On Devices and Logics of Legal Sense: Toward Socio-technical Legal Analysis

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle McGee
Keyword(s):  
Legal Theory ◽  
Black Box ◽  
Legal Analysis ◽  
Small Community ◽  
Legal Research ◽  
Property Damage ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
A Value ◽  
Legal Sense

Kyle McGee argues for the enrichment of socio-legal studies by re-evaluating the operation of rules in legal enunciation, particularly in the ‘judicial Umwelt’. Opposing the tendency to black-box legal rules, prevalent in doctrinal as well as critical or socio-legal research, McGee develops a new articulation of the content of law that would not, in his view, countenance the reduction of law to information. In a departure from his more exploratory book on Latour and legal theory, he focuses here on the means of formal legal speech, walking very slowly, ‘intolerably’ slowly, through the weeds of a US trial court’s opinion in a class lawsuit concerning injuries and property damage suffered by residents of a small community allegedly resulting from a chemical company’s pollution of nearby aquifers. Narrating the slow composition of a legal trajectory out of a multitude of non-legal actors and the court’s methodical de-stratification of complicated levels or planes of enunciation, McGee introduces the jurimorph as a semiotic tool for capturing the peculiar translation that must precede entry into the trajectory and which results in a new legal figure – a value-object or, in later stages, after certain trials have been met, an obligation. The litigants propose competing sequences of value-objects, each leading to the endorsement of their respective positions; the court must submit the virtual sequences to tests, and draws out, actualises, only one pathway of obligations leading to the instauration of a principle.

Authority of Law: An Analysis of The Role of Police

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronika Keir
Keyword(s):  
Policy Development ◽  
Crime Control ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Further Education ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Legal Research ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
The University

<div class="page" title="Page 3"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span>Veronika is a recent graduate from the Honours Legal Studies program at the University of Waterloo. Her passions are socio-legal research, policy development, feminist legal theory, and crime control development. Veronika is currently working a full-time job at Oracle Canada, planning on pursuing further education in a Masters program. </span></p></div></div></div>

Legal Mentality and Its Influence in Shaping Legal Rules: the Relationship between Principal and Agent

Global Jurist ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rossella Esther Cerchia
Keyword(s):  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Small Community ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
Agency Relationship ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Legal Context ◽  
The Family ◽  
Legal Forms ◽  
Legal Contexts ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract It is assumed that comparative legal studies, through its deep and historical analysis of law and its dissociation in legal formants, have contributed to understanding the importance of the different factors that shape legal rules. In this article, emphasis is given to a factor that is sometimes neglected in legal narrations: legal mentality or, more simply, the inherent logical way of thinking and its influence in shaping legal rules. The area of investigation is the legal relationship between principal and agent. It is a narration that selects a specific “fil rouge” to link different “pieces” throughout European history to compose a mosaic of different factors that may have contributed to developing a certain legal mentality in this area of law. The legal mentality is nothing more than the product of the extra-legal contexts in which principal and agent operate. In reference to the extra-legal context, it means the importance, above all, of the situations of proximity between the two parties: proximity that could be “spacial” (i.e., they are part of the same small community), or “relational” governed by extra-legal forms of belonging to the same group, for instance families (broader or narrower ones) or clans. This narration starts with a glance at the ancient agreement of mandatum and its roots in the Roman idea of “friendship” and personal bond. Then it continues by touching on a source of the medieval companies: the family bond, one of the stronger and more trustworthy relationships at the time. It will be shown that some aspects of that relationship are not dissimilar from the ones later formed by the case law of the English Chancery Court in the field of the law of agency. This could be seen as a result of the legacy of the stratification of a certain legal mentality shaped by a context that was created by extralegal relationships. Nowadays the modern fading of the personal bond between principal and agent has highlighted an important evolution: there was proximity then depersonalization: this is reflected in the evolution of legal rules, for instance, in French, Italian and English national law. Finally, the case of the “real” or “absolute” irrevocability of the authority shows that the agency relationship, constructed in a breeding ground characterized by trust and utilized to protect the principal's interest (or even the principal's interest), could become - through related or linked contracts - an instrument of more complex agreements. In these cases, the interest of the agent or third parties (such as creditors, contractual counterparts or “beneficiaries” in the broad sense) could lead those transactions far from the original idea of mandat or mandato or agency. In those situations, the “causa” of the agency  (to use a concept dear to civil law tradition) changes and its roots in personal bond and the principal's interest loses its strength as it is mirrored, once again, in the legal rules.

Weighing Lives in War

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
First Principles ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Just War ◽  
Collateral Damage ◽  
The Past ◽  
A Value ◽  
Lethal Force ◽  
Military Necessity ◽  
Military Commanders ◽  
Descriptive Theory

This volume combines philosophical analysis with normative legal theory. Although both disciplines have spent the past fifty years investigating the nature of the principles of necessity and proportionality, these discussions were all too often walled off from each other. However, the boundaries of these disciplinary conversations have recently broken down, and this volume continues the cross-disciplinary effort by bringing together philosophers concerned with the real-world military implications of their theories and legal scholars who frequently build doctrinal arguments from first principles, many of which herald from the historical just war tradition or from the contemporary just war literature. What unites the chapters into a singular conversation is their common skepticism regarding whether the traditional doctrines, in both law and philosophy, have correctly valued the lives of civilians and combatants at war. The arguments outlined in this volume reveal a set of principles, including necessity and proportionality, whose core essence remains essentially contested. What does military necessity mean and are soldiers always subject to lethal force? What is proportionality and how should military commanders attach a value to a military target and weigh it against collateral damage? Do these valuations remain the same for both sides of the conflict? From the secure viewpoint of the purely descriptive, lawyers might confidently describe some of these questions as settled. But many others, even from the vantage point of descriptive theory, remain under-analyzed and radically lacking in clarity and certainty.

