A Global History of Crime and Punishment - Ed. : Clive Emsley and Sara McDougall et al.

 

                                        

 

A Global History of Crime and Punishment Volumes 1-6 Edited by Clive Emsley and Sara McDougall et al.  36 experts address pressing questions about the nature of crime and punishment Description What constituted a crime 2,500 years ago, and how was criminal activity dealt with? How has our definition of justice evolved over time alongside developments in law, society, religion and class structures? 36 experts address these pressing questions in a six-volume reference set that spans 2,500 years of human history. Integrating perspectives from history, cultural studies, philosophy and classics, this globally-focused work traces developments in the ever-changing criminal and justice worlds against a variety of social, legal and cultural contexts. Individual volume editors ensure the cohesion of the whole, and to make it as easy as possible to use, chapter titles are identical across each of the volumes. This gives the choice of reading about a specific period in one of the volumes, or following a theme across history by reading the relevant chapter in each of the six. Themes include crime, types of criminal, law enforcement, sanctions and representations of crime and punishment. The page extent is approximately 1,728 pp. with c. 300 illustrations. Each volume opens with notes on contributors, a series preface and an introduction, and concludes with notes, bibliography and an index. Table of Contents Volume 1: A Global History of Crime and Punishment in Antiquity Edited by Adriaan Lanni, Harvard Law School, USA Volume 2: A Global History of Crime and Punishment in the Medieval Age Edited by Karl Shoemaker, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA Volume 3: A Global History of Crime and Punishment in the Renaissance Edited by Laura Stokes and Michael Menna, both Stanford University, USA Volume 4: A Global History of Crime and Punishment in the Age of Enlightenment Edited by Xavier Rousseaux, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium Volume 5: A Global History of Crime and Punishment in the Age of Empire Edited by Mark Finnane, Griffith University, Australia Volume 6: A Global History of Crime and Punishment in the Modern Age Edited by Paul Lawrence, The Open University, UK 6 vols | c. 1728 pages Introductory price (valid until end of January 2024): £395 / $550 (full price: £440 / $610)

THE LAW OF THE SOMALIS: A Stable Foundation for Economic Development in the Horn of Africa

THE LAW OF THE SOMALIS: A Stable Foundation for Economic Development in the Horn of Africa

by Michael van Notten, Edited by Spencer Heath MacCallum

Written by a trained and sympathetic observer, this book shows how Somali customary law differs fundamentally from most statutory law. Lawbreakers, instead of being punished, are simply required to compensate their victim. Because every Somali is insured by near kin against his or her liabilities under the law, a victim seldom fails to receive compensation. Somali law, being based on custom, has no need of legislation or legislators. It is therefore happily free of political influences. The author notes some specific areas that stand in need of change, but finds such change already implicit in further economic development.

Somali politics is based on consensus. The author explains how it works and shows why any attempt to establish democracy, which would divide the population into two classes-those who rule and those who are ruled-must inevitably produce chaos.

Viewed in global perspective, Somali law stands with the Latin and Medieval laws and the English common law against the statutory law that became prominent in Europe with the modern nation-state. This book explains many seeming anomalies about present-day Somalia and describes its prospects as well as the dangers facing it.
(Subjects: Somalia; customary law; legislation; criminal law; torts; delicts)

ARTICLE/BOOK: Dubber and Hörnle on Mens Rea and Comparative Criminal Law

‘Mens Rea: A Comparative Approach’, an excerpt from Markus D Dubber and Tatjana Hörnle, Criminal Law: A Comparative Approach (OUP 2014) is on SSRN.

ARTICLE: Law & Literature (As an Approach to Criminal Law)

Simon Stern’s ‘Law & Literature (As an Approach to Criminal Law)’ is forthcoming in The Oxford Handbook of Criminal Law, Markus Dubber & Tatjana Hörnle, eds.  (Oxford UP 2014).

Abstract

'This book chapter discusses the use of literary material as a means of studying criminal law. The chapter provides an overview on various methods of combining legal and literary materials (law in literature, literature in law, law as literature, legal aesthetics) and offers two case studies (Susan Glaspell's "A Jury of Her Peers" and Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) to show how literature can open up questions both about substantive criminal law doctrines and also about the grounds on which those doctrines are applied. Along the way, the discussion shows how various scholars of criminal law, such as Nicola Lacey and Anne Coughlin, have raised questions that have also provoked the interest of literary scholars such as Dorrit Cohn and Blakey Vermeule.

