Review Symposium: Interdisciplinary Readings of Ari Z. Bryen's Violence in Roman Egypt: Where Law,Violence, and Culture Collide: A Sociolegal Reading of Violence in Everyday Life

Bryen, Ari Z. 2013 . Violence in Roman Egypt: A Study of Legal Interpretation . Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pp. 376. $75.00 cloth; $75.00 eBook. This comment considers Ari Bryen's Violence in Roman Egypt (2013) from sociological and sociolegal perspectives. Although Bryen is a historian, and his site of inquiry is second‐century Roman Egypt, he turns to contemporary sociologists and law and society scholars to highlight the interplay between law and the social world in the construction of violence. In doing so, he finds a new way to analyze the role of law as a cultural resource for nonelites to make sense of their social world but also to change it (albeit with limits) through law.     

Review Symposium: Interdisciplinary Readings of Ari Z. Bryen's Violence in Roman Egypt: A Study in Legal Interpretation—Introduction

Bryen, Ari Z. 2013 . Violence in Roman Egypt: A Study in Legal Interpretation . Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pp. 376. $75.00 cloth; $75.00 eBook.     

Law as Redemption: A Historical Comparison of the Ways Marginalized People Use Courts

Bryen, Ari Z. 2013 . Violence in Roman Egypt: A Study in Legal Interpretation . Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pp. 376. $75.00 cloth; $75.00 eBook. This essay reflects on how Bryen's Violence in Roman Egypt (2013), a study of second‐century Roman Egypt, contributes to the study of law and on how legal culture in ancient Egypt relates to law and legal cultures in other times and places. From the perspective of social history, this essay focuses on the connections between the victims of violence who seek redress in local courts in Egypt and more contemporary work on the legacy of slavery in colonial Ghana and the United States. This comparison reveals how law becomes a vehicle for the marginalized to repair and reconstruct their personhood.     

Historicizing the Lived Experience of Violence: Bryen's Violence in Roman Egypt

Bryen, Ari Z. 2013 . Violence in Roman Egypt: A Study in Legal Interpretation . Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pp. 376. $75.00 cloth; $75.00 eBook. Ari Byren's Violence in Roman Egypt: A Study in Legal Interpretation (2013) effectively inserts itself into two complementary fields of inquiry and discussion within the field of classical studies. First, it offers a detailed treatment of the social history of small communities in Roman Egypt, providing an important contribution to the study of violence in antiquity—a topic that has gained interest in recent years. Second, it is an extended meditation on the place of violence within a society and law's role in defining and eliminating it.     

The Constitution of Violence Through the Language of Law: Legal Hermenutics in Second‐Century Roman Egypt

Bryen, Ari Z. 2013. Violence in Roman Egypt: A Study in Legal Interpretation . Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pp. 376. $75.00 cloth; $75.00 eBook. This essay examines the linguistic anthropological themes emergent in Violence in Roman Egypt (2013). Viewing law as a discourse, it explores how language is constitutive of law and is the primary modality of acting upon, and enacting the world(s) that it shapes, giving meaning to the lives of people who engage each other in and through it. Violence petitions in second‐century Egypt are a fundamental mode of sense making and problem solving, calling on legal authorities to interpret claims of iniuria, or legal battery, into a language that they understand and remedy. In doing so, law changes the discourse of violence, specifically, and social life, more broadly.     

从盖尤斯·龙基努斯·卡斯托的遗嘱看罗马继承法

力图通过研究1900多年前在埃及发现的一份罗马人的遗嘱还原罗马在继承方面的活法,开拓从纸莎草学角度研究罗马法的天地。利用100多年以来欧美著名学者对这一遗嘱的研究成果,力图借助对该遗嘱的解读还原产生它的社会历史背景。     