New Frontiers in Private Fiduciary Law

2019 ◽  
pp. 890-908
Author(s):  
Paul B. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Legal Theory ◽  
Corporate Law ◽  
Health Law ◽  
Legal Ethics ◽  
Behavioral Economic ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Current State ◽  
Sociological Inquiry ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Scholarly Inquiry

This chapter charts new frontiers of scholarly inquiry in fiduciary law. The chapter first orients the reader by taking stock of the current state of play in fiduciary scholarship. It then identifies a range of important questions that should inspire future work in the field. More specifically, it identifies pressing questions of legal theory (conceptual and normative analysis), economic and empirical legal studies (including classical and behavioral economic analysis), and historical and sociological inquiry. The chapter also raises questions of interest to private law theorists and scholars interested in exploring the significance of fiduciary principles within various subfields, from trust and corporate law to health law and legal ethics.

The Invisible Networks of Global Production: Re-Imagining the Global Value Chain in Legal Research

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-117
Author(s):  
Anna Beckers
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Global Value Chain ◽  
Commodity Chain ◽  
Production Network ◽  
Production Networks ◽  
Global Production Networks ◽  
Legal Research ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
Global Production Network

AbstractReviewing the burgeoning legal scholarship on global value chains to delineate the legal image of the global value chain and then comparing this legal image with images on global production in neighbouring social sciences research, in particular the Global Commodity Chain/Global Value Chain and the Global Production Network approach, this article reveals that legal research strongly aligns with the value chain image, but takes less account of the production-centric network image. The article then outlines a research agenda for legal research that departs from a network perspective on global production. To that end, it proposes that re-imagining the law in a world of global production networks requires a focus in legal research on the legal construction of global production and its infrastructure and a stronger contextualization of governance obligations and liability rules in the light of the issue-specific legal rules that apply to said infrastructure.

scholarly journals Flying with two wings or coming of age of copyrightisation? A historical and socio-legal analysis of copyright and business model developments in the Chinese music industry

2021 ◽  
pp. 205943642199846
Author(s):  
Zhen Troy Chen
Keyword(s):  
Business Models ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Music Industry ◽  
Ecosystem Model ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Copyright Law ◽  
Legal Analysis ◽  
Business Studies ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Chinese Music

Following the third copyright law amendment in China, this paper offers a timely contribution to the debates on the shifting policy, governance and industry landscape of the Chinese music industry. This paper conducts a historical and socio-legal analysis of the development of Chinese copyright law with regards to the music industry and argues that the Chinese digital music industry has developed to a stage where three business models collide, namely the cultural adaptation model, the renegade model and the platform ecosystem model. This paper draws on interdisciplinary literature and discourses from legal studies, business studies and cultural studies and provide new evidence of the much neglected autonomous development of Chinese copyright law on top of foreign pressure and the desired reforms to further integrate into the global market economy.

scholarly journals Los feminismos jurídicos en Argentina. Notas para pensar un campo emergente a partir de la década de 1990

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Romina Carla Lerussi ◽  
Malena Costa
Keyword(s):  
Legal Theory ◽  
Feminist Jurisprudence ◽  
Feminist Legal Theory ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
America Latina

Resumen: Nuestra propuesta se inscribe en el campo de los feminismos jurídicos, área que surge en la década del setenta en la academia estadounidense bajo la denominación Feminist Jurisprudence, Feminist Legal Studies o Feminist Legal Theory. En América Latina y El Caribe este área es aún incipiente; encontramos en dicha región una gran cantidad de investigaciones no necesariamente situadas en términos del pensamiento jurídico/legal feminista, pero sí conectadas íntimamente con dicho campo y como parte de las denominadas perspectivas de género en el derecho. En el presente artículo desarrollamos algunas notas para abonar a la reflexión acerca de los feminismos jurídicos en la Argentina con proyección latinoamericana, fundamentalmente a partir de la década de 1990.

Why Psychoanalysis Matters to Law

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne C. Dailey
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Individual Freedom ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Legal Doctrine ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
The Law ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

This chapter describes the contribution contemporary psychoanalysis has to make in three specific areas: legal theory, legal doctrine, and adjudication in the courtroom. Psychoanalysis improves the law’s theoretical foundations by modifying its foundational presumption of rationality. Psychoanalysis also helps to reform legal doctrine by identifying those particular subject matter areas, primarily family law and criminal law, where the law’s presumption of rationality leads to unjust legal rules. With domestic violence as its example, this chapter shows how psychoanalysis offers a body of practical knowledge that humanizes the law by bringing legal rules into line with actual, everyday lived experience. And finally, psychoanalysis reveals the deep tension between the law’s focus on individual moral responsibility for behavior and the law’s objective methods of proof in the courtroom. Psychoanalytic insights into the art of proving what really happened in a case can move law in the direction of a more empathic and forgiving model of judging. Overall, the psychoanalytic study of the law unveils the damaging consequences of the law’s rationalist assumptions about who we are as human beings, and offers an alternative, humanistic perspective in line with law’s foundational ideals of individual freedom and systemic justice.

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