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Relying on a micro-comparative analysis, mainstream comparative scholarship tends to be of the view that most modern legal systems place limits on both the number and the content of the property rights private parties can create. This paper takes a different angle, arguing that such conclusion, although correct and meaningful, is essentially incomplete, as it does not take account of the implications this ' numerus clausus principle' has for the institutional governance of legal systems. Adopting a macro-comparative approach, the paper analyses this principle from the perspective of its impact on the role of courts and their legal reasoning in modern Germany, England and the US. It concludes that the numerus clausus principle has materially different 'systemic effects' in each of these jurisdictions and that this has important implications both for the understanding of the principle and the development of property law more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2022, Greece became the fifth country in the world to legally ban Intersex Genital Mutilation (IGM). The bill was prepared by the Ministry of Health and the intersex-led organisation "Intersex Greece". Even though the organisation was only established in 2021, it was actively engaged in the whole law-making process, which resulted in a legal text that became a best practice worldwide. This article tracks the history of the intersex movement in Greece and shows that the movement emerged around 2009. Then, based on online interviews, blogs, videos and articles, all strategies and alliances used by the movement over the years to advocate for intersex rights are explored, especially in the year 2017 when the law on Legal Gender Recognition (LGR) was passed and in 2022 when IGM was banned. Furthermore, online public documents from the Greek Parliament are consulted to provide a comprehensive analysis of how the social, cultural, economic, and political environment in the country affected these legal developments. Based on the above evidence, this article shows that the law-making process on IGM in Greece started 13 years before the law and was the outcome of a long process of multiple and unique intersecting factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theme of the law and its changes is still being discussed in the academic community. The fact that law requires social society as its habitat makes it difficult to maintain the status quo. The social community always changes according to the era and place where it makes the laws also voluntarily or is forced to make adjustments to its habitat. The article will discuss how the law cannot always be consistent because it is influenced by the social conditions in which the law lives, how the process of change occurs, and what factors influence the inconsistency of the law, in a philosophical reflection. By using a literature research approach, this research aims to explore two main questions, namely: does law change society or vice versa? and; what factors are most influential in encouraging legal change? This study reflects that jurists from various views seem to agree on one thing, that the law is changing and they only provide different criteria and procedures. This reflection culminates with a statement that the law is always changing, and it reforms itself all the time.

This article examines the nature of legal change in Islamic law through the case of the cultivation of wasteland (hyā' al-mawāt) in the 16th- 17th century Ottoman Empire. Imber, one of the leading scholars in modern Ottoman historiography, argues that there was an incompatibility between qānūn and sharī'ah regarding the legal consequences of opening up wastelands (mawāts) for agriculture in the Empire. He asserts that the legal doctrine of the Hanafī school gives the right of full ownership (al-milk al-tāmm) to a person cultivating a wasteland with the permission of the ruler (imām), while the Ottoman sultans' qānūns only grant this person the right of disposal (haqq al tasarruf). Imber's observation about the practice is accurate; however, his claim regarding the Hanafī school's legal doctrine of ihyā' almawāt needs revision. This article takes into consideration Hanafī nawāzil and fatāwá literature originating from Central Asia and Ottoman Anatolia to demonstrate that the doctrine in question underwent a slow and gradual but essential change over centuries, and then Ottoman Hanafī scholars interpreted the practice of the Empire based on this new doctrine, recognizing the sultan's authority to grant only the right of disposal to those who wished to cultivate the wasteland, suggesting that there was not an actual contradiction between qānūn and sharī'ah on this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In early 2022, an unprecedented flood event in Lismore, New South Wales plunged an entire community into trauma and chaos. I draw upon this event to highlight the imperative for climate activism in the academy. Activist research, and activist teaching in law classrooms, are already reshaping the law of the Holocene in response to the climate crisis and will increasingly do so. I suggest that, in light of their ecological privilege, academics must also modify their personal and professional conduct. We must all be climate activists, if only because climate will spare none of us. