demands of justice. This book is about those tensions. It reviews the rapid recent development of international criminal law, and explores solutions to key problems of official immunities, universal jurisdiction, the International Criminal Court, and the stance of the United States, seeking to clarify how justice can best be done in a system of sovereign States. Whilst neither the end of the Cold War nor the 'decline of sovereignty' in themselves make consistent justice more likely, the ICC may encourage a culture of accountability that will support more regular enforcement of international criminal law in the long term.

The Sanctity of Life and the
Criminal Law The Legacy of Glanville Williams

A cura di: Dennis J. Baker - Jeremy Horder

                    

Described by The New York Times as 'Britain's foremost scholar of criminal law', Professor Glanville Williams was one of the greatest academic lawyers of the twentieth century. To mark the centenary of his birth in 2011, leading criminal law theorists and medical law ethicists from around the world were invited to contribute essays discussing the sanctity of life and criminal law while engaging with Williams' many contributions to these fields. In re-examining his work, the contributors have produced a provocative set of original essays that make a significant contribution to the current debate in these areas.

An Introduction to Transnational Criminal Law

di: Neil Boister

                    

The suppression of cross-border criminal activity has become a major global concern. An Introduction to Transnational Criminal Law examines how states, acting together, are responding to these forms of criminality through a combination of international treaty obligations and national criminal laws. Multilateral 'suppression conventions' oblige states parties to criminalise a broad range of activities including drug trafficking, terrorism, transnational organised crime, corruption, and money laundering, and to provide for different types of international procedural cooperation like extradition and mutual legal assistance in regard to these offences. Usually regarded as a sub-set of international criminal justice, this system of law is beginning to receive greater attention as a subject in its own right as the scale of the criminal threat and the complexity of synergyzing the criminal laws of different states is more fully understood. The book is divided into three parts. Part A asks and attempts to answer what is transnational crime and what is transnational criminal law? Part B explores a selection of substantive transnational crimes from piracy through to cybercrime. Part C examines the main procedural mechanisms involved in establishing jurisdiction and then the exercise of jurisdiction through the effective investigation and prosecution of transnational crimes. Finally, Part D looks at the implementation of transnational criminal law and the prospects for transnational criminal justice. Until recently this system of law has been largely the domain of professionals. An Introduction to Transnational Criminal Law provides a comprehensive introduction designed to fill that gap.

Cassese's International Criminal Law

di: Antonio Cassese - Paola Gaeta

                    

The third edition of Cassese's International Criminal Law provides a clear account of the main substantive and procedural aspects of international criminal law. Adopting a combination of the classic common law and more theoretical approaches to the subject, it discusses: * the historical evolution of international criminal law; * the legal definition of the so-called core crimes (war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide) plus aggression, torture and terrorism; * the forms and modes of criminal responsibility; and * the main issues related to the prosecution and punishment of international crimes at the national and international level, including amnesties, statutes of limitations and immunities. Cassese guides the reader through a vast array of cases and materials from a number of jurisdictions, providing thought-provoking analysis that brings the political and human contexts to the fore. The International Criminal Court and all the other modern international criminal courts are fully covered, both as regards their structure, functioning and proceedings and as far as their case law is concerned. Online Resource Centre Case materials: Key international documents and foreign legislation relating to chapters of the textbook Your questions answered: responses to questions from international law students Web links: Links to web sites relating to topics within the text

Modern Bribery Law Comparative Perspectives

A cura di: Jeremy Horder - Peter Alldridge

                    

The Bribery Act 2010 is the most significant reform of UK bribery law in a century. This critical analysis offers an explanation of the Act, makes comparisons with similar legislation in other jurisdictions and provides a critical commentary, from both a UK and a US perspective, on the collapse of the distinction between public and private sector bribery. Drawing on their academic and practical experience, the contributors also analyse the prospects for enforcement and the difficulties facing lawyers seeking asset recovery following the laundering of the proceeds of bribery. International perspectives are provided via comparisons with the law in Spain, Hong Kong, the USA and Italy, together with broader analysis of the application of the law in relation to EU anti-corruption initiatives, international development and the arms trade.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Criminal Law

A cura di: John Deigh - David Dolinko

                    

This is the first comprehensive handbook in the philosophy of criminal law. It contains seventeen original essays by leading thinkers in the field and covers the field's major topics including limits to criminalization, obscenity and hate speech, blackmail, the law of rape, attempts, accomplice liability, causation, responsibility, justification and excuse, duress, provocation and self-defense, insanity, punishment, the death penalty, mercy, and preventive detention and other alternatives to punishment. It will be an invaluable resource for scholars and students whose research and studies concern philosophical issues in criminal law and criminal law theory.

