Law And Legitimacy

In many ways, the crucial point about law is the question of whether the law is legitimate, as this ensures that the citizens of a society (voluntarily) obey the law. This book is an anthology arising from an interdisciplinary investigation into the relationship between law and legitimacy. The collection offers a variety of new perspectives and discusses a range of issues, including the legitimacy of the international criminal court, the EU's regulation of smoking and tobacco, and the protection of consumers. The book's contributors draw not only on legal sources in their investigations, but also on philosophy, history, and sociology for a truly interdisciplinary approach. Contents include: Introduction to Law and Legitimacy * From Jean Bodin to Michael Boss: On Legitimacy and Legitimacy Crises in a Historical Perspective * In the Name of the Law: How Consistency Can Enhance Legal Legitimacy * The International Criminal Court and the Legitimacy of Exercise * Towards Legitimacy in Above-National Rule-Making: Procentralization in Multi-Stakeholder Public Regulation * Consumer Protection and the Internal Market * In Search of Legitimacy in Regulating Tobacco and Smoking. [Subject: Law, Legal Philosophy]

Legitimacy and judicial authority -- Constitutional meaning : original public meaning -- Constitutional meaning : varieties of history that matter -- Law in the Supreme Court : jurisprudential foundations -- Constitutional constraints -- Constitutional theory and its relation to constitutional practice -- Sociological, legal, and moral legitimacy : today and tomorrow

It has never been more important to understand how international law enables and constrains international politics. By drawing together the legal theory of Lon Fuller and the insights of constructivist international relations scholars, this book articulates a pragmatic view of how international obligation is created and maintained. First, legal norms can only arise in the context of social norms based on shared understandings. Second, internal features of law, or 'criteria of legality', are crucial to law's ability to promote adherence, to inspire 'fidelity'. Third, legal norms are built, maintained or destroyed through a continuing practice of legality. Through case studies of the climate change regime, the anti-torture norm, and the prohibition on the use of force, it is shown that these three elements produce a distinctive legal legitimacy and a sense of commitment among those to whom law is addressed.

There has been intense debate in recent times over the legitimacy or otherwise of international law. This book contains fresh perspectives on these questions, offered at an international and interdisciplinary conference hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Law and International Law. At issue are questions including, for example, whether international law lacks legitimacy in general and whether international law or a part of it has yielded to the facts of power.

"Most chapters in this volume were first presented at a symposium held at the University of Bern in December 2006"--Page ix.

Greeks wrote mostly on papyrus, but the Romans wrote solemn religious, public and legal documents on wooden tablets often coated with wax. This book investigates the historical significance of this resonant form of writing; its power to order the human realm and cosmos and to make documents efficacious; its role in court; the uneven spread - an aspect of Romanization - of this Roman form outside Italy, as provincials made different guesses as to what would please their Roman overlords; and its influence on the evolution of Roman law. An historical epoch of Roman legal transactions without writing is revealed as a juristic myth of origins. Roman legal documents on tablets are the ancestors of today's dispositive legal documents - the document as the act itself. In a world where knowledge of the Roman law was scarce - and enforcers scarcer - the Roman law drew its authority from a wider world of belief.

This book addresses critical questions about how legal development works in practice and is a timely reference for practitioners of institutional reform, providing a thought-provoking interdisciplinary collection of essays in an area of renewed scholarly interest. The contributors are a distinguished, international group of scholars and practitioners of law, development, social sciences and religion, with extensive experience in the developing world.

What is the effect of revolutions on legal systems? What role do constitutions play in legitimating regimes? How do constitutions and revolutions converge or clash? Taking the Arab Spring as its case study, this book explores the role of law and constitutions during societal upheavals, and critically evaluates the different trajectories they could follow in a revolutionary setting. The book urges a rethinking of major categories in political, legal, and constitutional theory in light of the Arab Spring. The book is a novel and comprehensive examination of the constitutional order that preceded and followed the Arab Spring in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Jordan, Algeria, Oman, and Bahrain. It also provides the first thorough discussion of the trials of former regime officials in Egypt and Tunisia. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources, including an in-depth analysis of recent court rulings in several Arab countries, the book illustrates the contradictory roles of law and constitutions. The book also contrasts the Arab Spring with other revolutionary situations and demonstrates how the Arab Spring provides a laboratory for examining scholarly ideas about revolutions, legitimacy, legality, continuity, popular sovereignty, and constituent power.