Law Notes

Essential, required reading for doctors and patients alike: A Pulitzer Prize-winning author and one of the world’s premiere cancer researchers reveals an urgent philosophy on the little-known principles that govern medicine—and how understanding these principles can empower us all. Over a decade ago, when Siddhartha Mukherjee was a young, exhausted, and isolated medical resident, he discovered a book that would forever change the way he understood the medical profession. The book, The Youngest Science, forced Dr. Mukherjee to ask himself an urgent, fundamental question: Is medicine a “science”? Sciences must have laws—statements of truth based on repeated experiments that describe some universal attribute of nature. But does medicine have laws like other sciences? Dr. Mukherjee has spent his career pondering this question—a question that would ultimately produce some of most serious thinking he would do around the tenets of his discipline—culminating in The Laws of Medicine. In this important treatise, he investigates the most perplexing and illuminating cases of his career that ultimately led him to identify the three key principles that govern medicine. Brimming with fascinating historical details and modern medical wonders, this important book is a fascinating glimpse into the struggles and Eureka! moments that people outside of the medical profession rarely see. Written with Dr. Mukherjee’s signature eloquence and passionate prose, The Laws of Medicine is a critical read, not just for those in the medical profession, but for everyone who is moved to better understand how their health and well-being is being treated. Ultimately, this book lays the groundwork for a new way of understanding medicine, now and into the future.

In The Sense of Justice, distinguished legal author Markus Dirk Dubber undertakes a critical analysis of the “sense of justice”: an overused, yet curiously understudied, concept in modern legal and political discourse. Courts cite it, scholars measure it, presidential candidates prize it, eulogists praise it, criminals lack it, and commentators bemoan its loss in times of war. But what is it? Often, the sense of justice is dismissed as little more than an emotional impulse that is out of place in a criminal justice system based on abstract legal and political norms equally applied to all. Dubber argues against simple categorization of the sense of justice. Drawing on recent work in moral philosophy, political theory, and linguistics, Dubber defines the sense of justice in terms of empathy—the emotional capacity that makes law possible by giving us vicarious access to the experiences of others. From there, he explores the way it is invoked, considered, and used in the American criminal justice system. He argues that this sense is more than an irrational emotional impulse but a valuable legal tool that should be properly used and understood.

Modern war is law pursued by other means. Once a bit player in military conflict, law now shapes the institutional, logistical, and physical landscape of war. At the same time, law has become a political and ethical vocabulary for marking legitimate power and justifiable death. As a result, the battlespace is as legally regulated as the rest of modern life. In Of War and Law, David Kennedy examines this important development, retelling the history of modern war and statecraft as a tale of the changing role of law and the dramatic growth of law's power. Not only a restraint and an ethical yardstick, law can also be a weapon--a strategic partner, a force multiplier, and an excuse for terrifying violence. Kennedy focuses on what can go wrong when humanitarian and military planners speak the same legal language--wrong for humanitarianism, and wrong for warfare. He argues that law has beaten ploughshares into swords while encouraging the bureaucratization of strategy and leadership. A culture of rules has eroded the experience of personal decision-making and responsibility among soldiers and statesmen alike. Kennedy urges those inside and outside the military who wish to reduce the ferocity of battle to understand the new roles--and the limits--of law. Only then will we be able to revitalize our responsibility for war.

With characteristic richness and eloquence, John Borrows explores legal traditions, the role of governments and courts, and the prospect of a multi-juridical legal culture, all with a view to understanding and improving legal processes in Canada. He discusses the place of individuals, families, and communities in recovering and extending the role of Indigenous law within both Indigenous communities and Canadian society more broadly."--Pub. desc.

Personhood is considered at once a sign of legal-political status and of socio-cultural agency, synonymous with the rational individual, subject, or citizen. Yet, in an era of life-extending technologies, genetic engineering, corporate social responsibility, and smart technology, the definition of the person is neither benign nor uncontested. Boundaries that previously worked to secure our place in the social order are blurring as never before. What does it mean, then, to be a person in the twenty-first century? In Impersonations, Sheryl N. Hamilton uses five different kinds of persons - corporations, women, clones, computers, and celebrities - to discuss the instability of the concept of personhood and to examine some of the ways in which broader social anxieties are expressed in these case studies. She suggests that our investment in personhood is greater now than it has been for years, and that our ongoing struggle to define the term is evident in law and popular culture. Using a cultural studies of law approach, the author examines important issues such as whether the person is a gender-neutral concept based on individual rights, the relationship between personhood and the body, and whether persons can be property. Impersonations is a highly original study that brings together legal, philosophical, and cultural expressions of personhood to enliven current debates about our place in the world.

The ideal companion to developing the essential skills needed to undertake the core module of criminal law as part of undergraduate study of law or a qualifying GDL/CPE conversion course. Providing support for learning and revision throughout, the key skills are demonstrated in the context of the core topics of study with expertly written example sets of notes, followed by opportunities to learn and test your knowledge by creating and maintaining your own summaries of the key points. The chapters are reinforced with a series of workpoints to test your analytical, communication and organisational skills; checkpoints, to test recall of the essential facts; and research points, to practice self-study and to gain familiarity with legal sources. "Course Notes: Criminal Law" is designed for those keen to succeed in examinations and assessments with view to taking you one step further towards the development of the professional skills required for your later career. In addition, concepts are set out both verbally and in diagrammatic form for clarity, and the essential case law is displayed in a series of straightforward and indisposable tables illustrating how best to analyse and compare legal points as expressed by the opinions of the authorities in each case. To check your answers to questions examples are provided online along with sample essay plans and web links to useful web sites and sources at www.unlockingthelaw.co.uk, making this the ideal resource to guide you through the demands of compiling and revising the information you will need for your exams.