Luís Duarte d'Almeida – författare

You find yourself in a court of law, accused of having hit someone. What can you do to avoid conviction? You could simply deny the accusation: 'No, I didn't do it'. But suppose you did do it. You may then give a different answer. 'Yes, I hit him', you grant, 'but it was self-defence'; or 'Yes, but I was acting under duress'. To answer in this way-to offer a 'Yes, but. . .' reply-is to hold that your particular wrong was committed in exceptional circumstances. Perhaps it is true that, as a rule, wrongdoers ought to be convicted. But in your case the court should set the rule aside. You should be acquitted. Within limits, the law allows for exceptions. Or so we tend to think. In fact, the line between rules and exceptions is harder to draw than it seems. How are we to determine what counts as an exception and what as part of the relevant rule? The distinction has important practical implications. But legal theorists have found the notion of an exception surprisingly difficult to explain. This is the longstanding jurisprudential problem that this book seeks to solve. The book is divided into three parts. Part I, Defeasibility in Question, introduces the topic and articulates the core puzzle of defeasibility in law. Part II, Defeasibility in Theory, develops a comprehensive proof-based account of legal exceptions. Part III, Defeasibility in Action, looks more closely into the workings of exceptions in accusatory contexts, including the criminal trial.

This Research Handbook presents thirty-three original contributions from leading experts around the globe on all aspects of legal argumentation. Each chapter combines theoretical and practical perspectives to introduce and develop its topic.The volume explores the connections between legal argumentation, general jurisprudence, and argumentation theory. The result: the most detailed, comprehensive, and international overview of the field to date. The Research Handbook is organised into five parts. The first examines the core elements of legal argumentation. The second analyses many types of argument commonly used in law. The third situates legal argumentation within broader argumentation theory. The fourth examines its links with general jurisprudence. The fifth and final part takes a more holistic approach to what is involved in judging well.This Research Handbook will interest not only students and scholars of legal argumentation, legal philosophers, and argumentation theorists, but also lawyers, judges, and other practitioners seeking to better understand their art.

More than 50 years after it was first published, The Concept of Law remains the most important work of legal philosophy in the English-speaking world. In this volume, written for both students and specialists, 13 leading scholars look afresh at Hart's great book.Unique in format, the volume proceeds sequentially through all the main ideas in The Concept of Law: each contributor addresses a single chapter of Hart's book, critically discussing its arguments in light of subsequent developments in the field. Four concluding essays assess the continued relevance for jurisprudence of the 'persistent questions' identified by Hart at the beginning of The Concept of Law. The collection also includes Hart's 'Answers to Eight Questions', written in 1988 and never before published in English. Contributors include Timothy Endicott, Richard HS Tur, Pavlos Eleftheriadis, John Gardner, Grant Lamond, Nicos Stavropoulos, Leslie Green, John Tasioulas, Jeremy Waldron, John Finnis, Frederick Schauer, Pierluigi Chiassoni and Nicola Lacey.