Journal of Law and Society Special Issues – serie

Socio-Legal Studies in Context is the first attempt to take stock of the development of socio-legal studies in the United Kingdom. With an increasing awareness amongst legal scholars of the need for socio-legal research, this volume is essential reading for all teachers of law and law related subjects. It will provide rich ideas for young researchers wishing to involve themselves in the socio-legal approach. The volume also provides an opportunity for more experienced researchers to look back and re-assess their own work and help them form their own plans for the future.

The Human Rights Act 1998 will come into force in the year 2000. This volume explores the significance of this event.

This book explores debates in constitutionalism around the attempt to map the fragmented nature of governance in the new constitutional landscape of the UK, the EU and elsewhere. The book examines these issues at all levels from the EU through to the details of some of the new devolutionary schemes. As well as examining how constitutionalism operates at levels and in sites beyond the traditional ambit of structures and institutions, the essays seek to respond to the challenge of securing accountability and participation in the new climate.

This collection brings together contemporary work from Britain, Germany and the United States on how law and lawyers have been represented in film, particularly in the past 40 years. The collection recognises the major influence of Hollywood and the American legal system and seeks to explore the nature and significance of this dominance. A historical dimension to the portrayal of law and film. The nature and actual impact of the dominant Anglo-American portrayal is include. A European dimension is provided.

In this prestigious edited collection, an international group of leading contributors to the law of regulation take stock of the erosion of belief in centralised planning and command and control regulation which has accompanied the collapse of communism. They explore the new directions in regulatory theory which must now be pursued.

Reflecting a developing trend towards interdisciplinary research in economics and law, this agenda-setting volume makes the case for economic sociology of law – an emerging field that draws on empirical, analytical and normative insights from sociology to investigate relationships between legal and economic phenomena. It locates this novel subject in a wider socio-legal tradition and identifies common ground between Polanyian and Weberian approaches to the law, economy, and society, despite the two theorists’ divergent views on the functionality of the capitalist model. The volume provides a platform for researchers’ critical responses to the ‘social embeddedness’ of market societies.Contributors demonstrate the value of applying a combination of methods in their work, from heterogeneous disciplines such as legal history and ethnography. They consider the position in the western and developed nations, as well as in post-colonial polities. The resulting publication is a well-crafted primer on a specialism that, by combining the insights of socio-economic analysis with the formative influences exerted by their specific legal contexts, informs a more nuanced assessment of law, economics and society.

Post-crisis Trajectories of European Corporate Governance offers a critical reassessment of policy and institutional elements of corporate governance as it relates to the member states of the European Union. Presents a critical overview of contemporary corporate governance practices in the EUReassesses current European corporate governance policiesQuestions whether there should be a unified corporate governance trajectory in the EUIf such a trajectory exists, must it be completely reoriented or would a simple upgrade of current arrangements sufficeFeatures contributions from a variety of experts on corporate governance

Legal Life-Writing provides the first sustained treatment of the implications of life-writing on legal biography, autobiography and the visual history of law in society through a focus on neglected sources, and on those usually marginalized or ignored in legal biography and legal history, such as women and minorities.  Draws on a range of sources and disciplinary approaches including legal history, life-writing, sociology, history, art history, feminism and post-colonialism, seeking to build a bridge-head between themChallenges the methodologies employed in conventional accounts of legal livesAims to ignite debate about the nature of the relationship between socio-legal studies and legal historyAims to enlarge the fields of legal biography, legal history, history and socio-legal studies, and to foster a closer and more inter-disciplinary dialogue between these disciplines

Law’s Metaphors: Interrogating Languages of Law, Justice and Legitimacy presents a series of essays that reveal how metaphors for terms relating to the theory and practice of law are utilized in legal texts, literary works, and in our popular imagination. Represents an innovative approach to interdisciplinary legal scholarshipFeatures new developments in theorizing law’s relations with language, society, and cultureIncludes contributions from European and North American scholars across several relevant disciplinesReveals the prevalence and power of the use of metaphors in the legal profession and in the popular imagination

Austerity and Law in Europe presents an interdisciplinary collection of essays that challenge traditional narratives of austerity. The contributions recast austerity as a historically contingent political rationality that operates through law and technocracy. A collection of essays that tackles the relationship between austerity and law within and outside the European UnionDraws on a set of interdisciplinary contributions, incorporating insights from European law, economic history, legal theory, and economicsReveals how austerity measures in Europe were not implemented as an outcome of legal or economic necessity, but were a political choicePresents austerity as a historically contingent political rationality which gained a legal endorsement in the EU law and policy without foreclosing the possibilities for contestation either through law or politics

As state spending on legal services has come under pressure, so too has state commitment to equal access to justice. This volume brings together experts from around the world to look at what happens when the notion that justice should be available to everyone, regardless of means, is challenged. Explores the impact that increasing pressure on state spending onlegal services, and lower universal welfare provision have on the concept of "justice for all".Draws together original research from leading contributors to debates about access to justice from Australia, the United States and Europe.Covers unrepresented litigants, public defenders, self-help legal services, state- and market-based alternatives to legal aid, and the adaptation of common law court procedures to aboriginal culture, among other topics.Emphasises the tensions between efficiency, equality and justice.Published in association with the prestigious Journal of Law & Society.

