scholarly journals Initiating a Non-Anthropocentric Jurisprudence: The Rule of Law and Animal Vulnerability Under a Property Paradigm

2013 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 783 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maneesha Deckha
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Cumulative Effect ◽  
Animal Suffering ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Canadian Law ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Level Of Importance ◽  
Court Of Appeal

This article discusses a recent Canadian entry to the accretion of legal texts which question, to various degrees, law’s anthropocentrism: the dissenting judgment of the Alberta Court of Appeal in Reece v. Edmonton (City of). Written by Chief Justice Catherine Fraser, the 162-paragraph dissent stands out in the Canadian landscape (and is impressive even in the international scene) given the existing Canadian law addressing animal issues that either regulate animals as objects and/or subordinate animal interests to human or corporate ones. This article argues that the dissent in Reece departs from the standard legal instrumentalist view of animals by providing a non-anthropocentric analysis of the animal interests at stake. The decision thus provides a new way of thinking about animals when compared to the existing Canadian jurisprudence. The dissent’s departure from the traditional anthropocentric legal view of animals is seen in three main ways: (1) the level of importance it assigns to the animal interest legally at issue by connecting it to the rule of law; (2) the respect it affords to critiques of animals’ current legal status (including the animal rights critique seeking to abolish the property status of animals and the default subordination of animal interests to human or corporate ones); and (3) the empathy and respect it gives to the individual animal at the heart of the legal dispute by recognizing her as a sentient and vulnerable being whose subjectivity matters. The cumulative effect is a judgment that not only provides the most sophisticated Canadian judicial analysis to date of the law’s relationship to animals, but impugns the traditional anthropocentric paradigm through which the law minimally responds to (some) animal suffering.

scholarly journals Ensuring Guarantees of the Rights of the Individual and the Inalienability of his Legal Status in the System of Legal Regulation

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 21-29
Author(s):  
Alexander Vladimirovich Konovalov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Synergistic Action ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Core ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Different Levels

The article is devoted to the analysis of the general principle of law — ensuring guarantees of individual rights and the inalienability of his legal status. According to the author, they are provided by the synergistic action of private and public law regulation. The article convincingly shows that private and public law is a single system of values with different levels of generalization of terms and different methodology. At the same time, it is the private legal mechanisms that are the basis, the core of the rule of law.

scholarly journals In the Absence of the Rule of Law: Everyday Lawyering, Dignity and Resistance in Myanmar’s ‘Disciplined Democracy’

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 573-599
Author(s):  
Alex Batesmith ◽  
Jake Stevens
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal System ◽  
State Power ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Material Support ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Alternative Perspective ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Human

This article explores how ‘everyday’ lawyers undertaking routine criminal defence cases navigate an authoritarian legal system. Based on original fieldwork in the ‘disciplined democracy’ of Myanmar, the article examines how hegemonic state power and a functional absence of the rule of law have created a culture of passivity among ordinary practitioners. ‘Everyday’ lawyers are nevertheless able to uphold their clients’ dignity by practical and material support for the individual human experience – and in so doing, subtly resist, evade or disrupt state power. The article draws upon the literature on the sociology of lawyering and resistance, arguing for a multilayered understanding of dignity going beyond lawyers’ contributions to their clients’ legal autonomy. Focusing on dignity provides an alternative perspective to the otherwise often all-consuming rule of law discourse. In authoritarian legal systems, enhancing their clients’ dignity beyond legal autonomy may be the only meaningful contribution that ‘everyday’ lawyers can make.

scholarly journals The New Wars: Terrorism and “Asymmetric” Warfare

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 93-108
Author(s):  
Alexander Treiblmaier
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
National Defense ◽  
Terrorist Organizations ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Asymmetric Warfare ◽  
New Wars ◽  
Terrorist Groups ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Rules And Principles

The term “new wars” is often used to describe how terrorist groups achieve objectives in addition to the “classic” means of intervention by states. Terrorist organizations use asymmetric methods of warfare to target the weaknesses of Western states. Consequently, conventional wars have also changed into hybrid wars. The legal status of terrorist organizations is a major problem for the rule of law. In responding to terrorist attacks, the distinction between crime and terrorism is difficult. The “war on terror” is governed by different rules and principles and is extremely difficult to wage. Conflicts last a long time and victory against terrorism is rarely possible due to the networked structure of terrorist organizations and the way they intermingle with the population. In addition to an alliance-wide approach, there is a national solution to answer these new threats in form of the comprehensive national defense in Austria.