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional approaches to legislating to protect individual rights in Australia have utilised the language and discourse of international human rights law, attracting both support and criticism from key political actors and commentators. In South Australia, where no human rights legislation exists, past efforts to generate sustained public and political support for the enactment of international human rights principles into legislation have been unsuccessful. This is despite ongoing instances of human rights breaches occurring within the South Australian community. The reasons are varied and warrant careful consideration in order to identify and evaluate future options for improving the legal protection of human rights. One potential option is to reframe the discourse associated with human rights legislation. This could involve moving away from a legalistic approach that draws from international human rights law concepts and instead embrace the language of human security to refocus public and political attention on the need to secure dignity, equality and safety for the community. This article explores whether the language of human security, and the strategies identified by the United Nations Development Programme towards achieving human security, could create new opportunities for legislative reform in South Australia. It also considers the potential shortcomings of this approach, having regard to successful attempts to enact human rights legislation in other Australian states and territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Inonu University Law Review / İnönü Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi is the property of Inonu University Law Review (IULR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Politicas y Sociales is the property of Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Politicas y Sociales and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The meaning and significance of gender is currently a focus of heated and, often, polarised debate in the UK and elsewhere. This article provides a new perspective in the gender debate through focused exploration of UK-based non-binary people's perceptions of legal gender status and reform. Binary gender/sex systems, such as the legal gender system in the UK, are underpinned by cisgenderism and are challenged by those whose identity falls outside of the binary of woman and man. In contrast to most lay participants in the Future of Legal Gender (FLaG) project, the majority of non-binary participants reported support for reform (85.5% (n = 165) in favour) to the current UK legal gender system. Over half (57%, n = 110) were in favour of abolishing legal gender (i.e. the state would no longer assign a legal gender status), although this was constructed as 'an impossible dream'. Situating non-binary people's perspectives at the heart of the debate about the certification of gender offers novel insight which could have significant ramifications for how societal structures could support undoing gender in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legal scholars have long studied why laws are implemented differently across local court contexts. Key to understanding this localized variation is understanding how new laws are communicated, interpreted, and negotiated within the legal field. Few studies, however, have directly examined the process by which court actors interpret and negotiate new laws within the court. We explore these sensemaking processes through interviews and observations of court actors in Washington and Missouri after changes to monetary sanction laws. We identify three primary forms of sensemaking and analyze contextual factors that shape these processes. We find key differences in sensemaking based on differing levels of regulatory oversight but also that normative and cultural factors were still important in determining legal interpretation and implementation within each state. These findings have important implications for our theoretical understanding of courtroom communities and for policymakers seeking to enact reform.

Young Australians exiting Out-of-Home Care (OOHC) face some of the most challenging access to justice issues due to experiences of trauma, increased interactions with the justice system, distrust of government services, high rates of socioeconomic disadvantage and a lack of accessible support services. This article outlines the experience of the Mid North Coast Legal Centre (MNCLC) which, through the LevelUP Project, aimed to bridge this access to justice gap with a shake-up of the traditional legal services model. Through this experience, MNCLC offers some suggestions for legal centres seeking to improve access to justice for this disadvantaged group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how participatory art can contribute to legal change. As a case study, it discusses Jonas Staal’s project of New World Summit in Rojava, a (so far still) autonomous region in North and East Syria. It offers an interesting case, since it invites the law to include what it has excluded so far. To begin with, it is clarified how change is conceived within legal systems based on the rule of law. Although law resists radical change, it is involved in a constant process of adaptation to its environment. Subsequently, Staal’s project of New World Summit is discussed from a utopian perspective. Its apparent impossibility is what makes is so valuable for law and its development. By erecting a parliament for Rojava, it presents a picture of how the international order could look like when things were different. It basically is an exercise in “utopian world-making”.

