Legal theory must not merely describe our world; it must also assist us acting in it. In this paper, I argue that teaching legal theory should show law students how to do things with legal theory. My pedagogical approach is contextual and historical. Students learn how to use theory by seeing how past jurists acted in their particular worlds by changing dominant concepts of law. Most introductory legal theory courses are organised by what I will call the usual story of jurisprudence. In this story, great thinkers in rival schools of legal thought attempt to answer perennial questions about the nature of (the concept of) law. In this story, the thick context of our world recedes beyond the horizon of theory. I argue that critical genealogy can let us critique this usual story and its unspoken assumptions of morality, politics and history. Amia Srinivasan's account of ‘worldmaking’ is especially compelling in its emphasis on critical genealogies’ capacity to transform our representational practices (and thus open up new possibilities for action). Critical genealogy also has certain pedagogical ‘uses and advantages’ for teaching legal theory in law schools. Here, context is method. The teacher must defend their political choices of context – choices that are naturalised and so beyond critique in the usual story of jurisprudence. By making these choices explicit, students are invited to both challenge the teacher's choices of context and critique their own common law education. This pedagogical approach also encourages students to experiment in ‘worldmaking’ themselves, and so cultivate a creative capacity to use legal theory to change the world through transforming their representations of it.

This article analyses the legal processes of recognising customary and religious (Muslim) marriages in South Africa's constitutional democracy. It argues that the best interpretation of the Constitution requires laws that address cross-cutting issues of recognition and redistribution relating to religion/culture and gender, and that the best way to achieve this is through a ‘pluralistic solidarity’ that enables dialogue on how to secure cultural and religious recognition without undermining the rights of women. It examines how the different processes of cultural/religious law reform in South Africa have become sites of struggle over the meaning of collective and individual identity, public/private power, citizenship and rights, and gender and democracy, and how particular sociopolitical conditions, ideological struggles and overarching conflicts and interests have shaped each process of law reform. Thus it distinguishes between the ideal and the possible, the normative and the strategic, in law reform. It notes the conditions under which the incomplete process of recognition of Muslim marriage law has seen a greater deference to religious norms and private regulation than customary law reform, which saw a greater institutionalisation of gender equality norms. The article concludes by emphasising the open-ended nature of legal processes, the possibilities of using courts to challenge ongoing inequalities in religion and custom, and the ever-present role of politics in legal outcomes.

That international law progressively recognises and prohibits emergent forms of torture and related ill-treatment has become widely accepted in the anti-torture discourse. The premise that torture's techniques and contexts change is taken to shape juridical recognition, representation and response. Authoritative international treaties, such as the UN Convention Against Torture, the European Convention on Human Rights and the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture, are therefore deemed ‘living instruments’ – influenced by social and scientific change as channelled through the doctrine of dynamic interpretation. This article argues, however, that these premises are not sufficiently empirically grounded and, far from faithfully reflecting social and scientific changes, invoke critiques around the ideological and epistemological registers of advocates and adjudicators. Taking scholarship on dynamic interpretation and forms of state violence which do not leave overt physical marks as paradigmatic entry points, this article problematises torture's juridical conceptualisation and contextualisation through a critical theoretical lens.

Aiming to ensure a responsive and socially relevant approach to court cases, judiciaries have initiated innovative projects, such as problem-solving community courts, over the last three decades. In this socio-legal case study, I analyse the legal transplantation of a community court from the US to the Netherlands. Drawing on eighteen months of ethnographic field work (interviews, observations and file research), the study shows that, during the transplantation process, the goal of serving the neighbourhood receded into the background, while the goal of solving the problems of defendants gained even more prominence than it already had at the inception of the court. The conditions that have played a role in the path that the court has carved out to legitimise its activities differ from its American counterparts. The adjustments signify important internal legal cultural differences and illustrates how the implementation process is formed by opinions about the proper role of judges.

By browsing the website of Land Matrix, one can measure the extent of land-related large-scale investments in natural resources (LRINRs) and place it on the world map. At the time of writing, the extent of these investments covers an area equal to the surfaces of Spain and Portugal together – or, for football fans, around 60 million football pitches. These investment operations have often been saluted as instrumental to achieve the developmental needs of host countries and as the necessary private counterpart to state (and interstate) efforts aimed at (sustainable) development goals. Yet, the realities on the ground offer a scenario characterised by severe instances of displacement of indigenous or local communities and environmental disruptions. The starting point of this short essay is that these ‘externalities’ are generated through the legal construct enabling the implementation of these investment operations. As such, this contribution lies neatly in the line of research set forth in the excellent books of Kinnari Bhatt and Jennifer Lander, from the perspective of both the development culture shaping these investment operations and the private–public environment in which these are situated. The essay tries and dialogues with both components, while focusing at a metalevel on the theoretical shifts potentially geared to turn a ‘tale of exclusion’ into a ‘tale of inclusion’.

