Law as a Parasitic Discipline

British university law schools are undergoing a radical change in the nature of legal research and scholarship. They were once dominated by pure doctrinal analysis but the new generation of legal scholars are either abandoning doctrinal work or infusing it with techniques and approaches drawn from the humanities and the social sciences. This essay argues that this change will lead to a greater ability to provide law students with a truly liberal education and will also enable the law school to take a much greater part in the intellectual debates to be found elsewhere in the university.     

Corporate Law Versus Social Autonomy: Law as Social Hazard

Law and Critique - This article argues that corporate law has become the legal platform upon which is erected a social process impeding society’s capacity to lucidly reflect on its primary...     

International Law: A Discipline of Crisis

This article examines the way that international lawyers tend to focus on crises for the development of international law. It uses the reactions of international lawyers to NATO's intervention in Kosovo in 1999 as a case study of this tendency and argues that the crisis focus impoverishes the discipline of international law. The article proposes the idea of an international law of everyday life as an alternative.     

Liberal Values in International Criminal Law: A Critique of Erdemovic

Using the Erdemovi decision as its starting point, the articleexamines the philosophical foundations of international criminallaw. It asserts that international criminal law, properly understood,represents a liberal legal system, emphasizing the rights ofthe accused over the interests of the prosecution or the goalsof international peace and security. Using the work of RonaldDworkin, it argues that international jurists should apply principlesthat invoke a respect for human rights and individual autonomyover ‘policy’. Thus, it argues that the reasoningof the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunalfor the former Yugoslavia was flawed when it determined thatduress did not constitute a complete defence in Erdemovi.     

Beyond the Goods/Resources Dichotomy: Animal Labor and Trade Law

Abstract

Since its inception, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has, in a rather self-evident manner, treated animals as objects of trade: Animals must be either goods or natural resources subject to the terms and conditions of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). However, broader public and legal efforts to recategorize animals from goods to “sentient beings,” which are emerging across the world, are casting serious doubt on these assumptions. Using animals’ subjectivity as a starting point, a new and bourgeoning strand of anthropological, ethical, and political studies argues that animals should properly be recognized as working subjects. Be it guide dogs, truffle hogs, logging elephants, or dairy cows—working animals, they argue, are owed wholly new legal and ethical duties. This article builds on these arguments to examine the consequences of “animal labor” for trade law: Are animals wrongly classified as commodities or resources? Is there a need and room to recognize animals as service providers under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS)? What are the legal consequences of this proposed change? This article sets out to answer these questions and argues that recognizing animals as workers in trade law is conceptually coherent and can play a crucial role in empowering states to protect animals effectively at the international level.     

Law School Instruction in Professional Responsibility: A Curricular Paradox

Legal ethics has recently become the focus of professional and public concern. One aspect of that concern has to do with the education and socialization of law students in professional responsibility. This study, using data from a sample of law students in diverse school settings, examines the influence of prevailing learning norms in legal education on student responses to courses in professional responsibility. The author also reviews the bases of ambiguous sentiments about the role of education in professional ethics and concludes with a discussion of the difficulties and dilemmas involved in attempts to alter the established mode of instruction.     

自由主义国际法学:一种“自下而上”对国际法分析的理论

从本源看,国际关系与国际法之间联系紧密,在学科发展上国际关系理论与国际法学相互依托、互相促进。斯劳特的自由主义国际法学,正是一种渊源于自由主义国际关系理论,并将国际关系理论与国际法学紧密结合在一起的新研究范式。在这种范式里,最引人注目的是其尝试为国际法学开辟一条自下而上的研究路径。无疑,这是对长期以来依赖自上而下的国际法传统研究路径的一个很好的弥补,也为当代跨国法的研究提供了良好的分析框架。当然,自由主义国际法学存在的不足也必须引起我们的注意。     

Professional Divestiture: The Cession of Responsibility for Lawyer Discipline

Lawyer-discipline systems underwent substantial reorganization in a majority of states during the 1970s, with responsibility for their operation moving from the bar associations in which they had been located for almost a century to agencies of the state supreme courts. While this transfer of the locus of lawyer discipline resulted in a diminution of the power of the organized bar, it encouraged the professionalization of the process. In this paper the reasons for the willingness of the bar associations in Illinois to cede control over such a central component of professional regulation are examined and their implications for the sociology of the legal profession discussed. Unable to maintain the status quo in the face of extensive criticism, the Illinois bar associations chose not to meet the high costs of upgrading the discipline process but rather to divest themselves of a function that, although at one time central to their identity and authority, had become inconvenient and damaging to their image. It is suggested that the bar associations were willing to countenance such a divestiture because their positions as collective representatives of the profession in Illinois were secure and the major parameters of lawyer discipline well established. Whereas immediate control over self-regulation processes may be necessary during the developmental phase of professionalism, it is not so important once the profession has achieved a dominant market position.     

被误读的“思想/表达二分法”——以法律修辞学为视角的考察

"思想/表达二分法"是著作权法中一项极富特色的裁判规则,它关乎的是成本收益的利益衡量与价值取舍,而不关乎思想与表达在事实层面是否可分,学界对此的解读往往混淆了事实问题与价值问题,没能揭示其扮演的真正角色及所发挥的修辞功能。作为一项价值法则,"思想/表达二分法"无法向我们提供统一普适的裁判标准,它依赖法官在个案中基于具体情势自由裁量,正是法官的创造性努力,定纷止争的目标才得以实现。     

论法律的艺术之维

法律有其艺术之维.关于此点,法律与文学运动略有揭示.法律与文学运动揭示了法律本身的文学特征,打开了通向法之美的一扇窗户.西方有学者认为,虽不能断言法律即是艺术,但可有作为艺术的法律.作为艺术的法律,类似于综合艺术:歌剧.还有些学者力图揭示法与音乐的内在关系.也有学者明确断言,司法就是一门艺术,以利益为媒介,以合度为原则.优秀的法官技进于道,即是艺术家.     

科技法学：广域学科背景下的概念研究

对于步入成熟发展阶段的科技法学,假借以哲学本体论思考的语境,通过对＂科技法学＂概念的不同解析与演绎,以讨论丰富对＂科技＂等相关名词、概念的深度认识,旨在从跨学科研究的背景立面寻找化解现存问题的思路与想法。