Over the past decades, legal historians have become more cautious when it comes to rules that in the Middle Ages and the early modern period were defined as '(old) customs'. Earlier optimistic appraisals as to the age of such rules have been challenged. This article argues that efforts of debunking should be combined with a more thorough analysis of the legal consciousness of past societies. It proposes to look at old municipal private law, not as a set of rules fixed by tradition, but rather as a malleable body of norms. The symbolic qualities of law were such that renewal and rephrasal could be combined with an ideology of conservation. It was perfectly possible for administrators to promote new rules as being a part of an 'age-old law' of the city or the land, without breaching the implicit conventions as to the qualities of law. However, as will be demonstrated further, there were limits to the agency of administrators in this regard. The codes as to the features of law marked boundaries that had to be taken seriously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Romanian Journal of Comparative Law / Revista Romana de Drept Comparat is the property of Universul Juridic Publishing House and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines sexual harassment as it affects the legal profession, weighing up the efficacy of the legislative provisions in Australia in the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) (SDA). The article considers the recommendations for reform made by various reviews in recent years and the 2021 amendments to sexual harassment provisions. Following consideration of the alternate legislative drafting options and analysis of the approach taken in New Zealand, this article concludes that to address the systemic sexual harassment culture in the legal profession, change needs to go beyond the scope anticipated in current legislative amendments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative law and legal history show us that law is dynamic, always in continuous development, change, or mutation. This dynamic dimension has become a central concern for the comparative law scholars. The circulation of legal models in the world (e.g. legal transplant, legal transfer, legal borrowing, legal migration) is an evergreen issue. This phenomenon has provoked numerous doctrinal disputes, which have been encapsulated in complex theories on its possibilities and impossibilities. In the present article, we will not explore the many modern theories regarding legal transplantation (or under other metaphors). Instead, we will go back in time, in the second half of the nineteenth century, to explore an interesting Romanian theory that seems to have anticipated a series of modern ideas regarding the purpose, possibilities, and impossibilities of the circulation of legal models in the world. Following this approach, the main conclusion will be resumed to the idea that the Romanian theory of forms without substance can be integrated within the modern theories of legal transplant.

Legal scholars have long studied why laws are implemented differently across local court contexts. Key to understanding this localized variation is understanding how new laws are communicated, interpreted, and negotiated within the legal field. Few studies, however, have directly examined the process by which court actors interpret and negotiate new laws within the court. We explore these sensemaking processes through interviews and observations of court actors in Washington and Missouri after changes to monetary sanction laws. We identify three primary forms of sensemaking and analyze contextual factors that shape these processes. We find key differences in sensemaking based on differing levels of regulatory oversight but also that normative and cultural factors were still important in determining legal interpretation and implementation within each state. These findings have important implications for our theoretical understanding of courtroom communities and for policymakers seeking to enact reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rather than to critique the substance of Joel Colón-Ríos's indisputably important contribution to the scholarship on constituent power, the aim of this essay is to put in question the historiographical mode of theoretical engagement which prevails in the contemporary debates about this important concept, as well as to question its ostensible present-day significance--especially to the politically engaged projects such as Colón-Ríos's--which, at the very least, deserves to be discussed more directly, explicitly, and systematically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodiversity loss continues to be one of the greatest issues for this generation despite the development of International Environmental Law (IEL). By examining the anthropocentric nature of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) I will argue that how we attribute value to wildlife and the human-centric construction of law are the key reasons for the failures of IEL. Ultimately a shift in attitude is required if we are to effectively halt environmental degradation and protect wildlife species under IEL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article