Law : Court Rules

An examination of the challenges posed by the largely unfamiliar culture in which the Special Court for Sierra Leone operates. more...

Price: $84.00

The American trial looms large in our collective imagination—witness the enormous popularity of Law & Order—but it is, in reality, almost extinct. In 2002, less than 2 percent of federal civil cases culminated in a trial, down from 12 percent forty years earlier. And the number of criminal trials also dropped dramatically, from 9 percent of cases in 1976 to only 3 percent in 2002. In The Death of the American Trial, distinguished legal scholar Robert P. Burns makes an impassioned case for reversing this rapid decline before we lose one of our public culture’s greatest achievements. Burns begins by cutting through all-too-common misinformation about contemporary trials, reminding readers of its essential features and functions. These characteristics, he shows, resulted from a centuries-long process that brought trials to maturity only in the early twentieth century. As a practice that is adapted for modern times yet rooted in ancient wisdom, the trial is uniquely suited to balance the tensions—between idealism and reality, experts and citizens, contextual judgment and reliance on rules—that define American culture. Arguing that many observers make a grave mistake by taking a positive or even complacent view of the trial’s demise, Burns concludes by laying out the catastrophic consequences of losing an institution that so perfectly embodies democratic governance. As one federal judge put it, the jury is the “canary in the mineshaft; if it goes, if our people lose their inherited right to do justice in court, other democratic institutions will lose breath too.” The Death of the American Trial arrives not a second too soon to spark a rescue operation before trials are relegated to the purely fictional realm of televised drama. more...

Price: $29.00

The jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice generally demonstrates that no rule of international law can be interpreted and applied without regard to its innate values and the basic principles of human rights. Through its case-law the ICJ has made immense contributions to the development of human rights law, and in so doing continues to provide solutions to mounting international problems, such as terrorism and unilateral use of force. Part I of the book argues that the legislative spirit of contemporary international law lies in the doctrine of human rights and that the spirit of human rights doctrine lies in the principle of human dignity. Furthermore it argues that the processes of international legislation and international adjudication are inseparable, and that there is no norm of international law which does not intertwine the fundamental principle of human dignity with human rights doctrine. Hence human rights law is more a school of law than merely a normative branch of international law, and the ICJ's willingness to engage in the development of human rights law depends upon which judicial ideology its judges subscribe to.In order to evaluate how this human rights spirit is manifested, or occasionally not manifested, through the vast jurisprudence of the ICJ, Parts II and III critically examine the Court's principal contentious and advisory cases in which it has treated human rights questions. The legal reasoning of the Court and the opinions appended to its decisions by its individual judges are analysed in light of the principle of human dignity and the doctrine of human rights. more...

Price: $135.00

The normative limitations to the investigation of the truth in criminal trials represent the most complex and controversial subject matter in criminal procedural law. It concerns one of the oldest and most extensively discussed questions that remains ever current and of the utmost relevance to the practice of law. more...

Price: $137.00

Like most African societies, the Afikpo indigenous justice system employs restorative, transformative, and communitarian principles in conflict resolution. This study examines the principles and practices of the Afikpo (Eugbo) Nigeria indigenous justice system. more...

Price: $80.00