Resisting Multiple Narratives of Law in Transition Countries: Russia and Beyond

Burbank, Jane . 2004 . Russian Peasants Go to Court: Legal Culture in the Countryside, 1905–1917 . Bloomington, IN : Indiana University Press. Pp. xix + 374. $49.95 cloth. Feifer, George . 1964 . Justice in Moscow . New York : Simon and Schuster. Pp. 336 . $20.95 paper. Kaminskaya, Dina . 1982 . Final Judgment: My Life as a Soviet Defense Attorney . Trans. Michael Glenny. New York : Simon and Schuster. Pp. 364 . Out of print. Ledeneva, Alena V . 2013 . Can Russia Modernise? Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. Pp. xv + 332. $90.00 cloth; $32.99 paper. McDonald, Tracy . 2011 . Face to the Village: The Riazan Countryside under Soviet Rule, 1921–1930 . Toronto : University of Toronto Press. Pp. xvii + 422. $75.00 cloth. Politkovskaya, Anna . 2004 . Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy . Trans. Arch Tait. London : Harvill Press. Pp. 304 . $17.00 paper. Popova, Maria . 2012 . Politicized Justice in Emerging Democracies: A Study of Courts in Russia and Ukraine . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. Pp. xii + 197. $103.00 cloth; $29.99 paper. Romanova, Ol'ga . 2010 . Butyrka . Moscow : Izdatel'stvo Astrel'. Pp. 316 . 240 rubles. The literature on the role of law in countries with so‐called hybrid regimes that are stuck somewhere between democracy and authoritarianism tends to dwell on the politicization of law and the courts. This has the effect of discounting the importance of the vast majority of cases that are decided in accord with the law. Taking Russia as a case study, this essay reviews a cross‐section of the literature on its courts in order to document this tendency and explore why alternative narratives of law have failed to gain traction: Burbank's Russian Peasants Go to Court ( 2004 ); Feifer's Justice in Moscow ( 1964 ); Kaminskaya's Final Judgment ( 1982 ); Ledeneva's Can Russia Modernise? ( 2013 ); McDonald's Face to the Village ( 2011 ); Politkovskaya's Putin's Russia ( 2004 ); Popova's Politicized Justice in Emerging Democracies ( 2012 ); and Romanova's Butyrka ( 2010 ).     

Judicial Decision Making as Knowledge Work

Epstein, Lee, William Landes and Richard Posner. 2013 . The Behavior of Federal Judges: A Theoretical and Empirical Study of Rational Choice . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 440 pp. Cloth, $49.95. Posner, Richard. 2008 . How Judges Think . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 400 pp. Paper, $21.00. I review two recent studies of judicial behavior, Posner's How Judges Think (2008) and Epstein, Landes, and Posner's Behavior of Federal Judges (2013). Epstein, Landes, and Posner's volume, the empirically richer of the two books, builds on the conceptual model for explaining judicial behavior put forward in Posner's How Judges Think. I discuss this conceptual model and argue in outline for an alternative model, complementary in part and antagonistic in part to the behaviorist research agenda. Posner and Epstein, Landes, and Posner argue for viewing the judge as a rational actor in a labor market. I argue that analyzing judicial decisions from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge, without axiomatically assuming rationality, will allow us to bring more evidentiary sources to bear on the problem and will allow for a more adequate test of competing theoretical interpretations. Law and society scholars are well positioned to contribute to this line of inquiry.     

The 2nd World Congress on Violence and Human Coexistence

The 2nd World Congress on Violence and Human CoexistenceMontreal Congress Center, July 13–17, 1992     

Thirteenth-Century Origins of Punitive or Exemplary Damages: The Statute of Westminster I (1275) and Roman Law

This article highlights the importance of the Statute of Westminster I in the history of the concept of punitive or exemplary damages in the Anglo-American legal tradition. Maitland had long ago noted that its provisions allowing for double and triple reparation had similarities to duplum and triplum remedies in Roman law. But this tentative hypothesis has not been further explored by scholars. In this article I suggest that the antecedents for the provisions on multiple reparation in Westminster I may lie in the Roman law delicts of furtum or iniuria and their links to actions in duplum and triplum, based on conceptual similarities in the substantive nature of the wrongdoing. This article explores possible avenues for direct Roman law influence as well as indirect means of transmission, namely by non-Roman law sources of concepts analogous to Roman law.     

Grants to states for operation of qualified high risk pools. Final rule with comment period

This final rule with comment period implements a provision of the Trade Assistance Reform Act of 2002 by providing $40 million in Federal fiscal year 2003 and $40 million in Federal fiscal year 2004 to States that have incurred losses in connection with the operation of qualified high risk pools that meet certain criteria. This grant program implements section 2745 of the Public Health Service Act, as added by the Trade Adjustment Assistance Reform Act of 2002.     

Rumble in Paradise: The Caribbean Court of Justice Creating Waves in International Law after British Caribbean Bank v Belize

On 25 June 2013, the Caribbean Court of Justice denied a motion to halt the proceedings of an international arbitration between British Caribbean Bank (BCB) and the Government of Belize, and instead granted BCB the right to continue with the arbitration proceedings. The ruling is particularly important as it sheds light on the anti-arbitration principle – a feature known mostly to Common law – and the still troubled area of expropriation in relation to bilateral investment treaties. In this case comment, I will provide an overview of those main points and assess what implications there are under international law. Specifically, this comment also develops a notion of financial property, and asses under what circumstances financial property can be expropriated in light of bilateral investment treaties. The focus on financial property is to both generate a discussion and also raise more questions on problematic clauses in investment treaties.     

