"End-Of-Law week drinkS @ ACT Magistrates Court: Friday 20 May 2005." Ethos: Official Publication of the Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory, (198), pp. 24.

Modern societies often claim to be democracies in order to enjoy greater legitimacy. Still, to understand the concept of democracy and how to justify it, the definition of it as self-determined is not sufficient. A complex understanding has to take into account ideas of rule of law as well as human rights. Sometimes these three concepts compete with each other - particularly in societies with a pluralistic approach to what "the good life" should be, such as societies which are (...) made up of distinct cultural backgrounds. This book presents a concept of democracy that encompasses at the same time the ideas of rule of law, human rights and self-determination. It contains the main lectures of the XXVI World Congress of Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, hosted by the Internationale Vereinigung fur Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (Brazil) in July 2013. (shrink)

This book explores aspects of indigenous Yoruba philosophy of law and relates this philosophy to the Yoruba indigenous traditions of governance. It is written with an appreciation of the relevance of the Yoruba traditions of law and governance to contemporary African experiments with imported Western democracy in the twenty-first century.

Society has historically not taken a benign view of genetic disease. The laws permitting sterilization of the mentally re tarded~ and those proscribing consanguineous marriages are but two examples. Indeed as far back as the 5th-10th centuries, B.C.E., consanguineous unions were outlawed (Leviticus XVIII, 6). Case law has traditionally tended toward the conservative. It is reactive rather than directive, exerting its influence only after an individual or group has sustained injury and brought suit. In contrast, state legislatures have not (...) been inhibited in enacting statutes. Many of their products can be characterized as hasty, unnecessary, ill-conceived, and based on the heart rather than the head. Moreover the lack of expert consultation sought has also been remarkable. One state legislature, for example, has advocated immunization for sickle cell anemia! Many others have enacted laws for the screening of inborn errors of metabolism, e.g., phenylketon uria, but have poorly defined the lines of responsibility to secure compliance. A spate of specific disease-related bills has emerged in the u.S. Congress, each seeking recognition and appropriations. Sickle cell anemia, hemophilia, Cooley's anemia and Tay-Sachs disease have been among the front-runners for support. Finally, in 1975, Congress has begun to examine an omnibus bill concerning all forms of genetic disease. The bill, termed the National Genetic Diseases Act is, however, still far from being enacted. (shrink)

In The Rule of Law in the Real World, Paul Gowder defends a new conception of the rule of law as the coordinated control of power and demonstrates that the rule of law, thus understood, creates and preserves social equality in a state. In a highly engaging, interdisciplinary text that moves seamlessly from theory to reality, using examples ranging from Ancient Greece through the present, Gowder sheds light on how societies have achieved the rule of law, (...) how they have sustained it in the face of political upheaval, and how it may be measured and developed in the future. The Rule of Law in the Real World is an essential work for scholars, students, policymakers, and anyone else who believes the rule of law is critical to the proper functioning of society. (shrink)

