Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Judicial Reputation: A Comparative Theory

Nuno Garoupa (Texas A&M) & Tom Ginsburg (University of Chicago), Judicial Reputation: A Comparative Theory (University of Chicago Press, 2015).

K2146 .G374 2015 (Treatises)
 
"In Judicial Reputation, Nuno Garoupa and Tom Ginsburg explain how reputation is not only an essential quality of the judiciary as a whole, but also of individual judges. Perceptions of judicial systems around the world range from widespread admiration to utter contempt, and as judges participate within these institutions some earn respect, while others are scorned. Judicial Reputation explores how judges respond to the reputational incentives provided by the different audiences they interact with—lawyers, politicians, the media, and the public itself—and how institutional structures mediate these interactions. The judicial structure is best understood not through the lens of legal culture or tradition, but through the economics of information and reputation."

Publisher's description

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Crime, Desire, and Law's Unconciousness

David Gurnham (Southampton Law School), Crime, Desire and Law's Unconscious: Law, Literature and Culture (Wildy & Sons

"By way of a novel application of theory that draws from psychoanalysis, post-colonialism and feminism, the book examines ways in which the creation of danger and the infliction of harm through sexual behavior are responded to in the criminal courts, in literature and in the wider culture. Presenting analysis of legal judgments in England, Australia, Canada and the United States, and literary texts by Shakespeare, the Marquis de Sade, J.G. Ballard and Susanna Moore, the book argues that punitive and condemnatory reactions to illegal and dangerous sexual practices repress conflicting and troubling unconscious desires."
Publisher's description


Thursday, February 4, 2016

The Settlement of International Cultural Heritage Disputes

Alessandro Chechi (University of Geneva). The Settlement of International Cultural Heritage Disputes (Oxford University Press, 2014).

"This book offers a comprehensive and innovative analysis of the settlement of cultural heritage disputes. This examination is two-fold. First, it assesses the existing legal framework and the available dispute settlement means. Second, it explores the feasibility of two solutions for overcoming the lack of a specialized forum. The first is the establishment of a new international court. The second concerns existing judicial and extra-judicial fora and their interaction through the practice of 'cross-fertilization'. The book focuses on the substance of such interaction, and identifies a number of culturally-sensitive parameters (the 'common rules of adjudication'). It argues that existing judicial and non-judicial fora should adopt a cross-fertilizing perspective to use and disseminate jurisprudence containing these common rules of adjudication."

Publisher's description