both examines changing contexts and factors that cause transformation as well as shows their effects on Islamic finance contracts. Here the author addresses his general theories in terms of modern iǧtihād (independent reasoning) on modern Islamic finance contracts. The main question is: 'How have changing contexts and factors affected the emergence and transformation of Islamic financial contracts?' The study addresses contexts, factors, and conditions that severely transform contracts. More specifically, the author argues that modern Islamic finance contracts have been transformed by the effects of changing factors and contexts. The main objective is to uncover modern contractual developments in Islamic finance and show how this transformation has made its mark on modern Islamic finance contracts. The study consists of a presentation of historical background, an explanation of socio-economic and ideological-ethical contexts and factors creating change, and a discussion regarding their effects on modern Islamic contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social Sciences in China is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abortion laws in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland have recently undergone radical reform. This occurred following a 2018 referendum in the Republic and the passing of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 in Northern Ireland. In both jurisdictions, these legal changes are the products not only of moments of constitutional and legislative action or of litigation, but of decades of feminist protest and strategising that both generated and exploited moments of legal opportunity. In this article, drawing on a 2018 workshop and qualitative interviews with feminist activists, we focus attention on what we call the 'feminist law work' involved in reform, highlighting the role of non-lawyer activists in achieving legal change in instrumental, creative, emotional, and laborious ways. We argue that 'feminist law work' should be taken seriously as a highly skilled and indispensable driving force in formal legal change processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses a spectacle, a wrestling match, that brings out the problem of violence against women and the role of activist organisations such as the Centro de Información y Desarrollo de la Mujer (CIDEM) to raise awareness among people and to influence the Bolivian state to change the gender of the law. In effect, it considers CIDEM's vigilant role, by visualising cases of femicides in partnership with the press, is translated in wrestling matches. The article considers one such wrestling match I witnessed in El Alto, Bolivia, and argues that CIDEM's vigilant role extends to overlooking and complementing the vigilant roles of the state and customary legal systems in El Alto that are unable to prevent femicides: women being killed by men because of their gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Derecho Politico is the property of Editorial UNED and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article traces the emergence of compilations of a particular kind of legal riddle in the 8th/14th century, with special reference to the compilation of Ibn Farḥūn (d. 799/1397). Ibn Farḥūn's riddles could be solved only by someone with detailed knowledge of Islamic positive law (furūʿ), and he argues that they are both an appropriate form of restful entertainment and a kind of competitive pedagogy. At the same time, Ibn Farḥūn derived novel legal opinions on the basis of his riddles, which demonstrates that jurists used hypothetical, imaginative situations to derive new rulings. The article also traces the origins of furūʿ -based legal riddles in the more diffuse tradition of Islamic riddling and in the adab tradition of riddling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last quarter of a century has featured a surge in interest and studies on the commons, spearheaded, of course, by the efforts of Elinor Ostrom. These efforts have problematized the once well-established paradigm of the tragedy of the commons most clearly described by Garrett Hardin in 1968. One could say that the commons, thus, have become a fundamental field of study in most social sciences. This is not the case in the field of legal scholarship (with one noticeable exception that I will discuss later), which leads me to the overarching issue of this essay, namely the difficult relationship between jurists and the commons. The phrase “difficult relationship” does not refer to an explicit antagonism, but to something even worse: complete indifference and a scandalous lack of knowledge. While my main purpose is to try to explain this sorry state of affairs, I also hope to make a more general point on the nature of law and legal change. In this sense, the commons can be considered a case-study in legal theory. The main issue of this paper is to tackle following sub-questions. What is the status of commons in the Western European legal discourse? Why do most legal scholars pay such a poor attention to the growing literature on the commons in other disciplines? What factors contribute to this peculiar case of cultural deafness? What promise of improvement does the future hold?