"[W]e must focus on what legalism, per se, means, and then ask why is it a good thing to have. Not less importantly, however, we must also realize that legalism can be excessive. Even if the rule of law is a good thing, too much of it may be bad. So the challenge for a theory of the rule of law is to articulate what the rule of law is, why is it good, and to what extent." (...) "[T]he essense of the ideal of the rule of law is that people ought to be governed by law. This general ideal has at least two main components. First, it requires that governments, namely, de facto political authorities, should rule, that is, guide their subjects' conduct, by law. Second, it requires that the law by which governments purport to rule should be such that it can actually guide human conduct." "The idea that governments should rule by law must be premised on the assumption that rule by law, regardless of the laws' specific content, is to be preferred to governance by other means of social control. And this immediately brings us to the second component of the rule of law, namely, that the law must be such that it can actually guide human conduct, and the further assumption that these necessary features of law embody certain virtues. In other words, unless we can first articulate what is unique about legal means of social control, and explain why those features promote certain goods, we cannot ground the idea that governments should rule by law." Discusses ways, following mainly Fuller, one can fail to make law. Notes that these are functional goods for the regulation of human behavior. They may have a connection to other things we value. We should not assume, though, that greater instantiation of these ideals is always better - sometimes ideals conflict such that more of one means less of another and "because such values, on their own grounds, set only a rough standard wherby gross deviations from it would be wrong." "Compliance with the generality-relevance principle is crucially important in safeguarding against such unjustified favoritism since it requires that the norm's subjects be those who qualify as such only on the basis of the reasons for enacting the norm in the first place." Though, we must recognize teh possibility of bad law in the sense of unjust discrimination. "It is part of the concept of law that the law purports to affect human behavior by introducing new norms and changing old ones. The concept of a norm and conduct-guidance by norms is an essential aspect of what the law is. Norms, as such, necessarily purport to provide reasons for action. A norm cannot provide a reason for action, however, unless its subjets are aware of the norm and regard it as a reason for action." Justifies some retroactivity in terms of the need for flexibility in any functioning legal system. "Legal positivism can accept the claim that law is, by its very nature or its essential functions in society, something good that deserves our moral appreciation. Nor is legal positivism forced to deny the plausible claim that wherever law exists, it must have a great many prescriptions which coincide with morality. There is probably a considerable overlap, and perhaps necessarily so, between the actual content of law and morality.". (shrink)

When property rights and environmental legislation clash, what side should the Rule of Law weigh in on? It is from this point that Jeremy Waldron explores the Rule of Law both from an historical perspective - considering the property theory of John Locke - and from the perspective of modern legal controversies. This critical and direct account of the relation between the Rule of Law and the protection of private property criticizes the view - associated with the (...) 'World Bank model' of investor expectations - that a society which fails to protect property rights against legislative restriction is failing to support the Rule of Law. In this book, developed from the 2011 Hamlyn Lectures, Waldron rejects the idea that the Rule of Law privileges property rights over other forms of law and argues instead that the Rule of Law should endorse and applaud the use of legislation to achieve valid social objectives. (shrink)

Retributivism is currently a keenly debated theory of punishment. In this volume, the contributors explore its various dimensions including its implications for sentencing and evaluate it against utilitarian options. Content: Jean Hampton: An Expressive Theory of Retribution u Brian Slattery: The Myth of Retributive Justice u Tim Dare: Retributivism, Punishment and Public Values u Anthony Duff: Alternatives to Punishment - or Alternative Punishments u Jerome Bickenbach: Duff on Non-Custodial Punishment u Sandra Marshall: Harm and Punishment in the Community. (Franz Steiner (...) 1992). (shrink)

The rule of law is politico-legal realm of the modern society that it balances human gratifications, self-respect and prerequisites of legal order, after dissolution of the traditional society. Apart from our criticisms on the capitalist society there had been an expanding development of civic virtue of the human individual since early beginning of capitalism up to the 1980’ies when idea of self respect and the legal order relatively balanced. But, after neo-liberalism, the development is retrieving to (...) the unbridled individualism, detrimental to the human virtue of all humanity. (shrink)

A commitment to the rule of law is a commitment to the governance of a society through the use of general or generalisable rules which are binding on both the subjects and the rulers. By giving due notice of the rules and of any changes to them, those who are subject to the law are protected from violence and enabled to act as agents. This is the essential contribution the rule of law makes to important human goods (...) including freedom. Such an understanding of the rule of law illuminates why the law-like character of God and the revelation of God’s law make human free will meaningful and a relationship of love between God and human beings possible. A commitment to the rule of law also means that those exercising power have to offer justifications to explain why the rules are binding, which opens up space for debate about whether the rules are just. (shrink)

