New Books In Law

In his latest book, Professor Lindsay Farmer offers a historical and conceptual analysis of theories of criminalization. The book shows how criminalization is inextricably linked to the making of the modern criminal law. This distinct body of rules and processes is neither fixed nor inevitable in what, who, and how it criminalizes. Instead, it is constructed by the changing functions of criminal law as an instrument of government in the modern state. In this way, the criminal law, and processes of criminalization shape the modern civil order. Making of the Modern Criminal Law: Criminalization and Civil Order first traces the development of the modern criminal law as an institution, and shows how this secures civil order. Specifically, it identifies particular aspects of criminal law – those being jurisdiction, codification and responsibility – to give an understanding how social order is constructed by the criminal law. The book then provides detailed analysis of three particular areas of criminal law, focusi

Most people recognize that the internet is growing at an exponential rate. But few have thought as deeply as Laura DeNardis, a Professor and Interim Dean at the School of Communication at American University, about what those changes will mean for privacy, security, human rights, and democracy. In The Internet in Everything: Privacy and Security in a World With No Off Switch (Yale, 2020), Professor DeNardis shows that the policy tools and normative constructs we have built around the internet are outdated. The internet has evolved from a system of communication to one of control—and that demands a new approach to internet governance. On this episode, I talked with Dr. DeNardis about why we need to move beyond an understanding of internet governance as content governance; whether governments can resist exploiting cybersecurity vulnerabilities; and why she thinks ‘internet freedom’ is a “somewhat fetishized ideal.” At one point, Dr. DeNardis’s dog weighs in on the virtues of techno-libertarianism. We wrap up wi

R. H. Helmholz's book Natural Law in Court (Harvard UP, 2015) serves as a guide to the uses of natural law in the past. It shows how lawyers, judges and jurists used natural law to reason and argue about all areas of the law, be they procedural or substantive. Far from being a polemic, this book delves into the legal record of multiple countries to compare, contrast and shed light on the role natural law played in actual legal disputes. Due to the renewed interest in natural law today, this book serves as an important counter-point to legal thinkers who too often rely on purely philosophical or theoretical notions of natural law in their arguments to show how natural law was (and potential can be) deployed to make effective legal arguments in actual legal proceedings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Prior to the abolition of slavery, thousands of African-descended people in the Americas lived in freedom. Their efforts to navigate daily life and negotiate the boundaries of racial difference challenged the foundations of white authority—and linked the Americas together. In Black Freedom in the Age of Slavery: Race, Status, and Identity in the Urban Americas (U of South Carolina Press, 2020), John Garrison Marks examines how these individuals built lives in freedom for themselves and their families in two of the Atlantic World's most important urban centers: Cartagena, along the Caribbean coast of modern-day Colombia, and Charleston, in the low country of North America's Atlantic coast. Marks reveals how skills, knowledge, reputation, and personal relationships helped free people of color improve their fortunes and achieve social distinction in ways that undermined whites' claims to racial superiority. Built upon research conducted on three continents, this book takes a comparative approach to understanding

In her book, The Politics of Police Reform: Society against the State in Post-Soviet Countries (Oxford University Press, 2018), Erica Marat provides an answer to a very important question: “What does it take to reform a post-Soviet police force?” Marat looks as specific case studies – in Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan – in order to identify and analyze instances where public mobilization challenged the conduct of police offers and their use of violence. In her analysis, she considers the legacies of Soviet policing, but also identifies important factors that led to policing’s reform. The book is valuable reading for those following contemporary issues in Central Asia and the post-Soviet space, as well those interested broadly in the problems of police violence and the challenge of police reform. Nicholas Seay is a PhD Student at The Ohio State University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Americans have long viewed marriage between a white man and a white woman as a sacred union. But marriages between African Americans have seldom been treated with the same reverence. This discriminatory legacy traces back to centuries of slavery, when the overwhelming majority of black married couples were bound in servitude as well as wedlock. Though their unions were not legally recognized, slaves commonly married, fully aware that their marital bonds would be sustained or nullified according to the whims of white masters. Bound In Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century (Harvard UP, 2017) is the first comprehensive history of African American marriage in the nineteenth century. Uncovering the experiences of African American spouses in plantation records, legal and court documents, and pension files, Tera W. Hunter reveals the myriad ways couples adopted, adapted, revised, and rejected white Christian ideas of marriage. Setting their own standards for conjugal relationships, enslave

In Lutheran Theology and Contract Law in Early Modern Germany (ca. 1520-1720) (Verlag Ferdinand Schoningh, 2019), Paolo Astorri shows how the Protestant Reformation influence European law. Martin Luther and his successors led European Christianity away from medieval ideas of penance and the careful accounting that went with it toward theology of grace. Human salvation was thence justified by faith alone, and holy scripture the supreme authority. For the law, this meant that love (charity) and not complicated rules would guide jurists. For the poor, debts were to be forgiven freely, while a rich debtor could now be charged interest by his creditor. In this conversation, Paolo Astorri discusses these changes and other legal – and also political and social – consequences of the Lutheran Reformation. He also speaks about the origins of western law and remarks about other changes in it over the last few centuries. He discusses other developments in the Catholic and Protestant confessions. Dr. Astorri is a Post-Doc