The [Oxford] Handbook of Criminological Theory

A cura di: Francis T. Cullen - Pamela Wilcox

                    

Criminological theory texts typically follow a conventional format. Diverse writings are neatly packaged into schools of thought, which are given clear labels and conveyed a chapter at a time, with topics like control theory in one chapter and strain theory in another. The Oxford Handbook of Criminological Theory takes a different approach across the criminological landscape. The volume is organized not around schools of thought but around themes that shape much thinking about and research on crime. This more unconventional approach seeks to show that criminological theory is not static but dynamic. In fact, most prominent scholars do not spend their time commenting upon and retesting theoretical propositions that have existed for many years. Rather, they move into more novel areas-areas often located in the interstitial junctures between more traditional theories. This Oxford Handbook presents a series of essays that captures not the past of criminology, but where theoretical explanation is headed. As a result, the volume is replete with new ideas, discussions of substantive topics with salient theoretical implications, and reviews and interpretations of literatures that illuminate promising avenues along which theory and research should evolve. Special attention is paid to how criminal participation is shaped intimately by individual traits, diverse social contexts, the situations in which the choice of crime is made, and exposure to coercive experiences. Each chapter can be read on its own-as furnishing an important analysis of a given theoretical issue-yet read as a whole, The Oxford Handbook of Criminological Theory offers a unique and deep understanding of criminology at its cutting edge.

Immigration Law Handbook 2013

di: Margaret Phelan - James Gillespie

                    

Now in its eighth edition, the Immigration Law Handbook continues to bring together all the key materials relevant to immigration and asylum law in one volume, providing an essential reference tool for those working in the area. This new edition maintains the strengths of the handbook as a reference tool and is fully updated to allow the reader access to all new developments. Legislative changes since the previous edition are covered, which include the many statements of changes to the Immigration Rules since July 2010, including further amendments to the points based system and other significant new rule changes for spouses and students. In addition, statutes have been updated to consider orders bringing new provisions on existing legislation into force, such as the Identity Documents Act 2010, which amends various immigration statutes. Secondary legislation, adding to the functions of the Asylum and Immigration Chamber of the Upper Tribunal, is also addressed. Amendments to the 2006 European Economic Area regulations and the regulations relating to nationals of accession states are covered, along with the full materials of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. The Immigration Law Handbook has established itself as the standard in the field to become a well-known and trusted resource.

Crime and Punishment A Concise Moral Critique

di: Hyman Gross

                    

It is generally assumed that we are justified in punishing criminals because they have committed a morally wrongful act. Determining when criminal liability should be imposed calls for a moral assessment of the conduct in question, with criminal liability tracking as closely as possible the contours of morality. Versions of this view are frequently argued for in philosophical accounts of crime and punishment, and seem to be presumed by lawyers and policy makers working in the criminal justice system. Challenging such assumptions, this book considers the dominant justifications of punishment and subjects them to a piercing moral critique. It argues that none overcome the objection that people who are convicted of a serious crime and sent to prison have their basic human rights violated. The institution of criminal punishment is shown to be a regrettable necessity not deserving of the moral enthusiasm it enjoys among many politicians and the popular press. From a moral point of view, punishment is entitled at best to grudging toleration. In the course of developing the argument, the book introduces the principal issues of criminal law theory with the aim of presenting a morally enlightened perspective on crimes and why we punish them. Enforcement of the law by police, prosecutors, and courts is a matter of concern for political morality, and the principal practices of the criminal justice system are subjected to moral scrutiny. The book offers an engaging, provocative introduction to thinking about the philosophy of crime and punishment, challenging students and other readers to think about whether we are justified in punishing wrongdoers.