The author considers, first of all, recent and fairly recent interpretations of Plato’s dialogue the Crito, arguing that the character Socrates, whose expressed ideas probably correspond in major detail to the convictions of the historical Socrates, is not saying that the laws of Athens demand unquestioning obedience. The dialogue is rather an account of the debate that goes on in Socrates’s mind itself. A strong consideration in this debate is clearly the rule of law; but equally strong is Socrates’s (...) lifelong commitment to carry out what, in the end, he regards as the most reasonable course of action. The author then considers two contemporary ethical issues: our way of coming to know the natural law and the proper understanding of laws that allow of exceptions. Regarding the first, he argues—consistently with what we find not only in the Crito but also in Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas—that we come to know the natural law through being immersed in the laws and customs of a particular society: the more just the society, the better access to the natural law it provides. Regarding the second, he argues that an article in Aquinas is sometimes interpreted as suggesting that the realm of concrete human experience is beyond the reach of law. He argues, in the spirit of the historical Socrates, that the rule of law is equivalent to the rule of reason and that this does reach into the realm of concrete human experience, where exceptions are sometimes recognized as contained in the law. (shrink)

Vietnam is implementing global socio-economic integration, so the law must also be renovated to meet the requirements of international integration. Because the law is attached to the country's institutions, it shows the consistency in Vietnam's politics, economy, and diplomacy. In the world, the rule of law is a typical value that humanity aims for because it upholds the law, expressing our nation's aspiration for a democratic and equal society. Therefore, Vietnam has built a socialist rule of law. (...) To achieve this, Vietnam must ensure the free power of its citizens, promote the democracy of the state, and ensure that power belongs to the people. The paper uses a materialist dialectical method to examine the building of civic consciousness that promotes the perfection of Vietnam's current socialist rule of law. At the same time, the article also uses analytical methods and synthetic methods to clarify the sense of citizenship in the Vietnamese state, Vietnam's political institutions, and the development of the socialist rule of law is correct. (shrink)

Hegel’s definition of the state as a common public authority in The German Constitution marks his first thorough attempt to understand the authority of the modern state in terms of the rule of law. Such an understanding of the state constitutes an important advance in Hegel’s political philosophy since, in his early political-theological writings, the legal relation was in essence excluded from the political sphere. Positing a fundamental opposition between legality and authentic ethical life, Hegel interpreted societies in which (...) legal forms become particularly pronounced as societies founded on degenerate political institutions and caught up in an inexorable process of decline. Until Hegel grasped the positive ethical significance of legal authority, something accomplished in The German Constitution, his theory of the state remained largely determined by a Greek-inspired, virtue-based paradigm of political life. Only with the overcoming of this paradigm could he move to a comprehensive analysis of both modern institutional structures and the political theories that attempt to understand and justify them. Hegel’s evolving theory of modern legal form thus provides an important index and measure of his complex stance toward modern political society and of his critical assessment of the self-interpretations of modernity offered by the natural right tradition and the Enlightenment. (shrink)

The study of law and information technology comes with an inherent contradiction in that while technology develops rapidly and embraces notions such as internationalization and globalization, traditional law, for the most part, can be slow to react to technological developments and is also predominantly confined to national borders. However, the notion of the rule of law defies the phenomenon of law being bound to national borders and enjoys global recognition. However, a serious threat to the rule of law (...) is looming in the form of an assault by technological developments within artificial intelligence (AI). As large strides are made in the academic discipline of AI, this technology is starting to make its way into digital decision-making systems and is in effect replacing human decision-makers. A prime example of this development is the use of AI to assist judges in making judicial decisions. However, in many circumstances this technology is a ‘black box’ due mainly to its complexity but also because it is protected by law. This lack of transparency and the diminished ability to understand the operation of these systems increasingly being used by the structures of governance is challenging traditional notions underpinning the rule of law. This is especially so in relation to concepts especially associated with the rule of law, such as transparency, fairness and explainability. This article examines the technology of AI in relation to the rule of law, highlighting the rule of law as a mechanism for human flourishing. It investigates the extent to which the rule of law is being diminished as AI is becoming entrenched within society and questions the extent to which it can survive in the technocratic society. (shrink)

