This book examines whether law, as a cultural practice, can apply across cultural boundaries to bind people with vastly different beliefs and practices.

Présentation de l'éditeur : "This second edition of a classic in Anglo-American legal philosophy reopens the dialogue between Bentham's work and contemporary legal philosophy. Gerald J. Postema revisits the themes of the first edition in light of the latest scholarly criticism and provides new insights into the historical-philosophical roots of international law"

Hans Kelsen and the Natural Law Tradition provides the first sustained examination of Hans Kelsen’s critical engagement, itself founded upon a distinctive theory of legal positivism, with the Natural Law Tradition. This edited collection commences with a comprehensive introduction which establishes the character of Kelsen’s critical engagement as a general critique of natural law combined with a more specific critique of representative thinkers of the Natural Law Tradition. The subsequent chapters are then devoted to a detailed analysis of Kelsen’s engagement with prominent theorists from the Natural Law Tradition. The volume concludes with an exploration, focusing upon the delineation of a non-positivist legal theory in the debate between Robert Alexy and Joseph Raz, of the continued presence of Kelsenian legal positivism in contemporary legal theory.

In terms of the South African Constitution of 1996 there is a general need for an introduction to comparative law and one that covers what is technically known as applied comparative law; more particularly applied comparative law that involves a study of the bills of rights in other countries.

Although international arbitration has emerged as a credible means of resolution of transnational disputes involving parties from diverse cultures, the effects of culture on the accuracy, efficiency, fairness, and legitimacy of international arbitration is a surprisingly neglected topic within the existing literature. The Culture of International Arbitration fills that gap by providing an in-depth study of the role of culture in modern day arbitral proceedings. It contains a detailed analysis of how cultural miscommunication affects the accuracy, efficiency, fairness, and legitimacy in both commercial and investment arbitration when the arbitrators and the parties, their counsel and witnesses come from diverse legal traditions and cultures. The book provides a comprehensive definition of culture, and methodically documents and examines the epistemology of determining facts in various legal traditions and how the mixing of traditions influences the outcome. By so doing, the book demonstrates the acute need for increasing cultural diversity among arbitrators and counsel while securing appropriate levels of cultural competence. To provide an accurate picture, Kidane conducted interviews with leading international jurists from diverse legal traditions with first-hand experience of the complicating effects of culture in legal proceedings. Given the insights and information on the rules and expectations of the various legal traditions and their convergence in modern day international arbitration practice, this book challenges assumptions and can offer a unique and useful perspective to all practitioners, academics, policy makers, students of international arbitration.

The cultural diversity characterizing international arbitration today is as much a source of enrichment as it is sometimes a source of practical difficulties affecting both the arbitration procedure and the application of substantive law. Consequently, it is becoming clearer that the critical project for international arbitration in the immediate future will be how to best answer the fundamental question of cultural pluralism. This book presents an informative and well-argued discussion on many aspects of international arbitration, clarifying the main procedural and substantive similarities and differences between different legal systems around the world, focusing not only on common and civil law traditions but also the role played by regional legal traditions including Islamic law and African perspectives. With contributions from fifty arbitrators, counsel, and academics representing every region of the world where international arbitration has secured a foothold, the volume consolidates and synthesizes a series of discussions sponsored by the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators that took place in Dubai, Johannesburg, and Paris in 2017. The essays identify and address the cultural distinctions that affect the key ever-present factors which have forged the character of modern international arbitration, such as the following: the seat of the arbitration and the legal regime to which the arbitration is attached; due process, which has different and specific meanings in different national legal systems; international standards such as international public policy, illegality, arbitrability, and sanctions; the immunity of international arbitrators; form of presentation of evidence, production of documents, oral and written submissions, and expert evidence; the specific context of international investment arbitration; disputes in specific industries or legal areas (telecommunications, construction, mining, intellectual property); the role of national judges and the legal traditions they embrace throughout and after arbitration proceedings; how to incorporate more conciliatory cultural traditions, which are notably shared in many African and Asian countries; and training and opportunities for the next generation in international arbitration. The book is replete with tools and recommendations to ensure synergy and harmony between the different legal traditions that coexist in today’s arbitral proceedings. All users of arbitration, whether the arbitrators themselves, lawyers involved as counsel for parties, or judges applying arbitration law, will greatly appreciate this matchless elucidation of the different systems and alternative ways of presenting the divergent procedures and ways of conducting international arbitrations. The book’s immeasurable value to arbitration academics goes without saying.