The Constitution of the Criminal Law

A cura di: R.A. Duff - Lindsay Farmer - S.E. Marshall - Massimo Renzo - Victor Tadros

                    

The third book in the Criminalization series examines the constitutionalization of criminal law. It considers how the criminal law is constituted through the political processes of the state; how the agents of the criminal law can be answerable to it themselves; and finally, how the criminal law can be constituted as part of the international order. Addressing the ways in which and the grounds on which types of conduct can be justifiably criminalized, the first four chapters of this volume focus on the questions that arise from a consideration of the political constitution of the criminal law. The contributors then turn their attention to the role of the state, its institutions and officials, and their role not only as creators, enactors, interpreters, and enforcers of the criminal law, but also as subjects of it. How can the agents of the criminal law also be answerable to it? Finally discussion turns to how the criminal law can be constituted as part of an international order. Examining the relationships between domestic laws of different nation-states, and between domestic criminal law and international or transnational law, the chapters also look at the authority and jurisdiction of international criminal law itself, and its relationship to other dimensions of the international order. A vital examination of one of the most important topics in modern criminal legal theory, this volume raises new questions central to the study of the criminal law and offers new suggestions for addressing them.

Prevention and the Limits of the Criminal Law

A cura di: Andrew Ashworth - Lucia Zedner - Patrick Tomlin

                    

Exploring the principles and values that should guide and limit the state's use of preventive techniques that involve coercion against the individual, this volume arises from a three-year study of Preventive Justice. The contributions examine whether and when preventive measures are justified, whether within or outwith the criminal law, and whether they signal a larger change in the architecture of security. Preventive measures include controversial crime control approaches such as pre-inchoate offences, pre-trial detention, restraining orders, and prevention detention of the dangerous. There are good reasons to justify state use of coercion to protect the public from harm, but while the rationales and justifications for state punishment have been extensively explored, the scope, limits, and principles of preventive justice have not received the same attention. This volume, written by world renowned scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds and jurisdictions, redresses the balance, assessing the foundations for the range of coercive measures that states now take in the name of prevention and public protection.

Blame Its Nature and Norms

A cura di: D. Justin Coates - Neal A. Tognazzini

           

One mark of interpersonal relationships is a tendency to blame. But what precise evaluations and responses constitute blame? Is it most centrally a judgment, or is it an emotion, or something else? Does blame express a demand, or embody a protest, or does it simply mark an impaired relationship? What accounts for its force or sting, and how similar is it to punishment? The essays in this volume explore answers to these (and other) questions about the nature of blame, but they also explore the various norms that govern the propriety of blame. The traditional question is whether anyone ever deserves to be blamed, but the essays here provide a fresh perspective by focusing on blame from the blamer's perspective instead. Is our tendency to blame a vice, something we should work to replace with more humane ways of relating, or does it rather lie at the very heart of a commitment to morality? What can we legitimately expect of each other, and in general, what sort of attitude do would-be blamers need to have in order to have the standing to blame? Hypocritical or self-righteous blame seems objectionable, but why? The contributions to this volume aim to give us a fuller picture of the nature and norms of blame, and more generally of the promises and perils of membership in the human moral community.

 

        

Us and Them?           
The Dangerous Politics of Immigration Control

di: Bridget Anderson

                    

Us and Them? explores the distinction between migrant and citizen through using the concept of 'the community of value'. The community of value is comprised of Good Citizens and is defined from outside by the Non-Citizen and from the inside by the Failed Citizen, that is figures like the benefit scrounger, the criminal, the teenage mother etc. While Failed Citizens and Non-Citizens are often strongly differentiated, the book argues that it is analytically and politically productive to consider them together. Judgments about who counts as skilled, what is a good marriage, who is suitable for citizenship, and what sort of enforcement is acceptable against 'illegals', affect citizens as well as migrants. Rather than simple competitors for the privileges of membership, citizens and migrants define each other through sets of relations that shift and are not straightforward binaries. The first two chapters on vagrancy and on Empire historicise migration management by linking it to attempts to control the mobility of the poor. The following three chapters map and interrogate the concept of the 'national labour market' and UK immigration and citizenship policies examining how they work within public debate to produce 'us and them'. Chapters 6 and 7 go on to discuss the challenges posed by enforcement and deportation, and the attempt to make this compatible with liberalism through anti-trafficking policies. It ends with a case study of domestic labour as exemplifying the ways in which all the issues outlined above come together in the lives of migrants and their employers.

