Current Legal Issues

Law and Philosophy

Edited by Professor Michael Freeman and Professor Ross Harrison

Law and Psychology contains a broad range of essays by scholars interested in the interactions between law and psychology. The volume includes studies of jury trials in terrorism cases, psychological evidence in family law cases, child witness testimony and the role of psychology in punishment theory.

Edited by Professor Michael Freeman, UCL Laws, and Belinda Brooks-Gordon, Lecturer, Birkbeck College

Law and Sociology contains a broad range of essays by scholars interested in the interactions between law and sociology. In common with earlier volumes in the Current Legal Issues series, it seeks both a theoretical and methodological focus.

The volume includes amongst other topics, a sociology of jurisprudence, an examination of the social dynamics of regulatory interactions, and a consideration of the place of legal culture in the sociology of law.

Edited by Professor Michael Freeman, UCL Laws

Law and History contains a broad range of essays by prominent legal historians, which explore the ways in which history has been used by lawyers. Largely theoretical in focus, the volume covers a broad range of issues, including discussions of norms in medieval England, the works of Montesquieu, Maine, and Weber, and of the nature of legal argument in nineteenth-century England, and in twentieth- century war crimes trials.

Edited by Andrew Lewis , Professor of Comparative Legal History, University of London, and Michael Lobban , Reader in Law, Queen Mary, University of London

This volume explores the relationship between law and geography, especially with respect to taken-for-granted distinctions between the social and the material, the human and non-human, and what constitutes persons and things. As a genuinely reflective ‘Law and Geography’ project, this collection offers interdisciplinary inquiry, particularly in response to the globalization – of law, commerce, environmental change, and society – which renders relations between the local and the global more significant. Because of the sheer expansiveness and complexity of both law and geography we use conceptual frames to structure this volume – boundaries, land, property, nature, identity (persons, peoples and places), culture and time, and knowledge. These frames cut across the various subdivisions of law and geography described above and provide a route into the various practical and theoretical deliberations on the interrelationship and the interstices of law and geography which follow. The chapters are diverse in style, research and methodology, and subject matter (organ transplants, lawn mowing, settler states, archaeological remains, shopping, gay nightclubbing, seeds, and common space).

Edited by Jane Holder, Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Laws, University College London
and Carolyn Harrison, Professor of Geography, University College London

Law and Religion, the fourth volume in the Current Legal Issues series, is a comprehensive treatment of an area that will stimulate and enlighten anyone interested in law and religion. Both common and civil law jurisdictions and a wide variety of cultural contexts are represented. In addition the volume contains contributions written from a wide variety of faith perspectives (Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Ba’hai) as well as from a secular perspective. Contributors discuss a series of difficult and important issues from the interaction in contemporary societies of law and religious practice to the coherence of the notion of the soul and of the scope and limits of our concept of religion in a post modern world. A major theme of the volume is the common hermeneutical questions faced by the Islamic Christian and Jewish traditions. In addition, the implications for religious practice of the contemporary ascendancy of human rights are thoroughly and critically considered. A number of the essays argue forcefully for controversial conclusions such as the legitimacy of the claim by some of the Christian Churches in New Zealand to exemption from legislation prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. The European Convention on Human Rights and the jurisprudence of the Court come under particular critical scrutiny for example in relation to their protection of freedom of religion in the work place. Consideration is given to the extent to which State law can, should and does provide a regulatory framework for the life of religious institutions without compromising their collective autonomy for example in relation to matters of doctrine.

Edited by Richard O’Dair, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Laws, UCL
and Andrew Lewis, General Editor of Current Legal Issues and Professor of Law, Faculty of Laws, UCL

Law and Medicine, the third volume in the Current Legal Issues series, is a comprehensive and provocative treatment of a relationship that will stimulate and enlighten anyone interested in law, ethics and medicine.

This volume considers the many areas where medicine intersects with the law. Advances in medical research, reproductive science and genetic research give rise to ethical and legal issues that are well known. These are reflected in chapters on cloning, organ donation, choosing genetic characteristics, and the use of Viagra!

At the same time changes in health care funding call into question the rights of patients, whilst a rise in medical negligence litigation calls into question the doctor’s duty of care. What rights will patients have in a privately funded health service and what room is there for the patient’s right to choose or refuse treatment in such a system?

The changing structure of health care is in the government’s hands whilst the supply of technology and drugs flows unregulated by market forces. In the future, clashes between what can be done and what ought to be done will be increasingly referred to the courts. All of these important and changing facets of law and medicine are reflected in this collection.

Edited by Michael Freeman, Professor of English Law, Faculty of Laws, University College London
and Andrew Lewis, Professor of Law, Faculty of Laws, University College London

Law and Literature, the second volume in the Current Legal Issues series, is a comprehensive and provocative treatment of an exciting new area that will stimulate and enlighten anyone interested in the relationship between law and literature.

Law is literature but it also features frequently in literature. The legal process and in particular the trial has provoked much literature. There are also common problems of interpretation and similar interests in rhetoric and hermeneutics. Literature may be constrained by the law of defamation, obscenity, or blasphemy as, for example, the Salman Rushdie affair so vividly illustrates. All of these wide-ranging topics of relating law to literature are explored in this state of the art volume written by leading thinkers from both sides of the Atlantic.
Texts analysed range from drama to novels to film and musical performance and interpretation to the Bible. Trials dissected include Eichmann and M’Naughten cases and treason and witchcraft trials.

The range of subjects includes legal ethics, punishment, responsibility, colonialism, violence, and feminism.

Edited by Michael Freeman, Professor of English Law, Faculty of Laws, University College London
and Andrew Lewis, Professor of Law, Faculty of Laws, University College London

This is the first volume of Current Legal Issues, published a sister series to Current Legal Problems. The basis for each interdisciplinary volume is a two-day colloquium held by the Faculty of Laws at University College London.

This first volume explores the relationship of law and science, with a particular focus on the role of science as evidence. Scientific evidence impinges on a wide range of legal issues, including, for example, risk assessment in mental health and child abuse, criminal investigations, chemical and medical products, mass tort cases and the attribution of paternity. Science promises to reduce (or even eliminate) uncertainty; how should lawyers respond to such ambitious claims? As the civil justice process undergoes a major overhaul, this diverse and stimulating collection of essays provides a timely and thought-provoking reassessment of the relationship between law and science in general and the uses and value of scientific evidence in particular.

Edited by Helen Reece, Lecturer in Laws, School of Law, Birkbeck College (formerly lecturer, Faculty of Laws, University College London)