For law students and lawyers to successfully understand and practice law in the U.S., recognition of the wider context and culture which informs the law is essential. Simply learning the legal rules and procedures in isolation is not enough without an appreciation of the culture that produced them. This book provides the reader with an understandable introduction to the ways in which U.S. law reflects its culture and each chapter begins with questions to guide the reader, and concludes with questions for review, challenge and further understanding. Kirk W. Junker explores cultural differences, employing history, social theory, philosophy, and language as "reference frames," which are then applied to the rules and procedures of the U.S. legal system in the book’s final chapter. Through these cultural reference frames readers are provided with a set of interpretive tools to inform their understanding of the substance and institutions of the law. With a deeper understanding of this cultural context, international students will be empowered to more quickly adapt to their studies; more comprehensively understand the role of the attorney in the U.S. system; draw comparisons with their own domestic legal systems, and ultimately become more successful in their legal careers both in the U.S. and abroad.

Although Indigenous peoples had their own systems of law based on their social, political, and spiritual traditions, under colonialism their legal systems have often been ignored or overruled by non-Indigenous laws. Today, however, these legal traditions are being reinvigorated and recognized as vital for the preservation of the political autonomy of Aboriginal nations and the development of healthy communities. The essays in this book present important perspectives on the role of Indigenous legal traditions in reclaiming and preserving the autonomy of Aboriginal communities and in reconciling the relationship between these communities and Canadian governments. Contributors include Andrée Lajoie, Minnawaanagogiizhigook (Dawnis Kennedy), Ghislain Otis, Ted Palys and Wenona Victor, Paulette Regan, and Perry Shawana. Common threads linking the essays include the relationship between Indigenous and Canadian legal orders, the importance of Indigenous legal traditions for Aboriginal communities’ autonomy, and the ways in which these traditions might be recognized and given space in the Canadian legal landscape. In its examination of different aspects of and models for the recognition of Indigenous legal orders, this book addresses important issues relating to legal pluralism. It will be of interest to a wide audience including lawyers and legal academics, teachers, students, policy makers, and members of Aboriginal communities.

This book offers an exploration of aspects of the subject, Islam and Human Rights, which is the focus of considerable scholarship in recent years predominantly from Western scholars. Thus it is interesting and important to have the field addressed from a non -Western perspective and by an Iranian scholar. The study draws on Persian language literature that addresses both theological and legal dimensions of the theme. The work is also distinctive in that it tackles three areas that have been largely ignored in the literature. It undertakes a comparative study of the laws of several Muslim States with respect to religious freedom, minorities and the rights of the child. The study offers an optimistic vision of the fundamental compatibility of Islam and international human rights standards.

Courts, Codes, and Custom addresses the question of why some states recognize and comply with international human rights and environmental law, while others do not. To address this question, Dana Zartner has developed a novel cultural-institutional theory to explain the manner in which a state's domestic legal tradition shapes policy through the process of internalization. A state's legal tradition - the cultural and institutional factors that shape attitudes about the law, appropriate standards of behavior, and the legal process - is the key mechanism by which international law becomes recognized, accepted, and internalized in the domestic legal framework. Legal tradition shapes not only perceptions about law, but also provides the lens through which policy-makers view state interests, directly and indirectly influencing state policy. The book disaggregates the concept of legal tradition and examines how the individual cultural and institutional characteristics present within a state's domestic legal tradition facilitate or hinder the internalization of international law and, subsequently, shape state policy. In turn it explains both the differences in international law recognition across legal traditions, as well as the variance among states within legal traditions. To test this theory Zartner compares case studies within five of the main legal traditions in the world today: common law (U.S. and Australia), civil law (Germany and Turkey), Islamic law (Egypt and Saudi Arabia), mixed traditions (India and Kenya), and East Asian law (China and Japan). She addresses the differences among legal traditions as well as between states within the same tradition; the important role that legal culture and history play in shaping contemporary attitudes about law; and similarities and differences in state policy towards human rights law versus environmental law.