This book explores the many approaches available to the study of law and literature. An exploration of the many relationships between law and literature. Looks at what law and literature can learn from one another. Makes those involved in literary studies more conscious of the impact that law has had on literary history. Treats subjects as diverse as Socrates and Marx. Contributors are significant scholars from the fields of legal theory and critical theory.

This collection examines the case for affirmative action in the UK in relation to employment, higher education, the legal profession, the judiciary, political representation and minority language rights. Draws on experience of affirmative action in the United States, Canada and Germany. Contributions highlight the importance of how affirmative action is conceptualised and of context in evaluating the case for affirmative action. Emphasises the need for pragmatic judgments about the likely effectiveness and costs of affirmative action policies.

The essays in this volume take on the challenge of explaining the current formation of the relation between sovereignty, law and violence in what is termed ‘Democracy’s Empire’. Contains a situated discussion of the institution of democracy and relatedjuridico-political problems Examines the historical and philosophical legacies which inform Democracy’s Empire – such as the Roman Republic, the separation between Church and State in the enlightenment, formations of revolutionary violence, and the relation between norm and exception Poses the problem of violence and death at the heart of the institution of democracy including examples such as South Africa and Iraq Offers a mixture of historical and philosophical treatment of democracy as a juridical problem of constitutional violence

This special issue explores the interrelationship between global economic interests and local ecological interests, and its implications in law. Along this axis, it seeks to examine not only the capacity of global forces to subjugate local interests in responding to territorially confined threats, but also the extent to which solutions to global environmental problems may depend on local action. It analyses the impact of globalization on legal structures and their ability to accommodate local concerns, and considers whether globalization, and the elimination of national borders, actually offers an opportunity to reassert the power of local and regional governance. Its essays include: Environmental Governance: Reconnecting the Global and LocalFree Trade: What is it Good For? Globalization, Deregulation, and ‘Public Opinion’Modern Interpretations of Sustainable Development      Environmental Justice Imperatives for an Era of Climate Change          (Re)Connecting the Global and Local: Europe’s Regional SeasFraming the Local and the Global in the Anti-Nuclear Movement: Law and the Politics of PlaceGlobalizing Regulation: Reaching Beyond the Borders of Chemical Safety      The Globalization and Re-localization of Material Flows: Four Phases of Food RegulationThe New Collaborative Environmental Governance: The Localization of RegulationContributors: Stuart Bell, Laurence Etherington, Neil Gunningham, Veerle Heyvaert, Chris Hilson, Robert Lee, Terry Marsden, Emily Reid, Andrea Ross, Mark Stallworthy, Jenny Steele, Elen Stokes

Regulating Sex/Work: From Crime Control to Neo-liberalism? addresses the rise in sexual commerce and consumption by challenging traditional responses and offering a fresh approach to sex industry regulation Examines different forms of sex regulation by utilizing examples from a range of sex markets in the UK, France, USA, Australia, and IndiaTheorizes the apparent paradox that the increase in punitive approaches to regulating the sex industry is fueling a rise in supply, demand, and diversification of the sex industry

The Challenge of Transnational Private Regulation: Conceptual and Constitutional Debates presents an extensive treatment of the constitutional dimensions of transnational private regulation, including its sources of power and modes of accountability. Represents the first extensive treatment of the phenomenon of transnational private regulationOffers conceptual and theoretical innovation in considering the significance of transnational private regulation and its relationship to governmental activity in hybrid regimesAnalyzes constitutional issues surrounding the emergence of transnational private regulation

A study of the existing and future research on the intersections between law and materiality, leading to the illumination of both. A theoretically innovative book exploring the intersections between law and materialityOffers new perspectives on a variety of high profile controversial subjects, including climate change, public health, genetics, crime, biomedical technologyInvestigates the futures of both the sociology of law and the study of science and technology from a novel, interdisciplinary vantage pointIllustrates a wide range of empirical topics to provide a focus for critical reflection on the nature of cross-disciplinary researchIlluminates relationships between transnational regulation and local practices and the relation between social agency and material worlds

This book seeks to examine the impact of the Human Rights Act legislation from the viewpoint of judges, lawyers, civil libertarians, politicians and academics. Investigation of the Human Rights Act since it came into force in 2000. Contributors include Sir Stephen Sedley, Thomas Mullen, Roger Smith and Lord Lester of Herne Hill. Offers insights and suggestions for developing a more effective, accessible and successful employment of the Human Rights Act.