The theatre shares many features with the law. One key commonality is the presence of dressers in both professions. In the law and the theatre, the dresser is a key intermediary in the transformation of bodies and the transmission of professional culture, while being relatively under-recognised in criticism and scholarship. The point of departure for this paper is that the dresser is a figure worthy of further scrutiny. As the Court and Ceremonial Manager at Ede and Ravenscroft, Christopher Allen is perhaps one of the common law's most important dressers. Allan is instrumental to the entry of the judiciary into their new roles by dressing them for the very first time in advance of their swearing-in ceremony. Established as a wig-making business in 1726 (later selling robes from 1871), Ede and Ravenscroft are the tailors and robe-makers of choice for the judiciary, not only in England and Wales, but in many common-law jurisdictions. This paper draws upon an interview with Allen about his work as the dresser of the judicial establishment of England and Wales in order to explore the role of dressing up in the production of images of the judiciary. Thinking about the role of the dresser in the production of the judicial image draws attention not simply to the function that dress plays in the law, but foregrounds the process of dressing up as a key aspect of the law's performance.

It is now well established that algorithms are transforming our economy, institutions, social relations and ultimately our society. This paper explores the question – what is the role of law in the algorithmic society? We draw on the law-jobs theory of Karl Llewellyn and on William's Twining refinement of Llewellyn's work through the perspective of a thin functionalism to have a better understanding of what law does in this new context. We highlight the emergence of an algorithmic law, as law performs jobs such as the disposition of trouble-cases, the preventive channelling and reorientation of conduct and expectations, and the allocation of authority in the face of algorithmic systems. We conclude that the law-jobs theory remains relevant to understanding the role of law in the algorithmic society, but it is also challenged by how algorithms redefine who does or should do what law-jobs, and how they are done.

After outlining his experience in the world of bioethics, the author draws on his role in the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee to explain the new Universal Declaration of Bioethics, adopted by UNESCO in 2005. He describes it as the first global attempt to reconcile the differing sources of bioethical principles: health-care practice and experience and universal human rights. Whilst collecting, and accepting, some criticism of the text of the Declaration, the author sees its chief values as lying in the wider ethical issues that it reflected of concern to the community, the world and biosphere as well as in the adjustment of health-care approaches for consistency with the growing impact of universal human rights law. Whilst acknowledging the differing social experiences of people in different regions of the world, he invokes Amartya Sen to cast doubt on the notion of specific ‘Asian values’, whether in bioethics or human rights.

This article examines how well imported institutional models fare in their recipient sites, how far they are modified by the conditions they encounter, and which variables determine the outcomes. The analysed set of variables consists of particular actors and agencies involved in the transplant project; the strategy they choose for its implementation; and the local in terms of those who might support it and those who might oppose it. The arguments of the article are based on the findings of research carried out on social engineering projects undertaken in Russia and Bosnia. The projects consisted of the establishment of new bodies closely modelled on the UK Press Complaints Commission.

During the 2008 US Presidential election, voters in California, as well as choosing a president, were asked to withdraw the right of same-sex couples to marry, the Californian Supreme Court having, six months previously, conferred that right by judicial decision.1 ‘Proposition 8’ aimed to restore the definition of marriage to its historical heterosexual limitations, and it passed, by a fairly narrow margin. The feature most remarkable to an outsider during the Proposition 8 campaign was the stunningly apocalyptical terms in which the debate was conducted, on both sides of the argument. The same-sex marriage debate is in the United States of America conducted in such venomous terms as to leave a European observer quite breathless. Nancy Polikoff’s latest book brings some calm to the discussion. It is a measured and thoughtful contribution to the debate and, though she does not directly address the question of why it is so much more contentious in the US than in other Western jurisdictions, her analysis does shed much light on that puzzling question. There are three main explanations that spring out of this engaging book.

