Introduction : beyond the "degree zero" of law after modernity -- Autonomous law or redundant law? : the elusive nature of legal theory -- Law as system : the missing multidimensionality of law -- Reconfiguring the legal landscape : the sojourn of legal pluralism -- The injustice of law after modernity -- Law, justice and injustice -- Legal justice I : "maimed justice" and the rule of law -- Legal justice II : reclaiming the rule of law from its "dark (...) side" : critical legal justice -- The enigma of human rights -- Critical legal justice and beyond : cosmopolitanism -- Beyond cosmopolitanism : the murky world of governance and global "justice" -- Conclusion : law and justice after modernity. (shrink)

Human rights have occupied a variety of roles in the course of history of the European Union. They played a negligible role at the outset, overlooked by the original Treaty of Rome and, even today, the Union's formidable associations with free trade, the single market, and regulation might suggest that it cannot be primarily defined as a human rights organization. The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union has at last acquired binding force, provision is made for the European (...) Union to accede to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is to have greater powers of judicial review in the field of police and judicial cooperation in criminal law, an area of obvious relevance to human rights. This chapter highlights some significant developments in the Court's fundamental rights jurisprudence. (shrink)

This collection of essays explore the long-standing,intricate relationship between law and faith. Faith in this context is to be read in the broadest sense, as extending beyond religion to embrace the knowledge, beliefs, understandings and practices which are at work alongside the familiar and seemingly more reliable, trusted and relatively certain content and conventionally accepted methods of law and legal reasoning. The essays deal with three broad themes. The first concerns the extent to which faith should be involved in legal (...) decision making. Ought decisions to aspire simply to right reason or ought faith-based models of decision-making to be incorporated into the legal system? If the latter, how is this best done? Ought faith to operate simply as a reason itself or ought it to help to structure the method by which legal decisions are reached? The second, and perhaps most familiar theme, stemming in part from rights discourse, is the extent to which law does, and ought to, respect the rights of those whose religious beliefs conflict with the dominant social norms and practices. Liberal democratic constitutions typically provide protection for religion and religious beliefs. Are these justified, and if so how? Can such protection as exists suffice from the perspective of the faithful, or does law's otherwise pervasive agnosticism make this impossible or illusory? Thirdly, questions of identity and difference arise. Assuming that most societies remain a mix of many faiths (religious and secular) and no faith, how should law and legal theory understand the varying and, it must be said, conflicting claims for recognition. Should we encourage conformity in the hope of reducing friction, or should we preserve and promote difference, seeking to understand others, whether groups or individuals, without removing that which makes them distinct? More radically and controversially, should we be more sceptical of individual and group claims to authenticity and see them rather as strategies in an ongoing power game? Faith after all, like reason and law, has never been far from politics and intrigue, especially in its institutional representation. Contributors: Zenon Bankowski, Anthony Bradney, Claire Davis, John Gardner, Adam Gearey, Tim Macklem, Maleiha Malik, Victor Tadros. (shrink)