What moral claims do undocumented immigrants have to membership? Joseph Carens has argued that illegal migrants with long-term residence have a claim to national membership because they already are de facto members of local communities. This article builds on the linkage between illegality, residence, and rights, but shifts the focus from the migrant to the state, and from membership-based arguments to the rule of law. I argue that the rule of law, as expressed in the principle of legal (...) certainty, provides an alternative justification for the regularization of resident undocumented migrants. The principle of legal certainty recognizes the right of individuals to make long-term plans for their lives by requiring that state action be reasonably predictable and nonarbitrary. Thus, as an expression of legal certainty, both civil and criminal codes have statutes of limitation that place a time limit beyond which most crimes and misdemeanors can no longer be prosecuted, and individuals can move on with their lives. Not only do these statutes recognize the individual’s right to be free from arbitrary state control, they also demand that the state cut its losses and accept the consequences of its failure to act in a timely manner. I contend that, in the absence of a statute of limitation on illegal entry, the deportation of settled migrants constitutes an arbitrary act of state power. The article explores a number of judicial rulings to illustrate the argument’s normative logic. (shrink)

Partial proceedings of the 17th World Congress, International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, Bologna, 1995.

The legal progression in China is portrayed negatively by western scholars who often argue that the state institutions in China are subordinate to the control of Chinese Communist Party’s leadership which makes these institutions politically insignificant. We consider that the legal progression in China has an instrumental role in achieving “Harmonious Socialist Society.” The purpose of this thesis is to provide an analytical literature review of scholastic work to explain the legality of rule of law in China and (...) to elaborate the outcomes of China’s recent legal developments. This paper has two main subjects. First, it examines the nature of law and rule of law in China through the prism of different legal theories. Secondly, by arguing from different political theories, it explains the necessity of customized legal system in China for establishing a Harmonious Socialist Society. By giving different examples from contemporary China, this thesis argues that the legality of the rule of law in China ought to be understood in the context of China’s economic and social progression rather than the western legal scholarship. China’s economic progress demands a customized legal system. In our thesis, we claim that the regular upgradation of laws and introduction of constitutional amendments in China, should be recognized as important achievement which is required for the institutional innovation. Legal progression in China during last decade perfectly fit into the framework of “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” and is very crucial for building a harmonious socialist society. It is vivid from China’s economic growth and developed international relations. Finally, this paper suggests that the Chinese legal progression can be taken as successful example of legal experimentalism. (shrink)

The rule of law demands that the state's coercive power be used only according to settled general laws, applied impersonally. But an individualist theory of legal inter pretation cannot provide the shared understanding required. Gadamer appeals to the practical wisdom of judges and lawyers, who will agree on how to apply law to new cases. But this account is adequate only for very cohesive societies. Dworkin's account rests on propositional knowledge of a supposed best interpretation of an entire legal (...) system. But even if such a best interpretation is possible in theory, this possibility does not provide shared understandings in the social world. (shrink)

The article analyzes the impact of modern digital technologies used in the information society on democracy, human rights, and the rule of law in general. Both positive and negative aspects of such impact are considered. The importance of this topic is due to the need for further deepening of scientific knowledge related to the development of the rule of law in the information society and insufficient research from the legal point of view of current theoretical problems (...) of the rule of law in the digital era. The purpose of this article is to study the rule of law as a principle of the modern state of the 21st century and to study the problems in matters of human rights that have arisen with the development of modern digital technologies. The study of this issue is quite relevant, considering the conclusions, made as a result of our work, can be taken into account in further theoretical developments of international and national human rights protection aimed at improving the effectiveness of human rights judicial protection and improving current legislation. (shrink)

Understanding the rule of law in the Antipodes, that is in the Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand, as a legal value is clear to both of these societies. The rule of law, oftentimes called the state of law, is the basis of the system of values, as well as legal culture, which determines which social values are legally protected and how high their position de facto and de iure is. The hierarchy of the rule of law (...) in the Antipodes shows undoubtedly how various legal norms, unwritten and those codified ones, protect the democratic system with all its principles, along with the rights and freedoms of citizens and persons residing in these two countries. (shrink)

