Order and Dispute


Book Description

A classic resource in the modern study of the anthropology of law, this book is now widely available again in an updated and expanded edition. There are many societies that survive in a remarkably orderly fashion without the help of judges, law courts and policemen. They are small in scale and have relatively simple technologies, lacking those centralized agencies which we associate with legal systems; yet early anthropologists did not hesitate to name “law,” along with kinship, politics and religion, as one of the facets of their subject. Simon Roberts contends, however, that legal theory has become too closely identified with our own arrangements in western societies to be of much help in cross-cultural studies of order. But conversely, by looking at the ways in which other societies keep order and solve disputes, he sheds valuable light on the contemporary debates about order in our own society, in a straightforward text which will be accessible to the general reader and anthropologist alike. Now in its Second Edition with a new Foreword and Afterword by the author, this renowned introduction to the anthropology of law is part of the Classics of Law & Society Series from Quid Pro Books.




Rules and Processes


Book Description

Rules and Processes is at once a compelling essay in social theory and a pathbreaking ethnography of dispute in an African society. On the basis of a sensitive study of the Tswana of southern Africa, John Comaroff and Simon Roberts challenge most of the orthodoxies of legal anthropology. They argue that the social world, and the dispute processes that occur within it, are given form and meaning by a dialectical relationship between sociocultural structures and individual experience. The authors explore in a novel way the relations between culture and ideology, system and practice, social action and human intention. They develop a model that lays bare the form and content of "legal" and "political" discourse in all its variations—a model that accounts for the outcome of conflict processes and explains why the Tswana, like people in other cultures, conceive of their world in an apparently contradictory manner—as rule-governed yet inherently open to pragmatic individualism; orderly yet inherently fluid and shifting. Rules and Processes offers a fresh and persuasive approach to our understanding of the dialectics of social life. "A work of impressive scholarship in which theoretical sophistication and ethnographic richness are convincingly matched."—Ian Hamnett, Times Higher Education Supplement.




Comparative International Law


Book Description

Explains that international law is not a monolith but can encompass on-going contestation, in which states set forth competing interpretations Maps and explains the cross-country differences in international legal norms in various fields of international law and their application and interpretation in different geographic regions Organized into three broad thematic sections of conceptual matters, domestic institutions and comparative international law, and comparing approaches across issue-areas Chapters authored by contributors who include top international law and comparative law scholars all from diverse backgrounds, experience, and perspectives.




Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, 12th edition


Book Description

The only current authorized edition of the classic work on parliamentary procedure--now in a new updated edition Robert's Rules of Order is the recognized guide to smooth, orderly, and fairly conducted meetings. This 12th edition is the only current manual to have been maintained and updated since 1876 under the continuing program established by General Henry M. Robert himself. As indispensable now as the original edition was more than a century ago, Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised is the acknowledged "gold standard" for meeting rules. New and enhanced features of this edition include: Section-based paragraph numbering to facilitate cross-references and e-book compatibility Expanded appendix of charts, tables, and lists Helpful summary explanations about postponing a motion, reconsidering a vote, making and enforcing points of order and appeals, and newly expanded procedures for filling blanks New provisions regarding debate on nominations, reopening nominations, and completing an election after its scheduled time Dozens more clarifications, additions, and refinements to improve the presentation of existing rules, incorporate new interpretations, and address common inquiries Coinciding with publication of the 12th edition, the authors of this manual have once again published an updated (3rd) edition of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised In Brief, a simple and concise introductory guide cross-referenced to it.




The Anthropology of Law


Book Description

"Questions about the nature of law, its relationship with custom, and the form of legal rules, categories and claims, are placed at the centre of this challenging, yet accessible, introduction. Anthropology of law is presented as a distinctive subject within the broader field of legal anthropology, suggesting new avenues of inquiry for the anthropologist, while also bringing empirical studies within the ambit of legal scholarship.




Comparative Dispute Resolution


Book Description

Comparative Dispute Resolution offers an original, wide-ranging, and invaluable corpus of chapters on dispute resolution. Enriched by a broad, comparative vision and a focus on the processes used to handle disputes, this study adds significantly to the discourse around comparative legal studies. Chapters present new understandings of theoretical, comparative and transnational dimensions of the manner in which societies and their legal systems respond to difficulties in social relations.




Dispute Processes


Book Description

This wide-ranging study considers the primary forms of decision-making - negotiation, mediation, and umpiring - in the context of rapidly changing discourses and practices of civil justice across many jurisdictions. Much contemporary discussion in this field, and associated projects of institutional design, are taking place under the wide ranging but imprecise label of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). If a common linking theme is sought, the authors argue that this must lie in a general shift of priorities as between judgement and settlement in ideological terms. This new edition brings together and analyses a wide range of materials dealing with dispute processes and the current debates on civil justice. With the help of a selection of texts beyond those ordinarily found in the emerging alternative dispute resolution literature it provides a broad, comparative perspective on modes of handling civil disputes, with the principal focus on the central processes of negotiation and mediation.




Is International Law International?


Book Description

This book challenges the idea that international law looks the same from anywhere in the world. Instead, how international lawyers understand and approach their field is often deeply influenced by the national contexts in which they lived, studied, and worked. International law in the United States and in the United Kingdom looks different compared to international law in China and Russia, though some approaches (particularly Western, Anglo-American ones) are more influential outside their borders than others. Given shifts in geopolitical power and the rise of non-Western powers like China, it is increasingly important for international lawyers to understand how others coming from diverse backgrounds approach the field. By examining the international law academies and textbooks of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Roberts provides a window into these different communities of international lawyers, and she uncovers some of the similarities and differences in how they understand and approach international law.




Uncertain Justice


Book Description

An assessment of how the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts is significantly influencing the nation's laws and reinterpreting the Constitution includes in-depth analysis of recent rulings and their implications.




Disputes and Settlements


Book Description

This collection of essays by British, American and French scholars uses the records of the law in Western Europe from the fall of Rome to the nineteenth century in an attempt to outline a social history of the West considered as a history of human relations. The primary themes are dispute, arbitration and conjugal relations; the primary influences considered are feud, Christianity and the state. The contributions are discussed overall by an anthropologist lawyer, Simon Roberts, who writes an anthropological introduction, and by the editor in a short historical postscript. The aim has been to strike a new note in social history by attending more closely to actual people and their actual relations; by drawing on the resources of anthropology, legal history, the history of religious feelings and institutions, and of states, to illuminate their behaviour; and by combining the efforts of scholars representing a diversity of intellectual traditions and a long perspective of human experience.