Courts, Codes, and Custom: Legal Tradition and State Policy toward International Human Rights and Environment Law

Dana Zartner (University of San Francisco). Courts, Codes, and Custom (Oxford University Press, 2014).  

"Courts, Codes, and Custom argues that the degree to which states accept and comply with international legal norms is rooted in a country's domestic legal tradition. Offering a novel cultural-institutional theory to explain this variation, Dana Zartner looks specifically at state policy towards international human rights and environmental law. A state's legal tradition-the cultural and institutional factors that shape attitudes about the law, appropriate standards of behavior, and the legal process-is the key mechanism by which international law becomes recognized, accepted, and internalized in the domestic legal framework. Legal tradition shapes not only perceptions about law, but also provides the lens through which policy-makers view state interests, providing both direct and indirect influence on state policy."

—Publisher's website

Scalia: A Court of One

Bruce Allen Murphy (Lafayette College). Scalia: A Court of One (Simon and Schuster, 2014).

"Mr. Murphy’s book does not read, despite its blunt criticisms, like a book-length put-down. It’s a sensitive and scholarly reading of Justice Scalia’s intellectual life. . . . This book is more about the mind than about the man. It’s most impressive for the manner in which the author takes us slowly through case after case and ruling after ruling, sometimes stretching our patience but illuminating every twitch of Justice Scalia’s synapses along the way. This volume, which quotes the justice at length, functions as an M.R.I. scan of one of the most influential conservative thinkers of the 20th century."

―Dwight Garner, New York Times

Bentham's Theory of Law and Public Opinion

Xiaobo Zhai & Michael Quinn (eds.). Bentham's Theory of Law and Public Opinion (Cambridge University Press, 2014).  

"This collection represents the latest research from leading scholars whose work has helped to frame our understanding of Bentham since the publication of H. L. A. Hart's Essays on Bentham. The authors explore fundamental areas of Bentham's thought, including the relationship between the rule of law and public opinion; law and popular prejudices or manipulated tastes; Bentham's methodology versus Hart's; sovereignty and codification; and the language of natural rights. Drawing on original manuscripts and volumes in The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham, the chapters combine philosophical and historical approaches and offer new and more faithful interpretations of Bentham's legal philosophy and its development."
—Publisher's Website

The Long Decade: How 9/11 Changed the Law

David Jenkins et al. (eds.) (Copenhagen School of Law). The Long Decade: How 9/11 Changed the Law (Oxford University Press, 2014).

"The terrorist attacks of 9/11 precipitated significant legal changes over the ensuing ten years, a 'long decade' that saw both domestic and international legal systems evolve in reaction to the seemingly permanent threat of international terrorism. At the same time, globalization produced worldwide insecurity that weakened the nation-state's ability to monopolize violence and assure safety for its people. . . .  This book examines how the uncertainties of the 'long decade' made fear a political and legal force, challenged national constitutional orders, altered fundamental assumptions about the rule of law, and ultimately raised questions about how democracy and human rights can cope with competing security pressures, while considering the complex process of crafting anti-terrorism measures."
—Publisher's Website

Do Great Cases Make Bad Law?

Lackland H. Bloom, Jr. (Southern Methodist University). Do Great Cases Make Bad Law? (Oxford University Press, 2014).

"In Do Great Cases Make Bad Law?, Lackland H. Bloom, Jr. tests Justice Holmes' dictum by analyzing in detail the history of the Supreme Court's great cases, from Marbury v. Madison in 1803, to National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act case, in 2012. He treats each case with its own chapter, and explains why the Court found a case compelling, how the background and historical context affected the decision and its place in constitutional law and history, how academic scholarship has treated the case, and how the case integrates with and reflects off of Justice Holmes' famous statement."
—Publisher's website

America's Dirty Wars: Irregular Warfare From 1776 to the War on Terror

Russell Crandall (Davidson College). America's Dirty Wars (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

"This book examines the long, complex experience of American involvement in irregular warfare. It begins with the American Revolution in 1776 and chronicles big and small irregular wars for the next two and a half centuries. What is readily apparent in dirty wars is that failure is painfully tangible while success is often amorphous. Successfully fighting these wars often entails striking a critical balance between military victory and politics."

—Publisher's website

Legitimating International Organizations

Dominik Zaum (ed.) (University of Reading). Legitimating International Organizations (Oxford University Press, 2014).

"The legitimacy of international and regional organisations and their actions is frequently asserted and challenged by states and commentators alike. Their authorisations or conduct of military interventions, their structures of decision-making, and their involvement into what states deem to be domestic matters have all raised questions of legitimacy. . . . Despite the prominence of legitimacy talk around international organisations, little attention has been paid to the practices and processes through which such organisations and their member states justify the authority these organisations exercise—how they legitimise themselves both vis-a-vis their own members and external audiences. This book addresses this gap by comparing and evaluating the legitimation practices of a range of international and regional organisations." 

—From publisher's website

Taming Lust: Crimes Against Nature in the Early Republic

Doron S. Ben-Atar (Fordham University) & Richard D. Brown (University of Connecticut). Taming Lust (University of Pennsylvania, 2014).

"In 1796, as revolutionary fervor waned and the Age of Reason took hold, an eighty-five-year-old Massachusetts doctor was convicted of bestiality and sentenced to hang. Three years later and seventy miles away, an eighty-three-year-old Connecticut farmer was convicted of the same crime and sentenced to the same punishment. Prior to these criminal trials, neither Massachusetts nor Connecticut had executed anyone for bestiality in over a century. Though there are no overt connections between the two episodes, the similarities of their particulars are strange and striking. Historians Doron S. Ben-Atar and Richard D. Brown delve into the specifics to determine what larger social, political, or religious forces could have compelled New England courts to condemn two octogenarians for sexual misbehavior typically associated with much younger men."
—Publisher's website