The chapter also serves as a bibliography for scholars seeking further resources that examine criminal law through the lens of literature. These resources include bibliographies of primary texts (such as crime-based fiction, "dying confessions" circulated at executions, and movies), secondary texts (discussing law and criminal behavior in relation to fiction, drama, and poetry), and web-based resources (such as the Old Bailey Sessions Papers Online). In that spirit, the chapter also discusses some research that is often overlooked in discussions of criminal law and literature – such as Todd Herzog’s research on Weimar-era true-crime narratives that were created from actual case files; Jonathan Eburne’s research on crime in the work of the French surrealists; Lorna Hutson’s research on civic plots of detection in renaissance drama and their relation to the development of evidence law; and Lisa Rodensky’s work on narrative modes in Victorian fiction and their relation to the treatment of mens rea in contemporaneous legal thought.

The chapter closes with some brief reflections on the potential for current work in cognitive literary studies to change the way we think about literature's relation to law, and, in particular, the way we impose narrative templates on the events we experience.'

Full text of the article is available here.

CONFERENCE: International Responses to Social and Justice Challenges

CONFERENCE: International Responses to Social and Justice Challenges

Organization: International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law

Official page: http://www.cvent.com/events/international-responses-to-social-and-justice-challenges/event-summary-b17f4228f53049efb44568853a39af1f.aspx

 August 15th - August 19th, 2013 in Hobart, Tasmania 

OVERVIEW: The International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law will be holding its 26th annual conference, International Responses to Social and Justice Challenges, in Hobart, Tasmania from August 15th – 19th this year.  As in past years the conference will provide an opportunity for updates on various international criminal proceedings and international cooperative development.  For the most part, however, the conference will look at a number of challenges that are confronting national, regional and international criminal justice institutions and governments on a variety of issues that are deeply grounded in the social fabric of societies. 

 This year’s conference will examine the challenges that vulnerable populations, particularly women and children, present as they come into contact with the criminal justice system as victims of violence and abuse, witnesses and as perpetrators of crime. Conference participants will also explore the relationships between mental illness and criminal behavior, including violence, and look at mentally ill people as victims of violence rather than just perpetrators. The conference will feature innovative and effective approaches for addressing the challenges associated with these populations from a criminal justice perspective.

 Another matter in question that has sparked emotional debate as countries increase their efforts to reduce crime is that of firearms legislation and control.  The conference will look at the desirability and effectiveness of firearm controls and legislation at the national level and explore the developments internationally to promote cooperation among States to prevent and eradicate the illegal manufacturing and trafficking in firearms.  

 Corruption is another complex social, political and economic phenomenon that affects all countries. Within the overarching theme of supporting international cooperation on all of the issues discussed the conference will look at the complexities of establishing viable anti-corruption regimes in view of the differing standards and processes that exist throughout nations.

 The conference will provide a forum for judges, prosecutors, policy-makers, representatives of law enforcement agencies and concerned citizens to discuss these challenges from a range of perspectives and try to establish how we can best formulate the criminal law and policy response to these difficult situations moving forward. The ISRCL anticipates a forward-looking conference that recognizes international perspectives on these important issues and contributes to the development of a fair, evidence-based criminal justice and security agenda. 

CONFERENCE: Comparative Criminal Procedures:

Comparative Criminal Procedures:
The Case of Terrorism Investigations and Prosecutions
10.30am, Friday 10 May 2013
The Centre for Commercial Legal Studies
School of Law, Queen Mary, University of London

67-69 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3JB

For programme, further details and booking:- www.comparativecriminalprocedures.eventbrite.com:

The Criminal Justice Centre at the School of Law, Queen Mary, University of Londonand the European Criminal Law Academic Network (ECLAN) are delighted to invite you to a one day conference, generously supported by Hart Publishing and the European Criminal Law Association (UK).

 

The purpose of this one-day conference is to highlight the similarities and differences between the two systems of accusatorial and inquisitorial criminal procedures and to assess the eventual impact of the two meta-models on terrorism investigations and prosecutions.