Reclaiming Religious and Legal Authority: An Ethnography of the Women’s Shari’a Courts in India

Signs ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 499-523
Author(s):  
Sophie Schrago
Keyword(s):  
2001 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Dillon
Keyword(s):  

‘Lawyers are not disposed to look behind the immediate constitutional framework to the ultimate sources of legal authority’: Lord Lloyd, The Idea of Law (1987) 173.


Author(s):  
James L. Gibson ◽  
Michael J. Nelson

Despite popular reports that the legal system is in a state of crisis with respect to its African American constituents, research on black public opinion in general is limited owing to the difficulty and expense of assembling representative samples of minorities. We suspect that the story of lagging legal legitimacy among African Americans is in fact quite a bit more nuanced than is often portrayed. In particular, black public opinion is unlikely to be uniform and homogeneous; black people most likely vary in their attitudes toward law and legal institutions. Especially significant is variability in the experiences—personal and vicarious—black people have had with legal authorities (e.g., “stop-and-frisk”), and the nature of individuals’ attachment to blacks as a group (e.g., “linked fate”). We posit that both experiences and in-group identities are commanding because they influence the ways in which black people process information, and in particular, the ways in which blacks react to the symbols of legal authority (e.g., judges’ robes).


Author(s):  
Suzanne E. Eckes ◽  
Maria M. Lewis

Controversies over school policies that impact transgender students have garnered increased attention in recent years. For example, some transgender students have been prohibited from using the restroom that aligns with their gender identity, and others have not been addressed by their preferred names. Thus, in this chapter, we focus on cutting-edge issues that relate specifically to transgender students. In doing so we explore the legal landscape related to transgender student inclusion. We will begin with an overview of relevant research, followed by a presentation of the legal framework and finishing with a discussion of important legal issues, including topics such as access to facilities, privacy, pronouns and student records, athletics, and dress codes. As this chapter will demonstrate, unprecedented efforts in research have revealed alarming inequities experienced by transgender individuals. Concurrently, with some limitations or exceptions, there is a growing body of legal authority that has been successfully relied upon to protect the rights of transgender students. To be certain, the law impacting transgender individuals is multifaceted and evolving. Of notable significance, transgender students who have initiated legal claims against school districts for their discriminatory practices have all ended in favorable outcomes for the students.


2021 ◽  
Vol 115 (3) ◽  
pp. 567-572

On February 25, 2021, the United States conducted a strike targeting Iranian-backed militia group facilities in Syria. The strike, which came in response to a February 15, 2021 attack on U.S. interests in Iraq, marked the Biden administration's first known exercise of executive war powers. As domestic authority for the strike, President Joseph Biden, Jr. cited his authority under Article II of the U.S. Constitution and did not rely on the 2001 or 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMFs). For international legal authority, Biden relied on individual self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, stating that Syria was “unwilling or unable” to prevent further attacks on the United States by these non-state actors within its territory. The strikes garnered mixed reactions from Congress, where efforts are underway to repeal or reform extant AUMFs as well as the War Powers Resolution (WPR). The Biden administration is also undertaking a review of current U.S. military policy on the use of force, and during this process, it has prohibited drone strikes outside of conventional battlefields, absent presidential approval.


1966 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 457-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
James P. Barber

The Rhodesian rebellion was announced by no whiff of grapeshot but by Mr Ian Smith declaiming that he and his colleagues, ‘in humble submission to Almighty God’, were giving Rhodesia a new constitution, ‘so that the dignity and freedom of all men may be assured’. Subsequently the rebellion has continued to centre around a constitutional dispute. Although there have been armed clashes between the Rhodesian security forces and some guerrilla fighters who have infiltrated from Zambia, there has been no conflict between the forces of the legal authority, the British Government, and those which obey the rebel régime.


2007 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-393
Author(s):  
Naomi Choi

AbstractTo answer the question of what difference the philosophy of history makes to the philosophy of law this paper begins by calling attention to the way that Ronald Dworkin's interpretive theory of law is supposed to upend legal positivism. My analysis shows how divergent theories about what law and the basis of legal authority is are supported by divergent points of view about what concepts are, how they operate within social practices, and how we might best give account of such meanings. Such issues are widely debated in the philosophy of history but are often overlooked in jurisprudential circles. When the legal positivist approach to meanings is contrasted with Dworkin's interpretivism it is clear that what is needed is an alternative to both, in the form of what we might call "historical meanings" and "historical interpretation". While Dworkin's interpretivism gets it right that legal positivism is an inadequate philosophy of law to the extent that it is committed to a "criterial semantics" view of concepts, this paper argues that post-positivism in the philosophy of law need not entail a normative jurisprudence, as Dworkin would have it.


2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (S2) ◽  
pp. 49-56
Author(s):  
Polly J. Price

These teaching materials explore the specific powers of governments to implement control measures in response to communicable disease, in two different contexts:The first context concerns global pandemic diseases. Relevant legal authority includes international law, World Health Organization governance and the International Health Regulations, and regulatory authority of nations.The second context is centered on U.S. law and concerns control measures for drug-resistant disease, using tuberculosis as an example. In both contexts, international and domestic, the point is to understand legal authority to address public health emergencies.


2017 ◽  
Vol 95 (3) ◽  
pp. 782-810 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian J. Bowe

Recent proposals by American Muslims to build mosques have been met with technical and ideological opposition during the permitting process. This article examines the framing of these debates in newspaper stories between 2010 and 2013 to better understand the socially constructed position Muslims hold in American media and public spheres. Connecting framing and Moral Foundations Theory, this analysis identifies five frames: Local Regulation, Political Debate, Muslim Neighbors, Islamic Threat, and Legal Authority. These frames emphasized binding moral foundations related to in-group protection and deference to authority. A binary logistic regression found that moral evaluations were associated with mosque support, but not mosque opposition.


2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 369-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jang B. Singh

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to examine changes in the contents of Canadian corporate codes of ethics over a period of two decades from an institutionalization perspective. Design/methodology/approach – The paper tracks changes in the contents of the codes of large Canadian corporations longitudinally by analyzing their contents at two points over two decades, in 1992 and 2012. In particular, the paper tests three hypotheses related to the institutionalization of codes. Findings – It was found that the codes have become more prescriptive, they are more concerned with social responsibility and are more likely to identify their moral and legal authority. Overall, the findings support an institutional interpretation of the observed changes. Research limitations/implications – While large corporations are critical in establishing new and innovative management practices, their selection as the study population limits the generalizabilty of the findings. Another limitation of this paper is that it used an a priori determined set of items to analyze the contents of the codes and while this was needed to facilitate the comparison across time, it also meant that some important items were not clearly identified. Originality/value – Codes of ethics are the foundation of ethics programs in corporations and their contents could be critical in the development of a culture of ethics in corporations. This paper makes a valuable contribution to research on business ethics by analyzing the codes of ethics of the largest corporations in Canada at two points over two decades. The need to track changes in corporate codes of ethics over time has been advocated by several researchers, but longitudinal studies in this area are rare.


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