糖心TV Law School News
糖心TV Law School News
The latest updates from our department
Professor Rebecca Probert publishes new edited book 'Marriage Rites and Rights'
Recent years have seen extensive discussion about the continuing retreat from marriage, the increasing demand for the right to marry from previously excluded groups, and the need to protect those who do not wish to marry from being forced to do so. At the same time, weddings are big business, couples are spending more than ever before on getting married, and marriage ceremonies are increasingly elaborate. It is therefore timely to reflect on the rites of marriage, as well as the right to marry (or not to marry), and the relationship between them.
To this end, this new interdisciplinary collection brings together scholars from numerous fields, including law, sociology, anthropology, psychology, demography, theology and art and design. Focusing on England and Wales, it explores in depth the specific issues arising from this jurisdiction’s Anglican heritage, demographic development, current laws and social practices.
PhD Alumnus Chikosa M Silungwe publishes book on Law, Land Reform and Responsibilisation
The book is a critical, genealogical analysis of land questions in the South through an original analysis of the Malawi experience. Through the author’s experience in land reform and subsequent advanced research in the area, the book notes that land reform discourse is dominated by an ethos based on market as value which, in turn, has cemented the ubiquity of a universal, automatic transition from land reform to land law reform in tackling a land question in a country.
PhD Alumna Fauzia Knight publishes book on Law, Power and Culture
A fresh theory on how individuals respond to inequalities occurring within their own communities. This original and insightful study draws on empirical research on the Santal people of Asia, examining power relations within social fields, and the state, to reveal a typology of power practices, and applies these to forced marriage in the West.
Surabhi Ranganathan publishes new book on 'strategically created treaty conflicts and the politics of international law'
Treaty conflicts are not merely the contingent or inadvertent by-products of the increasing juridification of international relations. In several instances, States have deliberately created treaty conflicts in order to catalyse changes in multilateral regimes. Surabhi Ranganathan uses such conflicts as context to explore the role of international law, in legal thought and practice. Her examinations of the International Law Commission's work on treaties and of various scholars' proposals on institutional action, offer a fresh view of 'mainstream' legal thought. They locate in a variety of writings a common faith in international legal discourse, built on liberal and constructivist assumptions. Ranganathan's three rich studies of treaty conflict, relating to the areas of seabed mining, the International Criminal Court, and nuclear governance, furnish a textured account of the specific forms and practices that constitute such a legal discourse and permit a grounded understanding of the interactions that shape international law.
Andrew Williams, publishes edited collection on 'Europe's Justice Deficit'
The legal and political evolution of the European Union has not, thus far, been accompanied by the articulation of any substantive ideal of justice going beyond the founders' intent or the economic objectives of the market integration project. The absence arguably compromises the foundations of the EU legal and political system. This edited volume brings together contributions addressing both legal and philosophical aspects of justice in the European context.
There have been many accounts of the EU as a story of constitutional evolution and a system of transnational governance, but few pay attention to the implications for justice. The EU has moved beyond its initial emphasis on the establishment of an internal market, yet most legal analyses remain premised on the assumption that EU law still largely serves the purpose of perfecting a system of economic integration. The place to be occupied by the underlying substantive ideal of justice remains significantly underspecified or even vacant, creating a tension between the market-oriented foundation of the Union and the contemporary essence of its constitutional system. The critical assessment provided by this book will help to create a fuller picture of the justice deficit in the EU, and open up an important new avenue of legal research.
Andreas Kokkinis, publishes a chapter in 'The Law on Corporate Governance in Banks'
THE LAW ON CORPORATE GOVERNANCE IN BANKS
Iris H-Y Chiu, University College London, UK and Consulting Editor, Michael McKee, Partner, DLA Piper With contributions from Anna P. Donovan, University College London, Rod Edmunds, Queen Mary University of London, Andreas Kokkinis, University of 糖心TV and University College London, John Lowry, Hong Kong University, Marc T. Moore, University of Cambridge, Arad Reisberg, University College London, Georgina Tsagas, University of Bristol, Edward Walker-Arnott, University College London and Herbert Smith Freehills, UK
New Book: 'Crimes of Mobility' Criminal Law and the Regulation of Immigration by Ana Aliverti
This book examines the role of criminal law in the enforcement of immigration controls over the last two decades in Britain. The criminalization of immigration status has historically served functions of exclusion and control against those who defy the state’s powers over its territory and population. In the last two decades, the powers to exclude and punish have been enhanced by the expansion of the catalogue of immigration offences and their more systematic enforcement.