Normal 0 21 false false false ES-CO X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabla normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:CalistoMT;} From his theory of communicative action (1981) until his later political writings, the philosopher Jürgen Habermas has put on the juridical language the main responsibility of describing the essence of Civil Society. That´s why the Habermasian analysis becomes a defence of a capitalistic conception of the actual (...) society, turning around a strict notion of individual. (shrink)

Both corporate and global governance seem to demand increasingly sophisticated means for identification. Supposedly justified by an appeal to security threats, fraud and abuse, citizens are screened, located, detected and their data stored, aggregated and analysed. At the same time potential customers are profiled to detect their habits and preferences in order to provide for targeted services. Both industry and the European Commission are investing huge sums of money into what they call Ambient Intelligence and the creation of an ‘Internet (...) of Things’. Such intelligent networked environments will entirely depend on real time monitoring and real time profiling, resulting in real time adaptation of the environment. In this contribution the author will assess the threats and opportunities of such autonomic profiling in terms of its impact on individual autonomy and refined discrimination and indicate the extent to which traditional data protection is effective as regards profiling. (shrink)

Human rights issues are present today in almost every area of society and, accordingly, occupy a special place in it. Due to the fact that modern Ukraine is in a transitional state of creating legal, state and public institutions, the process of formation of civil society requires the identification of the nature of legal relations in a transitional period. After all, relations in civil society should be formed on the basis of awareness of the inalienability and non-repudiation (...) of natural human rights. They should be based on the positive legislation of the state. They are the key to the effectiveness of the entire system of social relations. Ensuring human rights is the criterion by which the achieved level of democracy in the state is assessed. The beginning of this process can be called consolidation in the Basic Law of the provision that a person, his life and health, honor and dignity, integrity and security are recognized as the highest social value, and determining the priority of universal values. At the same time, the needs of the present, in fact, directs the development of modern law, is the development of certain general legal standards that allow us to move on to a new qualitative coexistence of nations in the modern world on substantial humanistic principles. In addition to examining the established mechanisms and specifics of protecting everyday human rights, the article examined the new human rights that exist in post-modern society, which today are called the rights of the “fourth generation”. (shrink)

Political reconciliation involves the repairing of damaged political relationships. This paper considers the possibility and moral justifiability of pursuing political reconciliation in the aftermath of systematic and egregious wrongdoing, in particular genocide. The first two sections discuss what political reconciliation specifically requires. I argue that it neither entails nor necessitates forgiveness. Rather, I claim, political reconciliation should be conceptualized as the (re-)establishment of Fullerian mutual respect for the rule of law. When a society governs by law, publicly declared (...) legal rules establish clear and practicable standards for behavior which are enforced in practice. Subjects of the law thus can form stable and reasonable predictions of how other citizens and officials will respond to their actions. After explaining why this analysis of political reconciliation is compelling, the third section spells out the implications of my analysis for determining the possibility of achieving and the justifiability of pursuing political reconciliation. (shrink)

Friedrich Kratochwil's book explores the role of law in the international arena and the key discourses surrounding it. It explains the increased importance of law for politics, from law-fare to the judicialization of politics, to human rights, and why traditional expectations of progress through law have led to disappointment. Providing an overview of the debates in legal theory, philosophy, international law and international organizations, Kratochwil reflects on the need to break down disciplinary boundaries and address important issues in both international (...) relations and international law, including deformalization, fragmentation, the role of legal pluralism, the emergence of autonomous autopoietic systems and the appearance of non-territorial forms of empire. He argues that the pretensions of a positivist theory in social science and of positivism in law are inappropriate for understanding practical problems and formulates an approach for the analysis of praxis based on constructivism and pragmatism. (shrink)

While the rule of law is surely a very important good, the familiar discussions found in the literature lead many to conclude that it is either a relatively trivial political ideal, or else a redundant one. What is needed is a new and persuasive defense of the rule of law that properly reflects its great significance for human well being. An important step towards building such an argument is to question a widely-shared but often unnoticed assumption that the (...) rule of law should be understood as a virtue of legal systems. The path is then cleared for a republican argument built on two theses: first, the thought that an ideal society would be one in which no one is the master of anyone else, and second, the thought that our freedom from domination is not natural or pre-institutional. (shrink)

