Running through the history of jurisprudence and legal theory is a recurring concern about the connections between law and justice and about the ways law is implicated in injustice. In earlier times law and justice were viewed as virtually synonymous. Experience, however, has taught us that, in fact, injustice may be supported by law. Nonetheless, the belief remains that justice is the special concern of law. Commentators from Plato to Derrida have called law to account in the name of justice, asked that law provide a language of justice, and demanded that it promote the attainment of justice. The justice that is usually spoken about in these commentaries is elusive, if not illusory, and disconnected from the embodied practice of law. Furthermore, the very meaning of justice, especially as it relates to law, is in dispute. Justice may refer to distributional issues or it may involve primarily procedural questions, impartiality in judgment or punishment and recompense. The essays collected in Justice and Injustice in Law and Legal Theory seek to remedy this uncertainty about the meaning of justice and its disembodied quality, by embedding inquiry about justice in an examination of law's daily practices, its institutional arrangements, and its engagement with particular issues at particular moments in time. The essays examine the relationship between law and justice and injustice in specific issues and practices and, in doing so, make the question of justice come alive as a concrete political question. They draw on the disciplines of history, law, anthropology, and political science. Contributors to this volume include Nancy Coot, Joshua Coven, Robert Gorton, Frank Michelin, and Michael Tossing. Austin Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College. Thomas R. Kearns is William H. Hastie Professor of Philosophy, Amherst College.

Justice and Power in the Sociolegal Studies asks what interdisciplinary work in the law and society tradition tells us about the relationship of law and justice, as well as the way power operates in and through law. The fundamental concepts of justice and power provide points of departure for leading scholars to explore the various domains of socio-legal research. As they note the explicitness of the engagement with issues of power and the relative silence about -- or indirectness in taking on -- questions of justice found in most law and society research, they ask how engagement with issues of power and silence about justice constituted law and society as a research field caught between a desire to have political impact and, at the same time, to maintain its scientific respectability.

In this volume, Professor Lyons outlines his fundamental views about the nature of law and its relation to morality and justice.

"A powerful historical, conceptual, and moral case for the proposition that judges on common law grounds should refuse to enforce unjust legislation. This is sure to be controversial in an age in which critics already excoriate judges for excessive activism when conducting constitutional judicial review. Edlin's challenge to conventional views is bold and compelling." ---Brian Z. Tamanaha, Chief Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo Professor of Law, St. John's University, and author of Law as a Means to an End: Threat to the Rule of Law In Judges and Unjust Laws, Douglas Edlin uses case law analysis, legal theory, constitutional history, and political philosophy to examine the power of judicial review in the common law tradition. He finds that common law tradition gives judges a dual mandate: to apply the law and to develop it. There is no conflict between their official duty and their moral responsibility. Consequently, judges have the authority---perhaps even the obligation---to refuse to enforce laws that they determine unjust. As Edlin demonstrates, exploring the problems posed by unjust laws helps to illuminate the institutional role and responsibilities of common law judges. Douglas E. Edlin is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Dickinson College.

The field of socio-legal research has encountered three fundamental challenges over the last three decades – it has been criticized for paying insufficient attention to legal doctrine, for failing to develop a sound theoretical foundation and for not keeping pace with the effects of the increasing globalization and internationalization of law, state and society. This book examines these three challenges from a methodological standpoint. It addresses the first two by demonstrating that legal sociology has much to say about justice as a kind of social experience and has always engaged theoretically with forms of normativity, albeit on its own empirical terms rather than on legal theory’s analytical terms. The book then explores the third challenge, a result of the changing nature of society, by highlighting the move from the industrial relations of early modernity to the post-industrial conditions of late modernity, an age dominated by information technology. It poses the question whether socio-legal research has sufficiently reassessed its own theoretical premises regarding the relationship between law, state and society, so as to grasp the new social and cultural forms of organization specific to the twenty-first century’s global societies.

The End of Law applies Augustine’s questions to modern legal philosophy as well as offering a critical theory of natural law that draws on Augustine’s ideas. McIlroy argues that such a critical natural law theory is: realistic but not cynical about law’s relationship to justice and to violence, can diagnose ways in which law becomes deformed and pathological, and indicates that law is a necessary but insufficient instrument for the pursuit of justice. Positioning an examination of Augustine’s reflections on law in the context of his broader thought, McIlroy presents an alternative approach to natural law theory, drawing from critical theory, postmodern thought, and political theologies in conversation with Augustine.

"[This book] provides an ideal starting point for students of philosophy and law. Setting it clearly against the historical background, [the author] ... leads readers into the heart of the philosophical questions that dominate philosophy of law today ... and [provides an] overview of the contending theories that have sought to resolve these problems ... The book is structured in three parts around the key issues and themes in philosophy of law: what is the law? : the major legal theories addressing the question of what we mean by law, including natural law, legal positivism and legal realism; the reach of the law : the various legal theories on the nature and extent of the law's authority, with regard to obligation and civil disobedience, rights, liberty and privacy; and criminal law : responsibility and mens rea, intention, recklessness and murder, legal defences, insanity and philosophies of punishment ... Revisions include a more detailed analysis of natural law, new chapters on common law and the development of positivism, a reassessment of the Austin-Hart dispute in the light of recent criticism of Hart, a new chapter on the natural law-positivist controversy over Nazi law and legality, and new chapters on criminal law, extending the analysis of the dispute over the viability of the defences of necessity and duress."--

The Concept of Injustice insists upon a re-thinking of Western theories of Justice, arguing that injustice, not justice, should be the focus of our attention.

This book is a collection of articles based on Understanding Unjust Enrichment,a symposium held at the University of Western Ontario in January 2003. The articles, written from the perspective of English, Australian, Canadian, German and Jewish law, deal with numerous theoretical and practical issues that surround restitution and unjust enrichment. The articles outline recent developments across the Commonwealth, explain the unjust enrichment principle and its component parts, and address discrete issues such as tracing, choice of law, disgorgement damages for breach of contract, and the use of unjust enrichment in the cohabitation context. The contributors are Kit Barker, Peter Benson, Jeffrey Berryman, Michael Bryan, Andrew Burrows, Robert Chambers, Gerald Fridman, Peter Jaffey, Dennis Klimchuk, Thomas Krebs, John McCamus, Mitchell McInnes, Stephen Pitel, Stephen Waddams and Ernest Weinrib.

Perfect for the student new to jurisprudence, this book provides an illuminating introduction to the central questions of legal theory. An experienced teacher of jurisprudence, Professor Wacks' approach is both accessible and entertaining, providing the ideal base for further study.