Crime Through Time

A cura di: Anupama Rao - Saurabh Dube

                    

Part of the prestigious Themes in Indian History series, this book deals with notions, ideas, and concepts of crime and justice from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Divided into four sections, the first deals with the pre-colonial period with its decentralized law and justice system. The second addresses the colonial period and cites the administrative and legal changes during that period like legal codifications, policing, tattooing and other technologies identification. The section on subaltern legalities studies customary laws and their negotiations with colonial laws. The final section studies the nature of crimes in post-independence India, and discusses issues like violence on Dalits and minorities. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of modern Indian history, sociology, and cultural studies.

Treatise on International Criminal Law:
Foundations and General Part v. 1

di: Kai Ambos

           

Since the adoption of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in 1998, international criminal law has rapidly grown in importance. This three-volume Treatise on International Criminal Law presents a foundational, systematic, consistent and comprehensive analysis of international criminal law. Taking into account the scholarly literature, not only sources written in English but also in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, the book draws on the author's extensive academic and practical work in international criminal law. This first volume addresses the foundations of international criminal law and the emerging general principles. It examines the history of the discipline and the concepts behind it. Looking at the sources of international criminal law, the book then moves to investigate the general structure of crime in international criminal law, and to address in detail the role played by the concept of individual criminal responsibility. The subjective requirements of criminal responsibility are examined, and also those defences that exclude such responsibility. The full three-volume treatise will address the entirety of international criminal law, re-stating and re-examining the fundamental principles upon which it rests, the manner it is enacted, and the key issues that are shaping its future. It will be essential reading for practitioners, scholars, and students of international criminal law alike.

Social Order and the Fear of Crime in Contemporary Times

di: Stephen Farrall - Jonathan Jackson - Emily Gray

                    

The fear of crime has been recognized as an important social problem in its own right, with a significant number of citizens in many countries concerned about crime. In this book, the authors critically review the main findings from over 35 years of research into attitudes to crime, highlighting groups who are most fearful of crime and exploring the theories used to account for that fear. Using this research, the authors move on to propose a new model for the fear of crime, arguing that such methods, which involve intensity questions (such as 'how worried are you about x ...'), may actually conflate an 'expressive' or 'attitudinal' component of the fear of crime with an experiential component and therefore fail to provide a comprehensive insight into how crime is perceived. Taking an entirely new approach to their subject, the authors use existing quantitative data from the British Crime Survey to pose theoretically informed questions to help identify those who only 'expressively' fear crime, separating them from those who have the actual experience of worrying about crime. By exploring the extent to which each group has different social attitudes and backgrounds, and whether there is more than one social/cultural form of the fear of crime, this innovative and exciting title promises to reposition this aspect of criminology to a more prominent place.

George Fletcher's Essays on Criminal Law

A cura di: Russell Christopher

                    

While George Fletcher's book, Rethinking Criminal Law, is justly celebrated as the most widely cited and influential book on criminal law, his articles and essays have been comparatively overlooked. But it is in these essays where Fletcher hones and polishes the themes of Rethinking as well as advances new ground. They are critical in understanding the evolution of his views on criminal law. This volume collects, for the first time, a selection of his most famous previously published shorter works as well as some that are less known but equally important. Each of the twelve essays by Fletcher is paired with one or more new critical commentaries on that essay. These critical commentaries trace the significance of the respective essay in the development of the criminal law and assess its future significance. The commentators include leading criminal law scholars, philosophers, and a judge. Reflecting Fletcher's comparative law focus, the commentators hail from America, England, and Israel. Preceding these paired sets of essays/critical commentaries is an Introduction that broadly assesses Fletcher's body of work and career in criminal scholarship as well as provides an overview of each essay and critical commentary. Concluding the volume is a new, original essay by Fletcher in which he responds to his critics. Fletcher also reflects back on his six-decade spanning career and takes stock. Fletcher's essay concludes with some speculations as to the trend of future developments in the field. In the enterprise of theoretical criminal law, the essays in this book represent the pinnacle of the thinking of one of the fields' most celebrated scholars.

