Common law

About: Common law is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 30135 publications have been published within this topic receiving 280701 citations. The topic is also known as: judicial precedent & judge-made law.

Environmental Protection and Human Rights

Abstract: With unique scholarly analysis and practical discussion, this book provides a comprehensive introduction to the relationship between environmental protection and human rights being formalized into law in many legal systems. This book instructs on environmental techniques and procedures that assist in the protection of human rights. The text provides cogent guidance on a growing international jurisprudence on the promotion and protection of human rights in relation to the environment that has been developed by international and regional human rights bodies and tribunals. It explores a rich body of case law that continues to develop within states on the environmental dimension of the rights to life, to health, and to public participation and access to information. Five compelling contemporary case studies are included that implicate human rights and the environment, ranging from large dam projects to the creation of a new human right to a clean environment.

Slave law in the Americas

Abstract: In this book, Alan Watson argues that the slave laws of North and South America--the written codes defining the relationship of masters to slaves--reflect not so much the culture and society of the various colonies but the legal traditions of England, Europe, and ancient Rome. A pathbreaking study concerned as much with the nature of comparative law as the specific subject of the law of slavery, "Slave Law in the Americas" posits an essential distance in the Western legal tradition between the tenets of law and the values of the society they govern. Laws, Watson shows, often are made not by governments or rulers but by jurists as in ancient Rome, law professors as in medieval and continental Europe, and judges as in common law England. Bodies of law, often created without reference to particular social and political ideals, are also often transferred whole cloth from one society to another. Tracing the effects of the reception of Roman law throughout Europe (excluding England) and the Americas, Watson reveals the enormous impact of this legal tradition on subsequent lawmakers operating under utterly dissimilar social and political conditions in the New World. Slave law in the colonies, Watson demonstrates, had much to do with the mother country's relations to Roman law. Spain, Portugal, France, and the United Dutch Provinces, all within the Roman legal tradition, imposed on their colonies slave laws that were private and nonracist in character, laws that interfered little in master-slave relations and provided for the relative ease of manumission and the grant of citizenship to freed slaves. England, however, did not ascribe to Roman law and colonists created rather than received slave law. Public and racist, slave law in the English colonies uniquely reflected local concerns, involving every citizen in the protection and perpetuation of slavery, strictly regulating education, manumission, and citizenship status. "Comparative legal history," Watson writes, "is in its infancy." Presenting the laws of slavery in ancient Rome and in the slaveholding colonies of America, Watson demonstrates how comparative law can elucidate the relationship of law, legal rules, and institutions to the society in which they operate. Investigating not the dynamics of slavery but of slave law, he reveals the working of a legal culture and its peculiar history.

Criminal law I

Abstract: 1. (C) is the correct answer, because it is a form of recklessness, but one which requires proof of recklessness under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of human life. 2. (D) is the correct answer, because 2(b) requires either purpose or knowledge, and thus knowledge is the minimum culpability required. 3. (A) is incorrect, because it imposes a requirement that his conduct not be negligent. The minimum culpability for either 2(a) or (2b) is recklessness. If the jury found he was negligent, but not reckless, they should acquit. (B) is the correct answer, because he wouldn't be guilty under either 2(a) or 2(b) unless he was at least reckless. (C) is incorrect, because it assumes a fact that is debatable. (D) is incorrect, because it fails to address the mens rea requirement. 4. (A) is incorrect, because it assumes too low a culpability (negligence), whereas 2(b) requires at least knowledge. (B) is incorrect, for the same reason. (C) is incorrect because D might be reckless in pointing the gun in V's direction, but the statute requires at least knowledge of causing bodily injury. Thus, (D) is the correct answer. 5. (A) is incorrect, because willful is not a term used in the MPC to determine culpability. (B) is incorrect, because she had a duty based upon having caused the accident. (C) is incorrect, because she has no status relationship with the victim. (D) is incorrect, because a Good Samaritan statute creates a duty of care for one who has no relationship to the victim, but a Good Samaritan statute in this case is unnecessary because Julie already owes a duty of care. Thus, (E) is the correct answer.

Community Treatment Orders: International Comparisons

Abstract: This article is a comparative study of the law in several jurisdictions concerning involuntary outpatient psychiatric treatment, particularly legislation that governs the use of Community Treatment Orders (CTOs). The author discusses the central legal issues of this area, including the scope of the powers such orders confer on community mental health terms to monitor the patient’s condition and provide treatment without consent. The law in this area is reviewed in Victoria, New South Wales, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Canada, with a view to assessing the adequacy of NZ’s CTO regime.

What Does Free Movement Mean in Theory and Practice in an Enlarged EU

Abstract: The purpose of this report is to assess the main challenges to the principle of free movement of persons in theory and practice in an enlarged European Union. The right to move freely represents one of the fundamental freedoms of the internal market as well as an essential political element of the package of rights linked to the very status of EU citizenship. The scope ratione personae and the current state of the principle of free movement of persons is assessed by looking at the most recent case law of the European Court of Justice and the recently adopted Directive on the rights of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the member states. But what are the hidden and visible obstacles to free movement of persons in Europe? How can these barriers be overcome to make free movement and residence rights more inclusive? This working document addresses these questions along with: 1. Who are the beneficiaries of the free movement of persons in an enlarged Europe? 2. What is the impact of the recent legal developments in the freedom of movement dimension, such as the European Court of Justice case law and the new Directive?