Francis Buckley, who is Foundation Professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University, has written a fast-moving and provocative new book about the opportunities and possibilities of a second American secession. The publication of this book couldn't be more timely, as the conclusion of an election cycle highlights both the diversity and the tribalisation of American voters. What holds the nation together? To what extent is the Constitution the source of the nation's historic and current difficulties? If small is beautiful, and smaller nations tend to be happier, why shouldn't a state like California secede and put its savings from national defence into a scheme for national health? Tune in to hear how Professor Buckley explores these and other ideas in his new book, American Secession: The Looming Threat of a National Break-Up (Encounter Books, 2020) Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests focus on the history of puritanism and evangeli

In Camps: Vietnamese Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Repatriates (University of California Press, 2020) is an in-depth study of the fate of the nearly 800,000 Vietnamese refugees who left their country by boat, and sought refugee in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The experiences of these populations and the subsequent policies remain relevant today; Who is a refugee? Who determines their status? And how does it change over time? Jana K. Lipman takes the reader to visit camps in Guam, Malaysia, the Phillipines and Hong Kong, drawing out the politics, policies and how these impacted refugees rights to remain, be resettled or repatriated. She draws out the tensions between the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the US government, drawing into focus the direct impact this had on the day-to-day lives of those stuck in camps. Her research is the first major work to pay close attention to first-landing host sites, with particular emphasis on Vietnamese activism in the camps and as part of the diaspora. The work wil

Some of America’s most pressing civil rights issues—desegregation, equal educational and employment opportunities, housing discrimination, and free speech—have been closely intertwined with higher education institutions. Although it is commonly known that college students and other activists, as well as politicians, actively participated in the fight for and against civil rights in the middle decades of the twentieth century, historical accounts have not adequately focused on the roles that the nation’s college presidents played in the debates concerning racism. Based on archival research conducted at a range of colleges and universities across the United States, The Campus Color Line: College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom (Princeton UP, 2020) sheds light on the important place of college presidents in the struggle for racial parity. Focusing on the period between 1948 and 1968, Eddie Cole shows how college presidents, during a time of violence and unrest, strategically, yet often silently, in

How do we promote peace in the streets? In his new book Bleeding Out: The Devastating Consequences of Urban Violence--and a Bold New Plan for Peace in the Streets (Basic Books, 2019), Thomas Abt explains. Abt teaches, studies, and writes about the use of evidence-informed approaches to reduce urban violence. Abt is a Senior Fellow with the Council on Criminal Justice in Washington, D.C. Prior to the Council, he served as a Senior Fellow at the Hard Kennedy and Law Schools. Before that, he held leadership positions in the New York Governor’s Office and the U.S. Department of Justice. Abt’s work has been featured in major media outlets, including the Atlantic, the Economist, Foreign Affairs, the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, and National Public Radio. This episode covers an array of topics, from the estimated $10 million cost to society per homicide; to strategies involving people, places, and things (related to behavior-based strategies) that can most effectively com

John Yoo, the Emanual S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California Berkeley School of Law, has written what he terms a surprising defense of the actions of Donald Trump as president. In his new book Defender in Chief: Donald Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power (All Points Book, 2020), Yoo, who did not support Trump in 2016, argues that Trump has performed in a manner that the Constitution’s Framers would applaud. Trump has defended the constitutional functions of the Executive from congressional interference or encroachment, including in his use of the appointment power to the federal judiciary and his role as commander-in-chief of the military. He also defends President Trump’s actions regarding the statutory powers used to designate and fund a wall along the U.S. southern border, the administration’s efforts to reverse Obama’s immigration orders, popularly known as DACA and DAPA, and Trump’s exercising of the removal power for Executive branch officials. However, this work is more than a defe

What is “unborn human life” and what kind of court cases, not only in the US but abroad, illuminate the matter from the standpoint of the many fields in which the term is employed: law, bioethics, and philosophy among others? These questions are addressed by a distinguished group of scholars in the 2019 book, Unborn Human Life and Fundamental Rights: Leading Constitutional Cases Under Scrutiny (Peter Lang, 2019) In this fascinating collection of case studies from countries such as Argentina, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Italy, Poland and Spain as well as the United States we learn that abortion is not always the catalyst for landmark constitutional cases in many lands. So are such concerns as the moral questions raised by in vitro fertilization and the morning-after pill. Not only does the book provide a look into the workings and worldviews of various constitutional courts and legal systems in many countries, it also shows how activists on both sides of the issue of unborn human life (and there are those who t

As the 2020 presidential campaign begins to take shape, there is widespread distrust of the fairness and accuracy of American elections. In Election Meltdown: Dirty Tricks, Distrust, and the Threat to American Democracy (Yale UP, 2020), Richard L. Hasen uses riveting stories illustrating four factors increasing the mistrust. Voter suppression has escalated as a Republican tool aimed to depress turnout of likely Democratic voters, fueling suspicion. Pockets of incompetence in election administration, often in large cities controlled by Democrats, have created an opening to claims of unfairness. Old‑fashioned and new‑fangled dirty tricks, including foreign and domestic misinformation campaigns via social media, threaten electoral integrity. Inflammatory rhetoric about “stolen” elections supercharges distrust among hardcore partisans. Taking into account how each of these threats has manifested in recent years—most notably in the 2016 and 2018 elections—Hasen offers concrete steps that need to be taken to restor