THIS ESSAY ARGUES AGAINST LEGAL, POLITICAL, AND ETHICAL JUSTIFICAtions for torture. In the expository sections of the essay, I juxtapose international prohibitions against torture with the current U.S. administration's justifications for harsh interrogation methods on the basis of military necessity and presidential prerogative. I examine the systematic and individual causes of the specific abuses at Abu Ghraib that were tantamount to torture. In the constructive sections of the essay, I retrieve the evolving standards of decency from Supreme Court cases and (...) jus cogens peremptory norms from international law. I contend that torture is deontologically wrong and that the administration's arguments on solely teleological grounds are ethically flawed and contradictory. Engaging numerous interlocutors in law, philosophy, and Christian ethics, I reconceptualize the rule of law in terms of moral vision and an emerging moral consensus, and I hold that these terms provide a more adequate framework for evaluating and repudiating the practice of torture. (shrink)

The thesis examines the origins and function of legal theory within the context of the development of early Islamic law. I argue against the depiction of the development of law as a series of compromises between traditionalism and rationalism. Rather, by evading the demands of traditionalism, law evolved into a complex doctrinal entity rooted in the social structures of third-century Abbasid society. This revision of the development of law provides a context to evaluate early works of legal theory. Moreover, (...) in context of my analysis of the development of law, I attempt to explain the emergence of legal theory as an independent discipline and its function within the greater structure of law. (shrink)

The volume comprises a selection of papers delivered at the 24th IVR World Congress. All papers address the challenge of the construction of a Global Ethics in the context of fragmented and pluralist societies, in which the idea of an Ethical Space seems to be an unachievable project, but also an indispensable device for cooperation between individuals, communities and states.The idea of a Global Ethics is to be constructed from within different traditions and environments with a mutual understanding and exchange (...) of opinions. In this volume, we combine the ideas of Harmony (typical of the traditional Chinese legal philosophy) and of the Rule of Law (as it is understood in Western societies) to new ideals. By acknowledging the potential that these ideals have on a global scale, the papers of the first section, Ethical Dimensions of the Rule of Law address some of the key ethical problems in today's world. In a second section, some of the leading legal philosophers in China propose a way to incorporate the values of Harmony and of the Rule of Law into the Chinese Law and Society. (shrink)

It is often argued that the rule of law is only instrumentally morally valuable, valuable when and to the extent that a legal system is used to purse morally valuable ends. In this paper, I defend Lon Fuller’s view that the rule of law has conditional non-instrumental as well as instrumental moral value. I argue, along Fullerian lines, that the rule of law is conditionally non-instrumentally valuable in virtue of the way a legal system structures political relationships. (...) The rule of law specifies a set of requirements which lawmakers must respect if they are to govern legally. As such, the rule of law restricts the illegal or extra-legal use of power. When a society rules by law, there are clear rules articulating the behavior appropriate for citizens and officials. Such rules ideally determine the particular contours political relationships will take. When the requirements of the rule of law are respected, the political relationships structured by the legal system constitutively express the moral values of reciprocity and respect for autonomy. The rule of law is instrumentally valuable, I argue, because in practice the rule of law limits the kind of injustice which governments pursue. There is in practice a deeper connection between ruling by law and the pursuit of moral ends than advocates of the standard view recognize. The next part of this paper outlines Lon Fuller’s conception of the rule of law and his explanation of its moral value. The third.. (shrink)

