Legality

What is law? This question has preoccupied philosophers from Plato to Thomas Hobbes to H. L. A. Hart. Yet many others find it perplexing. How could we possibly know how to answer such an abstract question? And what would be the point of doing so? In Legality, Scott Shapiro argues that the question is not only meaningful but vitally important. In fact, many of the most pressing puzzles that lawyers confront—including who has legal authority over us and how we should interpret constitutions, statutes, and cases—will remain elusive until this grand philosophical question is resolved. Shapiro draws on recent work in the philosophy of action to develop an original and compelling answer to this age-old question. Breaking with a long tradition in jurisprudence, he argues that the law cannot be understood simply in terms of rules. Legal systems are best understood as highly complex and sophisticated tools for creating and applying plans. Shifting the focus of jurisprudence in this way—from rules to plans—not only resolves many of the most vexing puzzles about the nature of law but has profound implications for legal practice as well. Written in clear, jargon-free language, and presupposing no legal or philosophical background, Legality is both a groundbreaking new theory of law and an excellent introduction to and defense of classical jurisprudence.

Legality today commands substantial currency in world affairs, and this volume examines the struggle over its meaning in diverse practices.

DIVFirst English-language translation of one of Schmitt’s major works, providing a missing link in the oeuvre of this influential and controversial political theorist./div

International law can be created by other means than treaties between states. This book investigates the philosophical questions posed by the treatment of international arbitration as law, such as those relating to sovereignty and territoriality, and sets out conditions which international arbitration must meet in order to form legitimate law.

This book is a scientific treatise on the principle of legality in criminal law. It explores the relation between the principle of legality and the general theory of criminal law and contains definite rules emphasized for practitioners as well as academia.

The first book-length treatment to describe and explain how legal orders can be interwoven and what to do about it. The volume discusses inter-legality in different legal fields, situates it within political and legal theory, and provides a normative assessment.

This book examines the way international criminal courts and tribunals have interpreted the crimes against humanity proscription of other inhumane acts. This clause is consistently used in spite of the long list of more specific offences forbidden as crimes against humanity. The volume proposes that the current approach is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of the clause. Properly understood, the clause is an invitation to courts to create and apply retroactive criminal laws. This leads to a problem. A prohibition on the use of retroactive criminal laws, one which admits no exceptions, is deeply embedded in international law. The author argues that it is time to revisit the assumption that retroactive criminal laws can never be deployed in a fair legal system. Drawing lessons from an exploration on the way the prohibition on retroactive laws is applied in practice, she proposes a new framework for understanding the clause proscribing the commission of other inhumane acts. This book will be of relevance to anyone interested in international criminal law or criminal law theory. Gillian MacNeil is Assistant Professor at Robson Hall, the Faculty of Law of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada.

This volume on the law of the European Union focuses on contemporary challenges to EU legality. Such challenges include actions or activities that cast doubt on, or sit uncomfortably with, the premises, principles, and norms that underpin the EU's legal order as proclaimed by the Treaties and the authoritative judgments of the European Court. These premises, principles, and norms range from the precisely formulated to the noticeably vague. The book develops a broader theoretical perspective as well as delving into a range of substantive areas including the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the EU's relationship with international law, migration, the sovereign debt crisis, and Brexit.