The Right to be Free from Domestic Violence in Macau

Domestic violence is a problem which historically has not received adequate attention in Macau. At the outset, it explains why the right to be free from domestic violence matters in Macau. I contend that the treatment of domestic violence is a human rights issue under international human rights law, focusing on the shift in the conceptualization of domestic violence from a private matter into a human rights issue. I denounce domestic violence as human rights violation. The second part depicts the draft law on Combating of Domestic Violence Act and analyzes the possible effects of Combating of Domestic Violence Act that can occur. Then, I intend to highlight the absence of attention to the positive duties of states—not negative duties to restrain from acting (such as a duty not to infringe upon the right to be free from domestic violence), but positive, affirmative duties to protect women.     

Magistrates: The Future According to Auld

This paper arises out of work I undertook before I was appointed to my present post. I wish to comment narrowly on Auld's proposals for the future role of magistrates (in which category, for present purposes, I include district judges, formerly stipendiary magistrates), and will do so in the light of my own published research, commissioned jointly by the Home Office and Lord Chancellor's Department to inform Auld's deliberations. In the process I will comment on the manner in which Auld drew on, or failed to draw on, data generated in the course of that research.     

Correlates of the Co-Occurrence of Wife Abuse and Child Abuse Among a Representative Sample

The co-occurrence of domestic violence and child abuse is well documented (Appel, A. E., & Holden, G. W. (1998). J. Fam. Psychol. 12: 578–599; Edleson, J. L. (1999). Violence Against Women 5: 134–154). However, little is known about the correlates of co-occurring wife and child abuse. Analyzing data from the 1985 National Family Violence Survey (subsample N = 2733), this study identified risk factors associated with the co-occurrence of wife and child abuse. One-way ANOVA and chi-square analyses were conducted to compare characteristics of parents, children, and households among subgroups of families reporting some form of abuse. Key differences emerged between the three types of homes compared (i.e., those with child abuse alone, wife abuse alone, or wife and child abuse), indicating possibly distinct etiologies and processes. In particular, the co-occurrence of wife and child abuse was marked by less education, worse health, increased reports of depression, and increased husband drug use. Findings may be useful to practitioners and researchers interested in risk factors for different forms of family violence.The total does not equal 100% because certain states report more than one form of maltreatment per child.     

Columbia: Neglected dimensions of violence

Editor's note: Rosa Del Olmo has recently written on the same theme in: The Attack on the Supreme Court of Columbia: A Case Study of Guerrilla and Government ViolenceViolence. Aggression and Terrorism 2 (1988): 57–84.     

The Succession to the Crown Act 2013: Modernising the Monarchy

Constitutional reform has occupied a relatively high position on the legislative agendas of successive UK governments in recent decades. Yet little of it has impinged directly upon the monarchy. The Succession to the Crown Act 2013 is therefore a significant and uncommon enactment. This article commences by sketching out a little of the background to the Act, including the need for a common position across the Commonwealth Realms which recognise the Queen as their Head of State. It then proceeds to consider the Act's three central provisions. These will ensure gender equality in the royal succession, abolish the prohibition on a royal heir marrying a Roman Catholic, and recast the law on consent to Royal Marriages. As such, they are non‐controversial. Controversy remains, however, in an issue which the 2013 Act deliberately does not address; the bar on a Roman Catholic succeeding to the throne.     

罗马法债权理念的一般发展

由罗马法发展起来的债权理念 ,代表了罗马法的较高成就 ,是人类法律文化的宝贵遗产。罗马法债权理念发展的一般历程分为三个阶段 ,即 ,人身性债权向财产性债权的过渡形成、债权理念与家父权理念的并存格局 ,以及罗马法债权理念的扩充发展。这三个阶段展示了人类债权理念由原始状态向文明过渡的历程     

JUVENILE JUSTICE

Book reviews in this article:
Gary S. Katzmann, Securing Our Children's Future: New Approaches to Juvenile Justice and Youth Violence.     

Machiavelli and the Problem of Dictatorship

Machiavelli is the first modern political thinker who pays great attention to the magistracy of dictatorship. “Dictatorial authority,” as he puts it, is fundamental to the survival and prosperity of republics: It is the magistracy, the “ordinary mode,” to which they turn to deal with “extraordinary accidents,” political and military emergencies. Machiavelli's gaze is cast both on the Ancient and the Modern world: Although he concentrates on the Roman magistracy, he also pays attention to magistracies of the modern world that were in some way similar, such as the Council of the Ten in the Republic of Venice. In my paper, I will attempt to reconstruct the essential points of Machiavelli's discussion on dictatorship; in the concluding remarks, I will briefly tackle the more general question of the relationship between politics and law in his work as a whole.