A small sample of sitting Chinese judges was each asked to describe a difficult case, what ethical issues were involved in the case, and how ethics hampered the case, among other questions. The narratives of the cases from family settings suggest—rising from the stew of Chinese social, political, and legal history, the mix of socialist and Confucian ethics, and case facts—that future research on the influence of Confucian ethics may well show that Chinese judges moderate (“democratize”) the rigors of a (...) rule-based legal system, or that they feel pressure to do so by their ethics (which, for disputes and crimes in a family setting their ethics, are Confucian ethics). We argue that “democratizing” the legal system by including society’s ethics is allowable but unless there is a regular discourse on the role of Confucian ethics in legal decisions judges will continue to feel ethical tension as they go about their work. We recommend that ethics discourse be included along with the Chinese government’s structural reforms such as increasing legal education, mandating codes of judicial ethics, and other measures calculated to align the legal system with the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct 2002. (shrink)

Legal scholars’ interest in Shakespeare has often focused on conventional legal rules and procedures, such as those of The Merchant of Venice or Measure for Measure. Those plays certainly reveal systemic injustice, but within stable, prosperous societies, which enjoy a generally well-functioning legal order. In contrast, Shakespeare's first historical tetralogy explores the conditions for the very possibility of a legal system, in terms not unlike those described by Hobbes a half-century later. The first tetralogy's deeply collapsed, quasi-anarchic society lacks (...) any functioning legal regime. Its power politics are not, as in many of Shakespeare's other plays, merely latent, lurking beneath the patina of an otherwise functioning legal order. They pervade all of society. Dissenting from a long critical tradition, this article suggests that the figure of Henry VI does not merely represent antiquated medievalism or inept rule. Through Henry's constant recourse to legal process, arbitration and anti-militarism, the first tetralogy goes beyond questions about how to establish a functioning legal order. It examines the possibility, and meaning, of a just one. (shrink)

The potential use, relevance, and application of AI and other technologies in the democratic process may be obvious to some. However, technological innovation and, even, its consideration may face an intuitive push-back in the form of algorithm aversion (Dietvorst et al. J Exp Psychol 144(1):114–126, 2015). In this paper, I confront this intuition and suggest that a more ‘extreme’ form of technological change in the democratic process does not necessarily result in a worse outcome in terms of the fundamental concepts (...) of democracy and the Rule of Law. To provoke further consideration and illustrate that initial intuitions regarding democratic innovation may not always be accurate, I pose and explore four ways that AI and other forms of technology could be used to augment the representative democratic process. The augmentations range from voting online to the wholesale replacement of the legislature’s human representatives with algorithms. After first noting the intuition that less invasive forms of augmented democracy may be less objectionable than more extreme forms, I go on to critically assess whether the augmentation of existing systems satisfies or enhances ideas associated with democracy and the Rule of Law (provided by Dahl and Fuller). By imagining a (not too far-fetched) future in a (not too far-removed) democratic society, my conclusion is that, when it comes to democracy and the Rule of Law, intuitions regarding technology may lead us astray. (shrink)