Theory and Practice of Harmonisation

A cura di: Mads Andenas - Camilla Andersen

                     

Harmonised and uniform international laws are now being spread across different jurisdictions and fields of law, bringing with them an increasing body of scholarship on practical problems and theoretical dimensions. This comprehensive and insightful book focuses on the contributions to the development and understanding of the critical theory of harmonisation. The contributing authors address a variety of different subjects concerned with harmonisation and the application of legal rules resulting from harmonisation efforts. This study is written by leading scholars engaged in different aspects of harmonisation, and covers both regional harmonisation within the EU and regional human rights treaties, as well as harmonisation with international treaty obligations. With comparative analysis that contributes to the development of a more general theory on the harmonisation process, this timely book will appeal to EU and international law scholars and practitioners, as well as those looking to future legal harmonisation in other regions in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

Crime, Police, and Penal Policy European Experiences 1750-1940

di: Clive Emsley

                    

How did ideas about crime and criminals change in Europe from around 1750 to 1940? How did European states respond to these changes with the development of police and penal institutions? Clive Emsley addresses these questions using recent research on the history of crime and criminal justice in Europe. Exploring the subject chronologically, he addresses the forms of offending, the changing interpretations and understandings of that offending at both elite and popular levels, and how the emerging nation states of the period responded to criminal activity by the development of police forces and the refinement of forms of punishment. The book focuses on the comparative nature in which different states studied each other and their institutions, and the ways in which different reformers exchanged ideas and investigated policing and penal experiments in other countries. It also explores the theoretical issues underpinning recent research, emphasising that the changes in ideas on crime and criminals were neither linear nor circular, and demonstrating clearly that many ideas hailed as new by contemporary politicians and in current debate on crime and its 'solutions', have a very long and illustrious history.

The Future of Punishment

A cura di: Thomas Nadelhoffer

                    

Scholars are struggling to come to grips with the picture of human agency being pieced together by researchers in the biosciences. This volume aims at providing philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists, and legal theorists with an opportunity to examine the cluster of related issues that will need to be addressed in light of these developments. Each of the twelve essays collected here sheds light on an issue essential to the future of punishment and retribution. In addition to exploring the sorts of issues traditionally discussed when it comes to free will and punishment, the volume also contains several chapters on the relevance (or lack thereof) of advances in the biosciences to our conceptions of agency and responsibility. While some contributors defend the philosophical status quo, others advocate no less than a total revaluation of our fundamental beliefs about moral and legal responsibility. This volume exposes the reader to cutting-edge research on the thorny relationship between traditional theories of agency and responsibility and recent and future scientific advances pertaining to these topics. It also provides an introduction to some of the long-standing debates in action theory and the philosophy of law, which concern the justification of punishment more generally.

Peace and Justice at the International Criminal Court A Court of Last Resort

di: Errol Mendes

                    

This authoritative book addresses the greatest challenge facing the International Criminal Court since its historic establishment in 1998: reconciling the demand for justice for the most serious crimes known to humanity with the promotion of sustainable peace in conflict areas around the world. In describing and analyzing this challenge, Errol Mendes demonstrates that the Court is a product of centuries of global efforts to integrate peace with justice. Focusing on two important prosecutions involving indictments of the president and other senior officials of Sudan and a savage rebel group in Northern Uganda, the author argues that the choice between peace and justice is not a zero sum game. Based on knowledge and experience obtained during his time as a visiting professional at the Court, the author combines insights from Court leaders with his own analysis in his call for greater international cooperation with the Court in fulfilling its mandate and overcoming other obstacles that threaten its work into the future. Scholars and students of criminal justice, international studies, political science and human rights, as well as civil society groups, government officials and those working with international justice organizations, will find in this book a unique and sophisticated perspective on this complex dilemma.