scholarly journals A Prologue to Development: Establishing the legitimacy of the rule of law in post-conflict Solomon Islands

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Finbar Benedict Kiddle
Keyword(s):  
Capacity Building ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Solomon Islands ◽  
Initial Response ◽  
The State ◽  
Western World ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Shared Beliefs ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
The Individual

<p>The rule of law forms the bedrock for societal and institutional organisation in the Western world. International actors see its establishment in developing countries as a means to facilitate wider development work and an end in and of itself. However, development of the legitimacy of the rule of law is not well understood, especially in post-conflict environments where it is most lacking. Despite the best efforts of international interventions, the rule of law is often not in the paramount position it requires: it lacks legitimacy amongst the people. To understand why this is the case there is a need for a better understanding of how interventions develop legitimacy in the rule of law. This research develops that understanding and asks the question ‘how does the contemporary peacebuilding agenda develop the legitimacy of the rule of law in post-conflict states?’ To do this the research undertakes a case study investigation of a particular intervention: the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands. Discourse and content analyses, carried out on interview transcripts and a wealth of documentation, reveal the different forces exerted by the intervention to develop legitimacy in the rule of law. These are interpreted through a particular lens: a modified version of Luke’s three faces of power that also draws on concepts of governmentality. A four-dimensional definition of legitimacy also allows for greater analytical depth. The research shows that the contemporary peacebuilding agenda can do some things very well. It is especially effective at the initial response to crisis. It is after the establishment of this basic security/performance dimension of the rule of law that interventions begin to develop their institutional/process dimension through capacity building. Capacity building divides into three levels: the individual, the organisation, and the state. It integrates the rule of law across the state edifice and establishes it as a foundational element of the system. However, the most important aspect of building legitimacy is the development of shared beliefs, as it is these that establish what is ‘true’ amongst a society. Contemporary peacebuilding interventions portray the rule of law as intrinsically legitimate and the correct, rational way of organising society. This idea permeates through their structures, discourses, and methods. However, the rule of law is not intrinsically legitimate. It is a culturally constructed concept that in many countries is in opposition with alternative ways of organising society and resolving conflict. Developing legitimacy in the rule of law is then a struggle between competing organisational systems. Such conflict jeopardises gains made by interventions, as the rule of law is fighting an uphill battle against other internalised, and often more locally reverent, norms. If it is to establish in post-conflict environments, the rule of law and competing systems need to interact to produce a locally relevant, hybrid, conception of the rule of law. One that is recognisable to all sides, but unique to the context. This leads to peace.</p>

“Canadians Are Not Proficient in the Art of Lynching”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brent M. S. Campney
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Significant Problem ◽  
Collective Violence ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Independence Movement ◽  
Self Rule ◽  
The Individual

In this chapter, Nandana Dutta examines the turn to collective violence, especially lynching, in postcolonial India, tracing it to “the forms of agency that emerged in the peculiar understanding of issues of modernity, the rule of law, and the indigenous Gandhian form of self rule known famously as swaraj during and after the Independence movement.” Dutta reflects on the connotations of the word lynching as it has been used in recent years in India to refer both to the taking of life by a mob or group, and to also refer to occasions of mob fury/action where death may not actually occur but the dynamics of the individual/mob victim-perpetrator relationship are similar. Noting the influence of American culture in the spread of the term lynching in India, Dutta argues that Indian collective violence “has emerged alongside or in the wake of movements for autonomy, identity, and territory that have become independent India’s most significant problem because these provide both occasion and site for the exercise of agency in the form of extralegal violence.”