This book is the first in-depth analysis on criminal offences in Britain, and presents original empirical material about the use of criminal powers against suspected immigration wrongdoers. Based on interviews with practitioners and staff at the UK Border Agency and data from court cases involving immigration defendants, it examines prosecution decision making and the proceedings before the criminal justice system. Crimes of Mobility critically analyses the criminalization of immigration status and, more generally, the functions of the criminal law in immigration enforcement, from a legal and normative perspective.
It will be of interest to academics and research students working on criminology, criminal law, criminal justice, socio-legal studies, migration and refugee studies, and human rights, as well as criminal law and immigration practitioners.
Routledge 2014 - 222 pages
New Book: Spinoza, Right and Absolute Freedom (Birkbeck Law Press) by Stephen Connelly
Against jurisprudential reductions of Spinoza’s thinking to a kind of eccentric version of Hobbes, this book argues that Spinoza’s theory of natural right contains an important idea of absolute freedom, which would be inconceivable within Hobbes’ own schema. Spinoza famously thought that the universe and all of the beings and events within it are fully determined by their causes. This has led jurisprudential commentators to believe that Spinoza has no room for natural right – in the sense that whatever happens by definition has a ‘right’ to happen. But, although this book demonstrates how Spinoza constructs a system in which right is understood as the work of machines, by fixing right as determinate and invariable, Stephen Connolly argues that Spinoza is not limiting his theory. The universe as a whole is capable of acting only in determinate ways but, he argues, for Spinoza these exist within a field of infinite possibilities. In an analysis that offers much to ongoing attempts to conceive of justice post-foundationally, the argument of this book is that Spinoza opens up right to a future of determinate interventions –as when an engineer, working with already-existing materials, improves a machine. As such, an idea of freedom emerges in Spinoza: as the artful rearrangement of the given into new possibilities. An exciting and original contribution, this book is an invaluable addition, both to the new wave of interest in Spinoza’s philosophy, and to contemporary legal and political theory.
New Book: Environmental Regulation edited by J. McEldowney & S. McEldowney
Featuring an original introduction by the editors, this important collection of essays explores the main issues surrounding the regulation of the environment. The expert contributors illustrate that regulating the environment in the UK is conceptually complex, involves a diverse range of institutions, techniques and methodologies and crosses geographical and national boundaries. In the USA it is more formalised, juridical, adversarial and formally dependent upon legal rules. The articles highlight the fact that despite differences in the UK and the USA's regulatory styles, environmental regulation today has much in common with both traditions.
New Book: Reforming Law and Economy for a Sustainable Earth: Critical Thoughts for Turbulent Times by Paul Anderson
Few concerns preoccupy contemporary progressive thought as much as the issue of how to achieve a sustainable human society. The problems impeding this goal include those of how to arrest induced global environmental change (GEC), persistent disagreements about the contribution of economic activities to GEC and further differences in views on how these activities can be reformed in order to reduce the rate of change and thus to mitigate threats to much life on Earth.
Living in a Law Transformed: Encounters with the Work of James Boyd White co-edited by Julen Etxabe and Gary Watt
A tribute to the continuing inspiration of James Boyd White’s work on law.
In 2013, an international group of jurists gathered in London to mark the 40th anniversary of the publication of James Boyd White’s The Legal Imagination, the book that is widely credited with instigating and inspiring the modern “law and literature” and “law and humanities” movements in university teaching and research. The authors of each of the twelve essays in this collection offer a personal reflection on teaching, researching, and practicing law in the light of White’s invitation to reimagine the law and our own relationship with it.
New Book: 'The Reconceptualization of European Union Citizenship' by Dora Kostakopoulou (ed.) eds. Elspeth Guild and Cristina Gortazar Rotaeche
This book maps out, from a variety of theoretical standpoints, the challenges generated by European integration and EU citizenship for community membership, belonging and polity-making beyond the state. It does so by focusing on three main issues of relevance for how EU citizenship has developed and its capacity to challenge state sovereignty and authority as the main loci of creating and delivering rights and protection. First, it looks at the relationship between citizenship of the Union and European identity and assesses how immigration and access to nationality in the Member States impact on the development of a common European identity. Secondly, it discusses how the idea of solidarity interacts with the boundaries of EU citizenship as constructed by the entitlement and capacity of mobile citizens to enjoy equality and social rights as EU citizens. Thirdly, the book engages with issues of EU citizenship and equality as the building blocks of the EU project. By engaging with these themes, this volume provides a topical and comprehensive account of the present and future development of Union citizenship and studies the collisions between the realisation of its constructive potential and Member State autonomy.