Criticism is often made that the WTO Agreement has the potential to undermine human rights and accentuates the disruptive effects of globalization. Nevertheless, justice in sovereign terms is different from justice in human terms. This difference is perhaps best illustrated by means of a theory. This book puts forward such a theory. The theory posits that law does justice in order to sustain the good of the community. Justice in relation to the good can be thought about either according to the good’s distribution ex ante or its correction ex post after injury. The metric of distributive justice is equality, whereas the metric of corrective justice is fairness, or what is appropriate. This dualism is exhibited in thinking about WTO arrangements and is replicated in WTO law. In one mode WTO law is about the attainment of equality by means of obligations. In a second mode WTO law is about the attainment of fairness by means of rights. The two modes of law interact over time. Ultimately, they depend upon each other to generate a third, overarching structure in the form of interdependent obligations and rights manifested in a sui generis legal system.

The basic effect a constitution has is a legal effect. A constitution creates a legal system that defines what (valid) law is, how it binds, how law maybe created, implemented, applied and interpreted (and by whom). This chapter also looks into the issue of overall efficacy: do constitutions deliver upon the tings they promise? Can one measure the constitutional performance of constitutions? Does age matter? (Yes, it does: durable constitutions mostly yield better results than very short lived ones do). Can constitutions be self-enforcing? And last but not least: if constitutions promise things that are not delivered, or if constitutions are not abided by (sham constitutions), what happens then?

How can improving the collection, sharing, and analysis of data make the civil justice system more accountable to other government institutions, participants in the justice system, and the public at large? We tackle this question from three angles. First we show how accountability can create opportunities for civil justice reform. Drawing on work in other social spheres on large datasets, we identify three lines of research that court data could inform: the extent that structural racism and other biases shape processes and outcomes; the impact of lack of representation on litigants’ experiences and outcomes; and the antecedents and consequences of court involvement for poor people. A second focus is the obstacles that prevent us from increasing our store of knowledge about civil justice problems. These obstacles include: the lack of good data, legal barriers to obtaining data, and real and perceived institutional risks to sharing data. Finally, we report on our efforts to design and build a civil justice data commons (CJDC) addressing these barriers in order to provide fast and frictionless access for policy research as well as operational insights for courts and civil justice institutions to improve equity and service delivery.

[3.1] The constitutional framework of legislation, federal and state, is relevant to statutory interpretation in various ways. At its most general level, the framework identifies the source of interpretative law for legislation. Further, three fundamental constitutional concepts – the separation of powers, the rule of law and parliamentary supremacy – both influence and provide a foundation for statutory interpretation law. Although these concepts are complex, and the subject of considerable discourse in constitutional law, it is important to understand their basic characteristics as a backdrop to the more detailed examination of statutory interpretation law that follows in this book.

Legal documents of the late colonial period enable us to understand how this agency was negotiated in domestic and public spaces and how black women became key protagonists in their struggle for respect and survival. This essay examines the case of two female slaves who lived in the port city of Santa María de los Angeles de Buenos Aires who were victims of physical abuse by two male acquaintances: resulting in death in one case and in a state of coma in the other. This chapter discusses how the recollection of events by both female slaves and their respective assailants transitioned from the public space to the official legal space of power. It analyzes how both women, prior to the end results of the physical abuse they suffered, fought for their right to be believed and respected especially when it came to their material bodies. In the context of my discussion, the body is understood as a vehicle for thought and action while simultaneously implicated in power relations and social order and disorder.

One bad act can permanently stain perceptions of someone’s character. Being labeled a criminal potentially has such an enduring stigma because of people’s willingness to believe that people have an internal, unchanging essence leading them to transgress. In Study 1, we developed a novel scale to assess individual differences in essentialist beliefs about criminality and found that these beliefs predicted punitiveness. Study 2 replicated these findings and also revealed that participants’ attitudes toward people who had committed crimes mediated this link. Study 3 found that participants who held essential beliefs about criminality were more likely to choose retributive punishments over those that prevented future harm. These results illustrate the importance of essentialist beliefs in the context of the legal system.

It has long been known that undergraduate research can also be beneficial in legal studies, not least for underrepresented students (cf. Hathaway et al., 2002). However, legal education has a special and – in contrast to most other disciplines – a country-specific relationship to research-based learning at undergraduate as well as at postgraduate level. The modalities and space for designing research-based learning courses depend largely on the respective subjects and methods of research. In jurisprudence, however, these vary considerably depending on the characteristics of the respective jurisdiction and its legal system.

This chapter discusses China’s legal system and governance environment. In terms of its legal system, China is weak when it comes to developing a rule-based governance structure in which the laws are independently and impartially enforced. The author will review what hinders China’s legal development from cultural, economic, and political perspectives. The author’s central argument is that in the absence of a rule-based system, China has been relying on a relation-based system in which transactions and disputes are governed by private relationships. Understanding relation-based governance is key for foreign investors to protect their interests. The author addresses under what conditions the relation-based system can be efficient, and whether it will be replaced by the rule-based system in China.