Research Handbook on International Criminal Law

A cura di: Bartram S. Brown

                        

                   

This carefully regarded and well-structured handbook covers the broad range of norms, practices, policies, processes and institutional mechanisms of international criminal law, exploring how they operate and continue to develop in a variety of contexts. Leading scholars in the field and experienced practitioners have brought together their expertise and perspectives in a clear and concise fashion to create an authoritative resource, which will be useful and accessible even to those without legal training. The Research Handbook on International Criminal Law will appeal to practitioners who may want to defend, or prosecute, international criminal law cases, and academics researching and writing on international criminal law. Graduate students studying international criminal law, international human rights or international humanitarian law as well as those studying international justice, international politics, international organization or public policy analysis, will also find this book invaluable.

Comparative Perspectives on Criminal Justice in China

A cura di: Mike McConville - Eva Pils                              

                          

                         

Comparative Perspectives on Criminal Justice in China is an anthology of chapters on the contemporary criminal justice system in mainland China, bringing together the work of recognised scholars from China and around the world. The book addresses issues at various stages of the criminal justice process (investigation and prosecution of crime and criminal trial) as well as problems pertaining to criminal defence and to parallel systems of punishment. All of the contributions discuss the criminal justice system in the context of China's legal reforms. Several of the contributions urge the conclusion that the criminal process and related processes remain marred by overwhelming powers of the police and Party-State, and a chapter discussing China's 2012 revision of its Criminal Procedure Law argues that the revision is unlikely to bring significant improvement. This diverse comparative study will appeal to academics in Chinese law, society and politics, members of the human rights NGO and diplomatic communities as well as legal professionals interested in China.

Organised Crime in Europe Concepts, Patterns and Control Policies in the European Union and Beyond

A cura di: Cyrille Fijnaut - Letizia Paoli

           

This volume represents the first attempt to systematically compare organised crime concepts, as well as historical and contemporary patterns and control policies in thirteen European countries. These include seven 'old' EU Member States, two 'new' members, a candidate country, and three non-EU countries. Based on a standardised research protocol, thirty-three experts from different legal and social disciplines provide insight through detailed country reports. On this basis, the editors compare organised crime patterns and policies in Europe and assess EU initiatives against organised crime.

Law and Empire in Late Antiquity

di: Jill Harries

                        

        

                    

This is the first systematic treatment in English by an historian of the nature, aims and efficacy of public law in late imperial Roman society from the third to the fifth century AD. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, and using the writings of lawyers and legal anthropologists, as well as those of historians, the book offers new interpretations of central questions: What was the law of late antiquity? How efficacious was late Roman law? What were contemporary attitudes to pain, and the function of punishment? Was the judicial system corrupt? How were disputes settled? Law is analysed as an evolving discipline, within a framework of principles by which even the emperor was bound. While law, through its language, was an expression of imperial power, it was also a means of communication between emperor and subject, and was used by citizens, poor as well as rich, to serve their own ends.

Family Welfare
Gender, Property, and Inheritance Since
the Seventeenth Century

di David R. Green - Alastair Owens

                    

The history of welfare provision has generally focused on the rise of the so-called welfare state and institutional provision for the poor. Recent studies have begun to look beyond the state to other ways in which assistance, care, and support were provided in the past, but the focus remains primarily on the poor. This work widens our understanding of welfare by focusing not on the poor but on those who have some wealth. It draws attention to the importance of family as part of a "mixed economy" of welfare provision that also incorporates the state, the market, and the voluntary sector. This book offers an exciting new approach to the history of welfare by focusing attention on the complex range of sources of support drawn on to meet family needs. The chapters highlight the significance of the family as a link in the provision of assistance. They also focus on the role played by gender relations in shaping welfare strategies. An extensive introduction is followed by ten chapters presenting detailed studies of the provision of family welfare across western Europe and the US over the past four hundred years.