The Place Of Law

Why do some people call the police to quiet a barking dog in the middle of the night, while others accept devastating loss or actions without complaint? Sociologists Patricia Ewick and Susan Silbey examine more than 400 case studies to explore the various ways the law is perceived and utilized, or not, by a broad spectrum of citizens.

This volume sheds new light on the ways in which law defines territory and its boundaries, both literally and conceptually. The contributors highlight law's spatial aspects and the legal regulation of space, revealing that law lives most vividly not within its majestic embodiments, but in the realm of the ordinary."--BOOK JACKET.

Legal Architecture addresses how the environment of the trial can be seen as a physical expression of our relationship with ideals of justice. It provides an alternative account of the trial, which charts the troubled history of notions of due process and participation. In contrast to visions of judicial space as neutral, Linda Mulcahy argues that understanding the factors that determine the internal design of the courthouse and courtroom are crucial to a broader and more nuanced understanding of the trial. Partitioning of the courtroom into zones and the restriction of movement within it are the result of turf wars about who can legitimately participate in the legal arena and call the judiciary to account. The gradual containment of the public, the increasing amount of space allocated to advocates, and the creation of dedicated space for journalists and the jury, all have complex histories that deserve attention. But these issues are not only of historical significance. Across jurisdictions, questions are now being asked about the internal configurations of the courthouse and courtroom, and whether standard designs meet the needs of modern participatory democracies: including questions about the presence and design of the modern dock; the ways in which new technologies threaten to change the dynamics of the trial and lead to the dematerialization of our primary site of adversarial practice; and the extent to which courthouses are designed in ways which realise their professed status as public spaces. This fascinating and original reflection on legal architecture will be of interest to socio-legal or critical scholars working in the field of legal geography, legal history, criminology, legal systems, legal method, evidence, human rights and architecture.

Firsthand testimonies from Guantánamo Bay, inspiring future generations to never repeat the human rights violations of the detention center. Law scholar and Witness to Guantánamo founder Peter Jan Honigsberg uncovers a haunting portrait of life at the military prison and its toll, not only on the detainees and their loved ones but also on its military and civilian personnel and the journalists who reported on it. Honigsberg conducted 158 interviews across 20 countries so that the people who lived and worked there could tell their heartbreaking and inspirational stories. In each one, we face the reality that the healing process cannot begin until we start the conversation about what was done in the name of protecting our country. These are a few of them. Many alleged operatives in Guantánamo were purchased by the United States for ransom from Afghan and Pakistani soldiers. Brandon Neely, a prison guard who processed the first group of suspected operatives to arrive in Cuba, flew to London to embrace the detainees he guarded after leaving the military. Navy whistleblower Matt Diaz covertly released the names of 500 detainees by sending them in a greeting card to a lawyer in New York. Journalist Carol Rosenberg committed the past 17 years of her career to documenting life at Guantánamo. And Damien Corsetti, an interrogator who came to be known as the “King of Torture,” received ribbons and awards for the same cruel actions for which he was later prosecuted. In startling, aching prose, A Place Outside the Law shines a light on these unheard voices, and through them, encourages the global community to embrace humanity as our greatest tool to make the world a safer place.

Offering broad national coverage on an array of topics, Natural Resources Law, Fourth Edition conveys the drama behind resource disputes and policy and the love-of-place. Most cases are introduced with a photo or map of the place, along with a context-setting paragraph. Each group of cases—both foundational cases as well as new decisions—begins with a factually rich discussion problem tailored to the cases that follow. Many problems mirror traditional essay exam questions; others raise contemporary policy issues. This highly teachable book groups readings into discrete, assignment-sized chunks of 25-40 pages, allowing coverage of 2-4 cases or one problem during each class section. The main emphasis is on primary sources, and each chapter opens with relevant statutory and regulatory sections.

Law moves, whether we notice or not. Set amongst a spatial turn in the humanities, and jurisprudence more specifically, this book calls for a greater attention to legal movement, in both its technical and material forms. Despite various ways the spatial turn has been taken up in legal thought, questions of law, movement and its materialities are too often overlooked. This book addresses this oversight, and it does so through an attention to the materialities of legal movement. Paying attention to how law moves across different colonial and contemporary spaces, this book reveals there is a problem with common law’s place. Primarily set in the postcolonial context of Australia – although ranging beyond this nationalised topography, both spatially and temporally – this book argues movement is fundamental to the very terms of common law’s existence. How, then, might we move well? Explored through examples of walking and burial, this book responds to the challenge of how to live with a contemporary form of colonial legal inheritance by arguing we must take seriously the challenge of living with law, and think more carefully about its spatial productions, and place-making activities. Unsettling place, this book returns the question of movement to jurisprudence.

This book provides students and scholars with a candid look at how empirical research projects actually happen. Focusing on the interdisciplinary Law and Society field, more than twenty interviews with authors of classic projects - from sociology, anthropology, psychology, political science, law, and history - the chapters are unique in their honesty. They help readers to understand the choices, challenges, and uncertainty that go into even some of the best research projects.

It has long been standard practice in legal studies to identify the place of law within the social order. And yet, as The Place of Law suggests, the meaning of the concept of "the place of law" is not self-evident. This book helps us see how the law defines territory and attempts to keep things in place; it shows how law can be, and is, used to create particular kinds of places -- differentiating, for example, individual property from public land. And it looks at place as a metaphor that organizes the way we see the world. This important new book urges us to ask about the usefulness of metaphors of place in the design of legal regulation.