In the aftermath of Democratic Kampuchea and the civil wars that preceded and succeeded it, victims have rebuilt their lives, demonstrating a desire and capacity to survive in the face of extreme hardship. This chapter explores resilience in post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia. Using a social ecological lens, it examines how various systems – and in particular political, legal and economic systems – interact to provide resources that enable and foster resilience among victim populations. It also demonstrates, however, that these systems, individually and in interaction with each other, often remove resources or even undermine resilience. Within this systemic structure, the chapter analyses how transitional justice work in Cambodia has affected resilience. Focused specifically on the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, it argues that while the tribunal has the potential to contribute to resilience (and does for some victims), its design and procedures constrain it in this regard, even inadvertently reinforcing broader marginalising systemic dynamics. The key point is that national actors in Cambodia recognise that they can gain significant advantages through corrupt practices and autocratic power, and thus they have used transitional justice strategically to undermine peacebuilding.

Day fines were introduced in 1939 as an alternative to short-term custodial sentences and to punish rich and poor equally hard. Thus, the daily unit must be fixed according the average daily earnings of the offender (taking account of living conditions, capital resources, family responsibilities etc.). The number of day fines must be fixed between 1 and 60, having regard to the seriousness of the offence. Day fines can be applied for violations of the Criminal Code only in court (no administrative day fines). Thus, day fines are relatively rare compared to the total number of fines, but used for a broad range of violations of the Criminal Code, including negligent manslaughter and assault. The Danish experience shows that there is a risk of the system not being applied in accordance with its purpose. In some cases, judges calculate the fine by determining first the over-all amount of the fine and therefrom deduct the number of day fines and the daily unit. There is no research on the level of acceptance of day fines among the general population. It has been proposed to abolish the system, but there has not been much public criticism for the last 20 years.

This chapter investigates H.L.A. Hart’s characterization of law as the union of primary and secondary rules, and its implications for international law’s status as genuine law.While Hart is frequently identified as an international legal skeptic, that conclusion rests on a misreading of his analysis of international law or, in some cases, a misreading of his analysis of law.Hart does not deny that international law is law, only that it constitutes a legal system.Properly understood, this is a claim few of his critics will deny.

The upheavals of recent decades have shocked social scientists who continue to base their development models on the West’s economic trajectory and the idea that as modernization and economic cooperation take hold the world’s nations, in some broad linear convergence, will operate with free markets, limited government, and greater pluralism and tolerance. But it is clear that authoritarian states can host properous, efficient economies as readily as full-fledged democracies, and that the global system is not edging toward some equilibrium state or neoliberal “end of history.” Nor are the world’s societies all part of an overarching order that can be fine-tuned with equilibrium models. They are parts of open, adaptive, complex systems – and we must consider the dynamics to which such systems are prone. We look at how network dynamics determine system stability: how, for example, China has attained global leadership, and why the West struggles to maintain influence. Models of the network topography of premodern Europe and China illustrate how linkages, once formed, create actors, shape behaviors, and mold relationships that hold sway over the trajectories of the societies in which they arise.

This final chapter shows how Kant understands philosophical systematicity in analogy with legal systematicity. Taking into account the two other central illustrations of systematicity, architecture and organisms, Møller argues that only the legal metaphors illustrate the function of inner critique and the power-conferring role of reason’s lawfulness. This leads to an account of philosophy as the science of the laws of reason which takes into account the legal aspects of Kant’s philosophical methodology.

David Dyzenhaus develops the theoretical basis for a ‘permeable’ conception of the constitution. This conception is developed by way of what Dyzenhaus calls ‘a rather deep dive into an arcane debate between the two great legal positivists of the last century, Hans Kelsen and H. L. A. Hart’. The purpose of that detailed analysis is to contrast the respective ‘functional equivalents they propose to Hobbes’s claim that a social contract explains the unity of political and legal order’. These alternatives are Hart’s rule of recognition and Kelsen’s basic norm. Favouring Kelsen’s dynamic, monist conception of the relation between international and domestic law, and his commitment to the ‘gaplessness’ of legal order, Dyzenhaus ultimately turns to exploring the promise of this conception for an understanding of, both the outward projection of public law norms of a domestic legal order beyond its borders, and the reception, within that order, of norms originating elsewhere.

The first chapter outlines the aims of the book, which is to provide an introduction to the Hong Kong legal system especially for first-year law students, but also for students of other disciplines, and practitioners and scholars from other jurisdictions who are looking for a comprehensive and user-friendly overview of Hong Kong’s legal system. It also highlights the key elements of that system, discussing its rules and principles, namely the rule of law, separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary, as well as legal institutions and legal personnel. This chapter traces the historical development of Hong Kong’s legal system, from the acquisition of Hong Kong by the British and the importation of English law (including common law) into colonial Hong Kong to the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1997 and the present-day legal framework under ‘one country, two systems’.

Chaucer lived in a society that was aware of childhood and adolescence as distinctive stages of human life and which inherited practices whereby young people were brought up and trained for adulthood. Informally, at home, children were introduced to social norms, religion and work. Those from wealthier families underwent more formal education, mastering literacy at home, in schools or in great households, where they learnt reading, rules of courtesy, French and, in the case of some boys, Latin. Chaucer’s works refer in passing to most of these processes, with particular attention to adolescents, including university scholars. During the fifteenth century his works in general came to be seen as having educational value. The Astrolabe, first written for his son Lewis, seems to have been used for teaching reading to other young children while his major writings were recommended as suitable literature for older ones.