The tail end of the twentieth century was a good time for constitutional lawyers. Leapfrogging around the globe, they offered advice on how to amend, write or rewrite one state constitution after the next following the collapse of the Soviet Union and with it, the communist bloc. Largely overlooked in the flurry of constitution drafting in this period, officials in Myanmar worked away on a new constitution without any experts from abroad—or, for that matter, many of those at home. Soldiers watched over them, dictating terms for what became the 2008 Constitution of Myanmar: the document that lays the parameters for formal political contestation and representation there today. As the country gets set to go to the polls in November 2020, in this episode of New Books in Southeast Asian Studies, Melissa Crouch discusses her The Constitution of Myanmar: A Contextual Analysis (Hart, 2019; shortlisted for the book award of the Australian Legal Research Awards), and with it, the constitutional drafting process, its ou

In this episode, Siobhan talks with Charles L. Zelden about the new expanded edition of his book, Bush v. Gore: Exposing the Growing Crisis in American Democracy (University Press of Kansas, 2020). Zelden is a professor in the Department of History and Political Science at Nova Southeastern University's Halmos College of Arts and Sciences, where he teaches courses in history, government and legal studies. Who could forget the Supreme Court’s controversial 5-4 decision in Bush v. Gore or the 2000 presidential campaign and election that preceded it? Hanging chads, butterfly ballots, endless recounts, raucous allegations, and a constitutional crisis were all roiled into a confusing and potentially dangerous mix—until the Supreme Court decision allowed George W. Bush to become the 43rd President of the United States, despite losing the popular vote to Al Gore. Praised by scholars and political pundits alike, the original edition of Charles Zelden’s book set a new standard for our understanding of that monumental

On July 1, 2020, China introduced a National Security Law into Hong Kong partly in an attempt to quell months of civil unrest, as a mechanism to safeguard China’s security. In this new book, China’s National Security: Endangering Hong Kong’s Rule of Law? (Hart, 2020), Cora Chan and Fiona de Londras bring together a host of internationally renowned authors who question whether a national security law will challenge Hong Kong’s rule of law, and the liberal ideals safeguarded in its legal system, which have become a mark of national identity and pride for many Hong Kongers. The book examines the question in three parts. Firstly, it considers whether national security poses a threat to Hong Kong’s rule of law, in particular, under the unique ‘One Country, Two Systems’ model. In the second part of the book, there is an examination of the sources of resilience in Hong Kong’s politico-legal culture, which may provide resistance to the erosion of the rule of law. In particular, authors examine administrative law, the

Why are we so concerned with belonging? In what ways does our belonging constitute our identity? Is belonging a universal concept or a culturally dependent value? How does belonging situate and motivate us?  In these days of identity politics, these issues are more significant and more complex than ever. Joseph E. David grapples with these questions through a genealogical analysis of ideas and concepts of belonging. In his book Kinship, Law and Politics: An Anatomy of Belonging (Cambridge UP, 2020) examines crucial historical moments in which perceptions of belonging were formed, transformed, or dismantled. The cases presented here focus on the pivotal role played by belonging in kinship, law, and political order, stretching across cultural and religious contexts from eleventh-century Mediterranean religious legal debates to twentieth-century statist liberalism in Western societies. With thorough inquiry into diverse discourses of belonging, David pushes past the politics of belonging to acknowledge just how

Who truly controls immigration law in the United States? Though common sense might suggest the U.S. Congress, legal scholars Adam B. Cox and Cristina M. Rodríguez argue that the president is in fact the immigration policymaker-in-chief. In this interview, we speak with co-author Rodríguez about their new book The President and Immigration Law (Oxford University Press, 2020), which shifts our attention away from court-based immigration regulation and toward the power dynamic between Congress and presidential administrations. The book details the historical construction of the “shadow immigration system” that has enabled the executive branch to fundamentally shape immigration policy through its discretionary enforcement of the law. Rodríguez walks us through the three constitutive elements of this system: a deportation legal regime, state capacity and bureaucracy, and a boom of unauthorized immigration in the latter half of the twentieth century. This interview also delves into the role of local and state polic

Religious freedom debates set blood boiling. Just consider notable Supreme Court cases of recent years such as Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission or Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania. How can we reach any agreement between those who adhere strictly to the demands of divine law and the individual conscience and those for whom human-derived law is paramount? Is there any legal and philosophical framework that can mediate when tensions erupt between the human right of religious liberty and laws in the secular realm? In her 2019 book, The Possibility of Religious Freedom: Early Natural Law and the Abrahamic Faiths (Cambridge UP), Karen Taliaferro argues that natural law can act as just such a mediating tool. Natural law thinking can both help protect religious freedom and enable societies across the globe to maintain social peace and to function on the basis of fairness to all. Taliaferro shows that natural law is not merely a somewhat arcane legal philosophy promulgated by a subset