The last year has seen a revolt against the recommendations of the Zellick Report (1994) in England and Wales, and pressure on universities worldwide to bring serious criminal conduct within their own disciplinary structures. This paper examines the reasons why the Zellick Report advised against this, and why higher-education institutions have now turned their back on a number of its recommendations. Factors including student pressure and concerns about low conviction rates for sexual offences in the criminal courts have been cited, but this paper argues that universities will struggle to create a disciplinary system that is fair to both those who are accused of such offences and those who have been victims of them. A recent Universities UK report has reversed the Zellick guidance that conduct amounting to a serious criminal offence should never be pursued under university disciplinary structures. Drawing on both authors’ experiences as practitioners, and using the first author's experience of university disciplinary matters as a case-study, this paper reviews the practical problems of bringing such serious conduct under university disciplinary structures, focusing particularly on the intersection of criminal and internal disciplinary proceedings. It concludes by suggesting possible ways of ameliorating these.

When a state claims its practices are lawful but at the same time another claims this unlawful, a paradox emerges. Legal indeterminacy becomes the ordinary rule, while the resolution of disputes is designated the exception. To illustrate how international law deals with paradoxes, this paper will employ the dichotomy of upstream–downstream trans-boundary interstate relations. Here the paradox arises, since upstream states traditionally advocate for the free utilisation of water within their territory, while downstream states instead advocate for the waters full continued flow. Although, from a logical perspective, such a paradox would typically be viewed as something negative, from a social perspective, paradoxes also draw attention to the frames of common sense. Indeed, by employing a Luhmannian-inspired theoretical framework, this paper proposes that, through a sociological understanding of paradoxes, one can more adequately rediscover and reconceptualise the manner in which international law institutionalises conflicting expectations into a more harmless, bounded and permitted contradiction.

The paper investigates and theorises different forms and patterns of resistance to international courts (ICs) and develops an analytical framework for explaining their variability. In order to make intelligible the resistance that many ICs are currently facing, the paper first unpacks the concept of resistance. It then introduces a key distinction between mere pushback from individual Member States or other actors, seeking to influence the future direction of a court's case-law, and actual backlash – a critique triggering significant institutional reform or even the dismantling of tribunals. On the basis on the proposed theoretical framework, the paper provides a roadmap for empirical studies of resistance to ICs, considering the key contextual factors necessary to take into account in such studies.

Since the late 1980s, following the transition to democratic rule in Latin America, criminal courts all over the continent have been going through a process of continuous reform. Reformers introduced an adversarial-based procedural system, arguing that it would guarantee due process and greater transparency and accountability. However, in recent years, the emphasis of this reformist narrative has changed from expanding defendants' rights towards improving the efficacy of the system. This paper explores how the original principles of transparency and accountability have been upheld in criminal courts in one of the first areas of jurisdiction to implement those changes: the Province of Buenos Aires. Based on an analysis of data from forty-five in-depth interviews with key informants and court observations, this paper explores how the reforms developed a managerial rationality in criminal courts that may undermine the due process in Latin American jurisdictions that have undergone similar democratic reform processes.

This paper examines recent constitutional mobilisation in China, embodied in the weiquan (right defence) movement, Charter 08 and the 2013 constitutionalism debate. It contrasts Chinese and Vietnamese experience of constitutional mobilisation. This paper argues that constitutional mobilisation in China presents both convergence and divergence with those in Vietnam. The convergence stems from domestic dynamics, the impact of globalisation and the shared features of socialist/communist institutional settings. The divergence is due to Chinese constitutional exceptionalism and Vietnam's instrumentalist approach to global constitutionalism. Particularly, without necessary constitutional opportunity created by the constitution-making process, constitutional mobilisation in China has not created a national constitutional dialogue as has happened in Vietnam. This paper draws attention to the new function of socialist constitutions as a frame for social mobilisation and has general implications for the comparative inquiry into the social dynamics of constitutional law.

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.