Since the mid-1960s, in the brief span of a couple of decades, a progressive weakening of the marriage institution as the structuring element of the family has come about. With fewer, later marriages, more fragile as divorces rapidly increased, and with the normalization of less stable forms of cohabitation, the very conditions of family life have been transformed in a large area, covering Western Europe, North America and other parts of the "developed" world. The number of births outside marriage has noticeably risen, and at the same time, there has been a drastic falling birth rate, all the more significant as it occurred in countries with already low or moderate fertility levels, if seen on a global scale. Almost directly connected to these phenomena, the number of second (or subsequent) unions, divorced and "single" persons, and those who, more or less voluntarily, will not have children in the course of their life has increased. These are changes of fundamental importance from the point of view of both society and the individual, because they deeply affect people's lives. Studying those transformations assumes a particular interest for the sociology of law as the evolution of behaviour has been intertwined with legal changes, both in jurisprudential orientations and in the legislation. After a stagnation in the family law, which sometimes lasted more of a century, in the space of a few decades radical reforms were introduced in all the Western countries, which profoundly changed the legal context of family relations and reproductive behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between social movements and the legal field is controversial and complex. This paper begins by recognizing that the concept of social movement does not belong to legal doctrine and then synthetically reconstruct the relevance of it for a legal understanding. In fact, even if this concept is not formally taken into account by constitutions or by legal codes, a socio-legal approach underscores the need for the comprehension and inclusion of collective phenomena into legal theory. First, the paper explores the way in which 'social movement' has been taken up and translated in the legal field through the concept of social change and constitutional change. Second, this research goes through various cases in which social movements use law strategically, from the phenomenon of cause lawyering to the litigation strategy. Finally, it stands for a theoretical understanding of the role of social movements in legal theory as a lively expression of 'becoming-constituent'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Araucaria is the property of Araucaria-Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofia, Politica y Humanidades and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This essay traces the formation of notions of selfness and kinship in medieval Karaite law through analysis of commentaries on the prohibitions to marry close-kin members. By examining what it takes to become a relative within kinship, either consanguineal or affinal kin-ties, the study explores different notions of selfness that stand at the base of these legal trends and approaches. It also brings forward Karaite texts that have largely been ignored in modern scholarship; some of these are medieval manuscripts presented in print here for the first time. Karaite authors discussed in the essay include Anan b. David, Ya'qub al-Qirqisani, Levi b. Yeft, Yeshuah b. Yehudah, Solomon b. David, and Yehuda Hadassi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State prison populations in the United States have been regularly declining since 2009, and, at the end of 2014, the combined federal and state prison population was at its lowest level since 2005. Criminologists were caught by surprise by this development in the country that epitomized contemporary 'mass incarceration'. Their theoretical accounts were steeped in a 'punitive worldview' that left no space for the stabilization and eventual decline in mass incarceration in the United States. This article focuses on policy processes, rather than structural conditions, as drivers of penal change. The article begins with an overview of theories of punishment and their shortcomings. The framework that guides our study is based on the concept of 'critical junctures', which are seedbeds of long-term transformative change that present opportunities and constraints for actors in the penal field. The empirical research presented here analyses the adoption of legal reforms aimed at reducing mass incarceration by the 50 US states. We find that a trifecta of conflicting actors – legal, political and public – accounts for the complex and sometimes contradictory ways in which states move towards penal reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her critique of anti-discrimination law, 'The Liberal Promise', Professor Margaret Thornton argued that the law could have a limited impact on social change partly due to the privatised way in which discrimination claims are resolved. This Brief explores the influence of Thornton's work and suggests that, 30 years on, her claims still ring true. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lawyers who practice family law for LGBT clients are key players in the tenuous and evolving legal environment surrounding same-sex marriage recognition. Building on prior research on factors shaping the professional identities of lawyers generally, and activist lawyers specifically, I examine how practice within a rapidly changing, patchwork legal environment shapes professional identity for this group of lawyers. I draw on interviews with 21 LGBT family lawyers to analyze how the unique features of LGBT family law shape their professional identities and practice, as well as their predictions about the development of the practice in a post-Obergefell world. Findings reveal that the professional identities and practice of LGBT family lawyers are shaped by uncertainty, characteristics of activist lawyering, community membership, and community service. Individual motivations and institutional forces work to generate a professional identity that is resilient and dynamic, characterized by skepticism and distrust coupled with flexibility and creativity. These features are likely to play a role in the evolution of the LGBT family lawyer professional identity