The Council of Europe: 50 years of European cooperation

1999 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 497-505
Author(s):  
Daniel Tarschys
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
European Identity ◽  
Council Of Europe ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
European Cooperation ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Fundamental Values

The post-war European credo – never again a Europe given over to totalitarian terror and war, but a Europe of peace and freedom – led to the creation in May 1949 of the Council of Europe with the clear political and ideological alignment to build a Europe of common values (democracy, human rights and the Rule of Law), to which the practice of market economy was added. The promotion of those fundamental values constituted the Council's specific mandate and raison d'être together with ever-increasing cooperation patterns. After the end of the Cold War, the organization became the pre-eminent European political institution welcoming, on an equal footing and in permanent structures, the democracies of Europe freed from communist oppression. The Kosovo conflict calls for a hardening of the European resolve to base its future on the defence of human dignity, respect for the individual, the Rule of Law and pluralist democracy, indispensable in fostering a common European identity. Setting-up of regional and European cooperation and integration structures has been an important step forward, but must be complemented by the conviction and determination to forge a common European destiny.

scholarly journals The individual in China

1988 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 28-31
Author(s):  
Lester Ross ◽  
Mitchell Silk
Keyword(s):  
Economic Reform ◽  
Present State ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Individual

In spite of rebuffs, China's reformers are still in charge, as the recent 13th Congress confirmed. We look at the present state of political and economic reform, the rule of law, and individual rights

Public Anger, Violence, and the Legacy of Decolonization in India

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nandana Dutta
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Significant Problem ◽  
Collective Violence ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Independence Movement ◽  
Self Rule ◽  
The Individual

In this chapter, Nandana Dutta examines the turn to collective violence, especially lynching, in postcolonial India, tracing it to “the forms of agency that emerged in the peculiar understanding of issues of modernity, the rule of law, and the indigenous Gandhian form of self rule known famously as swaraj during and after the Independence movement.” Dutta reflects on the connotations of the word lynching as it has been used in recent years in India to refer both to the taking of life by a mob or group, and to also refer to occasions of mob fury/action where death may not actually occur but the dynamics of the individual/mob victim-perpetrator relationship are similar. Noting the influence of American culture in the spread of the term lynching in India, Dutta argues that Indian collective violence “has emerged alongside or in the wake of movements for autonomy, identity, and territory that have become independent India’s most significant problem because these provide both occasion and site for the exercise of agency in the form of extralegal violence.”

scholarly journals The Principles of Administrative Law as a Prism for Assessing the Content of Normative and Legal Provisions: Opportunities for Identifying the Problems and Solutions

2019 ◽  
Vol 87 (4) ◽  
pp. 104-116
Author(s):  
V. O. Ivantsov
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Administrative Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Charitable Organizations ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Provisions ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Corruption Prevention

The author of the article assesses the content of administrative normative and legal acts (on the example of legal regulation of restrictions on receiving gifts) through the prism of modern understanding of the principles of administrative law, which made it possible to distinguish a number of problems for determining the content of some of them and to work out the ways to solve them, namely: 1) Having studied the norms of the laws of Ukraine “On Prevention of Corruption” and “On Charitable Activities and Charitable Organizations” through the prism of the principle of humanism and justice in the relations between the individual and the state, it is proved that the legal possibility in the sphere of legal relations in the sphere cannot be restricted (forbidden) humanism and charity; 2) an analysis of the law enforcement practice of implementing the prohibition on gift giving has often revealed a flagrant violation of the rule of law; emphasized that ensuring the legal certainty of the described ban can be ensured by revealing its content by the National Anti-Corruption Agency; 3) installed: – uncertainty about the specific characteristics of “allowed gifts”, which requires amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On Corruption Prevention” to exclude them or to provide clear explanations within the framework of the NACC Guidelines; – violation of the provisions of the Typical Anti-Corruption Program of a Legal Entity approved by the Decision of NAPC No. 75 dated from March 2, 2017 No. 75 on the principle of hierarchical highness of law, which requires amendments to them in accordance with the provisions of the Art. 23 of the Law of Ukraine "On Prevention of Corruption", which defines uniform rules for determining the amount of "allowed gift"; – the content of the concept of "gift" does not correspond to such an important element of the rule of law as "prohibition of discrimination and equality before the law", which requires amendments to the Law of Ukraine "On Prevention of Corruption" in the part of the correction of the concept of "gift" as such is bounded by the restriction of "family-private" relations not related to the performance of functions of the state or local self-government. As a result, it was found out that the principles of administrative law in order to improve the regulatory acts of the sphere of administrative and legal regulation are: 1) as a criterion for assessing the content of provisions of regulatory legal acts, resulting in the isolation of their shortcomings; 2) legal bases for elaboration of amendments and additions to administrative normative legal acts.

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