The attainment of justice through a private dispute-resolution process, such as the mediation process, is an elusive objective. With the prominent place mediation has been given in civil justice, debates about the ability of mediation to deliver substantive justice are relevant, particularly when proponents of the process argue that mediation offers some form of justice to its participants, while critics argue that it provides no justice. This paper explores the issue of justice in the private dispute-resolution process of mediation and its ability to deliver a substantive form of justice (rather than procedural or popular justice, which is often seen as the type of justice, if any, that is provided by mediation). It does so through an analysis of ethnographic data of the mediation process using Amartya Sen's justice framework set out in The Idea of Justice.

This paper will evaluate the obstacles faced by victim-survivors of historical abuse, particularly victim-survivors of forced labour in Magdalene Laundries in Ireland and the stolen wages of Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, in a post-colonial transitional justice framework. First, the paper identifies challenges in contextualising comparative interdisciplinary historical research in terms of transitional justice. Second, the paper considers the economic contribution of unpaid labour in the Australian and Irish contexts and, third, goes on to examine the historical denial of rights and redress in both settings. The paper then evaluates the different challenges in responding to legacies of historical abuse, especially unpaid wages in both states. A final section concludes with the argument that redress provided in both instances represents a form of paternalism perpetuating the colonial approach to governance, rather than the provision of the legal rights of citizens, and that this paternalism has specific implications for women who continue to be marginalised by contemporary regimes.

International courts (ICs) have found themselves dealing with issues that are ‘political’ in nature. This paper discusses the techniques of avoidance ICs have developed to navigate such highly political or sensitive issues. The first part discusses some of the key rationales for avoidance. Drawing on the discussion of the political question doctrine in US constitutional law, it shows how ICs may justify avoidance on both principled and pragmatic grounds. It then discusses the different types of avoidance strategies employed by ICs, based on examples from the Court of Justice of the European Union, the International Court of Justice and the East African Court of Justice. ICs are rarely upfront about avoidance strategies. Rather, ICs tend to avoid cases in a more subtle fashion, relying on procedural rules to exclude a case, or by resolving the dispute in a way that avoids the most politically sensitive questions and controversies.

In 2014, something happened that changed how the media report on court proceedings in South Africa. The Oscar Pistorius trial proceedings attracted much media attention. International journalists flocked into South Africa in droves. Our newspapers, our televisions, our radios, even our Facebook feeds were flooded with information. An entire twenty-four-hour television channel was created with the sole purpose of televising, and then discussing, the proceedings. Everything about the trial – the judge's rulings, the witnesses who gave evidence and especially the verdict – clogged social-media newsfeeds on laptops and other devices for months on end. This has changed irreversibly the manner in which the media and the justice system in South Africa converge. Through a focus on the debates in and out of the courtroom that the Pistorius trial generated, this paper explores the intersection between the judicial function, the media and the public. It was an important moment in post-apartheid South Africa, ushering in a new way of making and distributing judicial images to the public and thereby bringing into being new ways for the media and the public to access and assess the adjudicative role of judges.

This paper will analyse instances and threats of withdrawal from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) in order to assess whether those cases can be qualified as backlash. Backlash often serves as an umbrella term for any form of disagreement, hence we differentiate ‘backlash’ from closely connected concepts such as ‘contestation’ and ‘resistance’. In the empirical part of this paper, we examine four cases of withdrawal from the IACtHR or threats thereof, namely Trinidad and Tobago, the Dominican Republic, Peru and Venezuela. The case-studies revealed that the criticism against the IACtHR is fuelled by a combination of three conditions, namely costs of membership, the domestic political system and the domestic impact of the judgments. Ultimately, the specific framework of the IACtHR allows innovative starting points to manage state discontent, in particular the two-tiered structure, the alliance with civil society and the presence of compliance partners within the state.

This paper compares two judgments of constitutional courts (French and German) assessing the constitutionality of statutes concerning veil-wearing and focuses on the underlying conceptions of ‘living together’. This means that what is actually compared is the self-understanding of the respective majority in the two societies as stated in the decisions. This is done by disassembling the concept of ‘living together’ into three elements: the notion of the individual, the meaning of belonging to the national community and the space accorded to religion in public. Each section of this paper examines one of these elements as they are entailed in the judgments and positions them critically within the respective legal cultural and historical contexts. The main aim of this paper is methodological in nature and is namely to show how comparative legal cultural studies can avoid essentialisation and rather highlight the complexity of every cultural context.