post-marriage equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal must be independent from inappropriate influence, and the perception of such influence, in order to effectively perform its duties of de novo merits review of government decisions. Drawing on recent controversies surrounding the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in 2017, this article concludes that the current mechanisms of Administrative Appeals Tribunal member reappointment exposes the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to a risk of inappropriate influence by the government of the day or at least a risk of public perception to that effect. After examining several possible reforms to minimise this risk, this paper proposes the creation of an independent reappointment committee for the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to explore perceptions and assessments of lay participation in Norway during a historic time of transition away from all‐layperson juries. This study consisted of sixteen months of court observation and interviews with judges, prosecutors, former lay decision makers, defense attorneys, and other contributors to the country's longstanding jury debate. My ethnographic research demonstrates that all‐layperson juries in Norway face practical and procedural checks that differentiate them from Anglo‐American juries, among others. For this reason, legal professionals in Norway evince confidence that mixed courts of lay and professional citizens can facilitate fair case outcomes. A central finding from this research is that comparative analyses of all‐layperson juries and mixed courts require attention to the social specificity of the states that support such systems. To this end, lay participation in Norway challenges the conventional wisdom that jurors have greater independence and control over case outcomes than lay judges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a large uptake of social media use by legal professionals over recent years, but with the embrace of the 21st-century lawyer comes an obligation to not only use social media but to do so ethically. Undoubtedly, social media presents a number of ethical challenges for the profession. However, with risk mitigation strategies,Web 2.0 can be used to gain clients through advertising, gather important evidence, serve court documents, network with others in the field and, most importantly, educate the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While academic contributions abound on the reach and impact of the European Union (EU) system of fundamental rights protection, and notably on the desirability of a more or less extensive control of Member States' actions in light of the rights protected by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, there have been few attempts to explain the dynamics of integration-through-rights in the EU. This article proposes an explanatory framework inspired by a legal opportunities approach, which emphasizes the relevance of national and EU legal opportunities, and interactions between them, in determining the actual scope and pace of federalization through rights in the EU. It suggests that the weaker the legal opportunities for fundamental rights protection are at the domestic level, the greater the federalizing pressure is, and call for more empirical comparative studies to test this framework out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The foundations of the "Republic of the Indians" in the New World rested on a legal substratum that took more solid shape in the everyday interaction between indigenous subjects and the Spanish courts. Grounded in the local cabildos of some pueblos de indios in cosmopolitan areas of late colonial Peru, a higher level of legal activism that emerged was engaged in the production of laws seeking to modify well-established imperial practices of protección originally intended to assist Indian cases in courts. This essay reconstructs the genealogy of the process of law formation based on a crucial legal campaign led by Indian leaders of El Cercado in 1735 Lima aimed at substituting Spanish protectores de naturales for indigenous ones. The long-awaited legal victory of El Cercado's native authorities demonstrates that the "República de indios" was shaped legally from below, instead of being overdetermined by the laws emanating from Madrid or the audiencias. Strategizing for the production of a real cédula, the cabildo leaders also manipulated imperial legal history and its rhetoric of "protección" as well as operated within social networks of Indians and other allies on both sides of the Atlantic and regionally in Peru. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Surviving relatives are often neglected as stakeholders of organizations. • Several institutions demonstrated a lack of compassion with the surviving relatives. • Surviving relatives initiated a five year safety improvement program in the company. • The successful improvement program inspired many organizations and institutions. • The labour inspection adopted safety improvement plans as alternative to fines. • The potential of victims as 'change agents for safety' is generally underestimated. • Prevention of unnecessary suffering of victims should be part of safety science. Fatal accidents are a life changing event for surviving relatives. As secondary victims, their life is suddenly disrupted and becomes filled with mourning, sorrow, pain and uncertainty. A case study from the Netherlands shows that a range of organizations and institutions have a social responsibility to contribute to mitigating the suffering of surviving relatives. A responsibility which is up till now often neglected. From a corporate social responsibility point of view the alleviation and prevention of suffering of surviving relatives should be important for any organisation involved in the aftermath of fatal accidents. The case study shows that surviving relatives, as secondary victims, can contribute in a unique way to the initiation, implementation and realization of a successful corporate program to promote prevention and the development of a proactive safety culture. Finally, the case study shows that surviving relatives can contribute actively to the development of more proactive inspection strategies and new legislation. It is suggested that within safety science and practice