"This collection of essays is the product of a series of seminars held by the Cambridge Socio-Legal Group in 2000."--Preface.

Bringing together an international range of academics, Gender, Sexualities and Law provides a comprehensive interrogation of the range of contemporary issues – both topical and controversial – raised by the gendered character of law, legal discourse and institutions. The gendering of law, persons and the legal profession, along with the gender bias of legal outcomes, has been a fractious, but fertile, focus of reflection. It has, moreover, been an important site of political struggle. This collection of essays offers an unrivalled examination of its various contemporary dimensions, focusing on: issues of theory and representation; violence, both national and international; reproduction and parenting; and partnership, sexuality, marriage and the family. Gender, Sexualities and Law will be invaluable for all those engaged in research and study of the law (and related fields) as a form of gendered power.

In the climate-pressed Anthropocene epoch, nothing could be more urgent than fresh engagements with the fractious relationships between ÔhumanityÕ, law and the living order. This timely book intelligently combines theoretical reflections, doctrinal ana

The fate of the dead is a compelling and emotive subject, which also raises increasingly complex legal questions. This book focuses on the substantive laws around disposal of the recently deceased and associated issues around their post-mortem fate. It looks primarily at the laws in England and Wales but also offers a comparative approach, drawing heavily on material from other common law jurisdictions including Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. The book provides an in-depth, contextual and comparative analysis of the substantive laws and policy issues around corpse disposal, exhumation and the posthumous treatment of the dead, including commemoration. Topics covered include: the legal frameworks around burial, cremation and other disposal methods; the hierarchy of persons who have a legal duty to dispose of the dead and who are entitled to possession of the deceased’s remains; offences against the dead; family burial disputes, and the legal status of burial instructions; the posthumous use of donated bodily material; and the rules around disinterment, and creating an appropriate memorial. A key theme of the book will be to look at the manner in which conflicts involving the dead are becoming increasingly common in secular, multi-cultural societies where the traditional nuclear family model is no longer the norm, and how such legal contests are resolved by courts. As the first comprehensive survey of the laws in this area for decades, this book will be of use to academics, lawyers and judges adjudicating on issues around the fate of the dead, as well as the death industry and funeral service providers.

Human Rights and the Body is a response to the crisis in human rights, to the very real concern that without a secure foundation for the concept of human rights, their very existence is threatened. While there has been consideration of the discourses of human rights and the way in which the body is written upon, research in linguistics has not yet been fully brought to bear on either human rights or the body. Drawing on legal concepts and aspects of the law of human rights, Mooney aims to provide a universally defensible set of human rights and a foundation, or rather a frame, for them. She argues that the proper frames for human rights are firstly the human body, seen as an index reliant on the natural world, secondly the globe and finally, language. These three frames generate rights to food, water, sleep and shelter, environmental protection and a right against dehumanization. This book is essential reading for researchers and graduate students in the fields of human rights and semiotics of law.

Feminist Perspectives on Tort Law offers a distinctly feminist approach to key topics in tort law. Ten original essays written by feminist legal scholars from the UK, US, Canada and Australia encompass a range of ways of thinking about women, tort law and feminism. The collection provides a fresh and original analysis of issues of long-standing concern to feminists as well as nascent areas of concern. These include conceptions of harm, constructions of reasonableness, the duty of care, the public/private divide, sexual wrongdoing, privacy and environmental law. Written with both scholars and students in mind, Feminist Perspectives on Tort Law is an important and timely addition to key debates in tort law..

This collection is a study of Islamic thought and institutions that represents a critical introduction to the system of Islamic belief and practice from a social science perspective.

This collection of essays explores the different ways the insights from complexity theory can be applied to law. Complexity theory – a variant of systems theory – views law as an emergent, complex, self-organising system comprised of an interactive network of actors and systems that operate with no overall guiding hand, giving rise to complex, collective behaviour in law communications and actions. Addressing such issues as the unpredictability of legal systems, the ability of legal systems to adapt to changes in society, the importance of context, and the nature of law, the essays look to the implications of a complexity theory analysis for the study of public policy and administrative law, international law and human rights, regulatory practices in business and finance, and the practice of law and legal ethics. These are areas where law, which craves certainty, encounters unending, irresolvable complexity. This collection shows the many ways complexity theory thinking can reshape and clarify our understanding of the various problems relating to the theory and practice of law.

Comparative in both approach and framework, Family Law, Sex and Society provides a critical exposition of key areas in family law, exploring their evolution and development within their historical, cultural, political and legal context. Cross-referencing to English law throughout, this comparative textbook pays particular attention to the transformation of marriage; the development of divorce laws; matrimonial property; the legal recognition of unmarried heterosexual and same-sex cohabitants; the universal adoption of the best interests standard for children in domestic and international legislation; and the impact of the Human Rights Act 1998 on family law in a variety of jurisdictions. Divided into different sections, Family Law, Sex and Society includes coverage of: a jurisdictional and historical survey of some of the main themes in Family Law, as well as consideration of the evolution of the Western family the English law relating to divorce, marital property and children and a comparison with the equivalent law in the civil law jurisdictions of France and Germany family law developments in other common law countries such as Australia and New Zealand, selected American jurisdictions, parts of Africa and some Far Eastern countries; and hybrid jurisdictions like Japan and Russia an analysis of the law relating to unmarried cohabitation and domestic partnerships in civil law jurisdictions such as France, Germany and Sweden in comparison to Anglo-American law a comparative analysis of the laws relating to domestic violence. Family Law, Sex and Society offers valuable socio-legal and socio-cultural insights into the practice of family law, and is the only textbook that provides a unified, coherent and comparative approach to the study of family law as it operates in these particular jurisdictions.