Judges perform an important role on behalf of society, as impartial decision-makers, interpreting and applying the law, presiding over courtrooms and ensuring a fair trial. The image of the judge – how they are viewed culturally – reinforces their role, emphasising their authority and neutrality, thus supporting the legitimacy of the court as an institution. Increasingly, judges use video conferencing where either they, or other participants, are located away from the courtroom. Reporting on a three-year empirical study, this paper argues that the introduction of video-conferencing technologies in court has had a profound impact on the production, management and consumption of judicial images, with implications for the role of the judge. Video links challenge cultural assumptions about how the role of the judge is performed and what the image of the judge should be. We argue that greater congruence needs to be achieved over video links between that image and the role of the judge.

The impact of H.L.A. Hart's The Concept of Law on modern legal thinking is undisputed. But does it reflect the reality of the way British institutions work? In Concept, Hart argued, amongst other things, that one of two ‘minimum conditions necessary and sufficient for the existence of a legal system’ was that ‘its rules of recognition specifying the criteria of legal validity and its rules of change and adjudication must be effectively accepted as common public standards of official behaviour by its officials’. In this paper, we begin the process of testing that statement empirically. Specifically, we ask whether non-judicial UK officials have a uniform view of what the rules of recognition, change and adjudication are, and whether they uniformly take an internal point of view towards them (i.e. whether they accept the rules and do not merely obey them). By way of a pilot study, thirty non-judicial UK officials were interviewed. Those officials comprised currently serving and retired senior civil servants, senior military officials, chief constables and local authority chief executives. The findings of the pilot study are presented in this paper. They allow us to deduce that Hart's statement might well be an inaccurate and incomplete description of the modern British constitution, and to comment on the implications of that conclusion.

Although the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) proclaims the right to inclusive education, and much attention is being given to the goal of inclusive education in debates on human rights, there are doubts as to whether this right has led to a new direction in policy-making. The under-researched question is: why is there so much opposition to the implementation of the right to inclusive education? This paper examines the question by distinguishing between both the concept and practice of inclusive education. Using a specific interdisciplinary approach in order to critically analyse a legal norm, the paper looks into the very meaning of inclusive education by utilising some central conclusions from disability studies to appraise the ideal of inclusive education, and seeks to resolve related challenges by drawing upon political philosophy to investigate pragmatic solutions to the obstacles to inclusive education. This paper claims that it is thereby possible to incorporate the element of actual achievability into such an ideal.

This contribution reviews different forms of resistance against the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). While backlash is rare, various forms of pushback are more common than accounts of the CJEU's apparent success suggest. It is not uncommon that national policy-makers, administrations and the judiciary fail to comply with individual rulings. Moreover, Member State authorities have developed multiple strategies to limit the practical effect of controversial lines of CJEU case-law. The availability of ‘work-arounds’ that national authorities can live with shields the CJEU against significant backlash. At the same time, the multiple processes of pushback in the Member States lead to an outcome of considerable heterogeneity.

The paper examines the changing nature of publicity in the courts, tracing three distinct but interconnected phases of publicity using Jeremy Bentham's theory of open justice and publicity as a framework. The first phase is press coverage, with the news media chronicling the justice system for the general population, most recently including televised court proceedings. The second is the appointment of Courts Information Officers, occurring as early as the 1930s and growing in impact since the 1990s, established to facilitate the relationship between courts and the news media. The third and final phase is the Internet, including social media, resulting in changes to news media models and driving contemporary practices of court-generated media. The paper concludes that, while media and communication practices have changed radically since the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the concept of publicity has shifted, Bentham's approach to open justice remains salient for twenty-first-century courts’ communication.

After the Second World War, the British military organised 131 war crimes trials in Singapore, which served as the base for British war crimes investigations in Asia. These trials brought together diverse participants-judges and counsel from the UK, India, and other Allied countries; accused persons from Japan, Korea, and Taiwan; defence counsel from Japan; and witnesses from all over Asia. The majority of defendants in these trials did not deny their involvement in the war crimes concerned; instead, these defendants argued that their conduct was consistent with Japanese norms, beliefs and practices. This article explores trial participants' varied and contested interpretations of the culturally influenced arguments put forward by the defence.