more attention should be given to the agency and potential positive contributions of surviving relatives and survivors of serious accidents to prevention and safety promotion. By speaking from their heart and out of their dramatic personal experience, they can impact the behaviour of corporate leaders, policy makers as well as operational workers in a unique way. Simultaneously, such activities help them to develop new purpose and meaning in their disrupted lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars and practitioners stress the need for systematic research on the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and its potential impact on children's rights. Our study focused on one aspect of implementation - law reform. Drawing primarily on reports to the CRC Committee for 179 countries, results show for most countries, implementation is limited and focused far more on child-welfare than child-rights based legislation. The relationship of measures of law reform/legal regime (most notably, the existence of customary law and laws banning corporal punishment) to children's experience of rights, child physical abuse and mortality, is analysed and theoretically grounded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of discovered wrongful criminal convictions (and resulting exonerations) has increased over the past decade. These cases erode public confidence in the criminal justice system and trust in the rule of law. Many states have adopted laws that aim to reduce system errors but no study has examined why some states appear more willing to provide due process protections against wrongful convictions than others. Findings from regression estimates suggest that states with a Republican controlled legislature or more Republican voters are less likely to pass these laws while the presence of advocacy organizations that are part of the ‘innocence movement’ make legislative change more likely. We thus identify important differences in the political and social context between U.S. states that influence the adoption of criminal justice policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the Dalit situation of caste-based oppression in India could be characterized by the enduring co-existence of upward social mobility and atrocities. While being a common-sense understanding, the paper suggests that the relation between upward social mobility and enduring atrocity could be referred to as a "structural mechanism" in the Dalit situation. The concept is used to explain the Dalit problem. Moreover, this structural mechanism sheds more light on developments and discursive breaks in the legal context. A central lesson in the post-colonial period is that the problem of "untouchables" could not simply be conceptualized as a problem of civil law and untouchability. Rather, the problem of atrocities created demands and a need to make caste-based atrocities a concern for criminal law. Ambedkar's significance as a symbol of Dalit assertion could be viewed in connection with the structural mechanism of Dalit achievements and caste-based exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The World Trade Organization ( WTO) arguably shapes regulatory governance in more countries to a greater extent than any other international organization. This article provides a new framework for assessing the broader transnational regulatory implications of the WTO as part of a transnational legal order ( TLO) in terms of four dimensions of regulatory change that permeate the state: (i) changes in the boundary between the market and the state (involving concomitantly market liberalization and growth of the administrative state); (ii) changes in the relative authority of institutions within the state (promoting bureaucratized and judicialized governance); (iii) changes in professional expertise engaging with state regulation (such as the role of lawyers); and (iv) changes in normative frames and accountability mechanisms for national regulation (which are trade liberal and transnational in scope). In practice, these four dimensions of change interact and build on each other. The article presents what we know to date and a framework for conducting further study of such transnational legal ordering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We embed a critique of the respective strengths and weaknesses of policy initiatives to ‘build the rule of law’ within the broader literature on political settlements and developmental states, thereby creating a foundation for an alternative framework that takes politics and the legitimacy of change processes seriously. Thus far the dominant terms of debate have been between those advocating or resisting the replication of legal ‘forms’ (i.e., what modern legal institutions, statutes and procedures ‘look like’, such as constitutions) via large, rapid, imported technocratic interventions, and those pushing instead for a focus on enhancing a prevailing legal system's ‘functionality’ (what the existing system actually ‘does’) via a series of local level legal empowerment programs or attempts to redefine state-society relations by adjusting legal configurations. We argue for the inclusion of a third dimension, namely one encompassing procedural legitimacy and equitable contestation as part of the change process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In response to domestic and international concern about individuals being exploited for labor or commercial sex, the U.S. Government passed legislation in 2000, creating a new crime of human trafficking and devoting resources to the identification of victims and prosecution of perpetrators. Since that time, all 50 states have passed legislation criminalizing trafficking of persons, yet law enforcement responses to these new legal mandates have been uneven. Recent research suggests police agencies are generally unprepared to identify and respond to human trafficking incidents in local communities and, as a result, relatively few cases have been identified. Using data from medium-to-large municipal police agencies in the United States, this research examines competing explanations for the adoption of responses in the wake of new human trafficking laws. The findings suggest the importance of institutional explanations including organizational experience with change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]