Social life is changing very fast. People are trying to find out reasons of living in a safe society and understand their role in it. The ‘wrong’ and ‘right‘ models of the social life, state and law systems are appearing. In the XXth century, one of them – socialism – made suggestion how to solve social problems, determinated of capitalism. This work deals with the situation of Lithuanian social thought in the Republic of Lithuania (1900-1940). In the article, the (...) standpoint of catholics of socialism is reflected. Catholics displayed socialism as a system, which accumulated many distorted images about human nature, motivations of human behavior, society and its functionating. Considering the society being an organic totality of individuals, but not a faceless mass, and an individual being a personality having natural rights to be respected, but not considered as a little screw without any rights in the state machine, with whom any experiments may be performed, they disclosed Utopia of the idea, proposed by socialists, of the possibility of a perfect society creation by the only preliminarily arranged correct plan,. For this purpose to be achieved, they constructed a model of socialist economy and then destroyed it, demonstrating economical unefficiency of this system. In this manner, intellectuals warned Lithuania and its people about the destructiveness of the realization of such an experiment. In spite of criticism of socialism, some intellectuals, such as A. Maceina, S. Šultė and S. Šalkauskis, appeared to be rather respective to the new social ideas and did not distinguish any social economic system as the best and only one. They thought that all the world, including Lithuania, has to create a new social life and take as a base the progressive ideas of socialism and capitalism. According to the opinion of the catholics, the most reliable way to a safe sočiety and economical welfare passes through the cooperation of individuals and state’s duty to create right laws. Ideological spirit was the main obstacle for the intellectuals to recognize trends of socialism by their aims and methods. That is the reason, why socialism was identified as bolsevism. However, the expression of the intellectuals’ opinion about socialism, its ideological herritage and perspectives enriches the research of the Lithuanian legal phylosophical and political thought and allows to understand better the ideological development of socialism and to define its competence and limits of validity in the contemporary world. Valuable ideas may be fruitfully used in creating a democratic society, social state and the rule of law. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Convention for Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with Regard to the Application of Biology and Biomedicine: Convention on Human Rights and BiomedicineCouncil of EuropePreambleThe Member States of the Council of Europe, the other States and the European Community signatories hereto,Bearing in mind the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10 December 1948;Bearing in mind the (...) Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 4 November 1950;Bearing in mind the European Social Charter of 18 October 1961;Bearing in mind the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 16 December 1966;Bearing in mind the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with Regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data of 28 January 1981;Bearing also in mind the Convention on the Rights of the Child of 20 November 1989;Considering that the aim of the Council of Europe is the achievement of a greater unity between its members and that one of the methods by which that aim is to be pursued is the maintenance and further realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms;Conscious of the accelerating developments in biology and medicine;Convinced of the need to respect the human being both as an individual and as a member of the human species and recognising the importance of ensuring the dignity of the human being; [End Page 277]Conscious that the misuse of biology and medicine may lead to acts endangering human dignity;Affirming that progress in biology and medicine should be used for the benefit of present and future generations;Stressing the need for international co-operation so that all humanity may enjoy the benefits of biology and medicine;Recognising the importance of promoting a public debate on the questions posed by the application of biology and medicine and the responses to be given thereto;Wishing to remind all members of society of their rights and responsibilities;Taking account of the work of the Parliamentary Assembly in this field, including Recommendation 1160 (1991) on the preparation of a Convention on bioethics;Resolving to take such measures as are necessary to safeguard human dignity and the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual with regard to the application of biology and medicine;Have agreed as follows:Chapter IGeneral provisionsArticle 1. (Purpose and object)Parties to this Convention shall protect the dignity and identity of all human beings and guarantee everyone, without discrimination, respect for their integrity and other rights and fundamental freedoms with regard to the application of biology and medicine.Each Party shall take in its internal law the necessary measures to give effect to the provisions of this Convention.Article 2. (Primacy of the human being)The interests and welfare of the human being shall prevail over the sole interest of society or science.Article 3. (Equitable access to health care)Parties, taking into account health needs and available resources, shall take appropriate measures with a view to providing, within their jurisdiction, equitable access to health care of appropriate quality. [End Page 278]Article 4. (Professional standards)Any intervention in the health field, including research, must be carried out in accordance with relevant professional obligations and standards.Chapter IIConsentArticle 5. (General rule)An intervention in the health field may only be carried out after the person concerned has given free and informed consent to it.This person shall beforehand be given appropriate information as to the purpose and nature of the intervention as well as on its consequences and risks.The person concerned may freely withdraw consent at any time.Article 6. (Protection of persons not able to consent)1. Subject to Articles 17 and 20 below, an intervention may only be carried out on a person who does not have the capacity to consent, for his or her direct benefit.2. Where, according to law, a minor does not have the capacity to consent to an intervention, the intervention may only be carried out with the authorisation of his or her representative or an authority or a person or... (shrink)

The rule of law offers legal certainty, laying down boundaries to the state's playing field. The precautionary approach stipulates that the absence of scientific certainty is no reason not to act to prevent harm. Here, uncertainty frames action. The precautionary approach potentially expands the state's playing field, and this expansion might well undermine the precepts of the rule of law. The certainty-uncertainty axis exposes a tension between the rule of law and the precautionary approach in what Ulrich (...) Beck has termed the world risk society in second modernity. It is this tension that is the focus of analysis in this article. (shrink)