The practice of Arab women voluntarily renouncing their shares in the family inheritance is well known, having been noticed in several Mediterranean and African countries, including Israel and the West Bank. This practice seems grossly inegalitarian, reflecting many Muslim women's social and economic inferiority and their dependent status. Some Islamic feminists argue that the practice contradicts not only the letter of the sharia, which guarantees women shares in the family inheritance, but also fundamental Islamic principles. Conservatives, however, see the practice as cohering with the spirit of Islam (though not with the letter of sharia), as a voluntary choice by many Muslim women to let their brothers or husbands fulfil their traditional role of providing for their sisters or wives. International institutions concerned with enhancing gender equality have taken the latter view seriously enough to refrain from judging the practice negatively. Our article highlights the Israeli civil courts' diverse responses to the practice: some judges criticise it while others choose a policy of non-interference. The article further discusses the practice and Israeli civil courts' responses in the comparative perspective of Jewish women's practice of renouncing their property and other rights on divorce. Some Jewish husbands make such renunciation a condition of their dissolving the marriage. Israeli civil courts often see such renunciation as an effect of extortion and permit women to rescind it once divorced. We thus conclude with a plea to the civil courts to encourage gender equality among the Arab population to the same extent, at least, to which they promote it among Israel's Jews.

This article analyses the way in which the use of the rights to family life and to private life has evolved as a bar to the deportation of immigrants. The analysis focuses on the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) with respect to the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which uses a rights-based framework; and of the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) with respect to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which uses a status-based framework. It notes the interaction between the two bodies and the attempt in each forum to modify its normative framework to follow the other's. The article further considers the implications of each normative framework for both integrated immigrants and other immigrants.

In its concluding observations for Cyprus, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) Committee stated that it ‘is concerned about the insufficiency of legal provisions and accessible mechanisms to detect, report, prevent and combat all forms of violence’.1 This paper focuses on the independent monitoring obligation Article 16(3) CRPD places on states parties, and discusses the implications of the insufficient implementation of Article 16(3) as it affects adults with intellectual disabilities in Cyprus. It examines the existing monitoring frameworks, explains why they do not meet with Article 16(3) CRPD requirements and explores the relationship of the national human rights institutions (NHRIs) with Article 16(3). This paper enables understanding as to how, despite pre-existing monitoring frameworks in place, no independent monitoring action has been taken since the ratification of the CRPD. It argues that there is an immediate need for measures to achieve the implementation of Article 16(3) and makes recommendations for Cyprus and other states parties.

The law of the city degrades time to the dimension of space. The cityscape replaces a horizon made by woods, fields and streams with a jagged silhouette of rectilinear buildings, lots and thoroughfares. Geometrically speaking, a city street is a line that has been transected into segments called blocks. Blocks, in turn, are further segmented by the placement of individual buildings, which are enumerated as ‘addresses’ in the manner of sequenced moments on the universal timeline. The city, like the law, is produced by human hands according to the logic of the conceptual pairs which the idea of linear time makes possible: ‘cause and caused’, ‘ground and grounded’ and ‘means and end’. But there is something profoundly unreal about both of these institutional spaces: at the end of the day, the Unreal City mentioned in T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land corresponds to a sort of Unreal Law. Both the city and the law manifest freedom’s impossible attempt to realise its own antithesis by substituting space for time, being for becoming, reason for chance, justification for responsibility and redemption for tragedy.

This paper offers a theory through which, we argue, we can more appropriately evaluate and potentially improve the moral quality of work. There are three components to such a theory. The first two components, which we argue need to be integrated, are normative resources that appeal to two different behavioural capacities: first, the articulation of rules, appealing to the capacity of agents to deliberate about what they ought to do; second, the introduction of forms of institutional design, appealing to the capacity of agents to acquire habits and dispositions in certain social environments. The third and most important component is that of the infinity of suffering and vulnerability. This component has both a negative and a positive aspect. On the negative side, the component is designed to assist us in recognising the inevitable limitations of either normative resource or indeed any one integrated totality of normative resources (i.e., both rules and forms of institutional design). Those limitations consist in the narrowing of the domain of objects of value towards which workers are guided or oriented by either or both normative resources. On the positive side, the component encourages us to construct alternative normative resources on the basis of alternative forms of representation of suffering and vulnerability. In that respect, the specific policy proposal of this paper is that of the establishment of Community Forums, which are designed to offer a framework thanks to which some of the particularities of suffering and vulnerability within a specific community can be recognised and communicated in a multiplicity of ways, thereafter forming a resource for the development of policy with respect to the challenges facing that specific community. The second part of the paper applies this theory to consider the value and limitations of second-generation reforms in international economic institutions. The third part of the paper further considers the values and limitations of reforms for access to public goods and services in Nigeria.