June Acquisitions

In addition, here are a couple highlighted titles of particular interest:

Documents of Native American political development : 1500s to 1933 / [edited by] David E. Wilkins.
Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2009. Call number: E98.T77 D63 2009

Publisher's Description:
The arrival of European and Euro-American colonizers in the Americas brought not only physical attacks against Native American tribes, but also further attacks against the sovereignty of these Indian nations. Though the violent tales of the Trail of Tears, Black Hawk's War, and the Battle of Little Big Horn are taught far and wide, the political structure and development of Native American tribes, and the effect of American domination on Native American sovereignty, have been greatly neglected.

This book contains a variety of primary source and other documents--traditional accounts, tribal constitutions, legal codes, business councils, rules and regulations, BIA agents reports, congressional discourse, intertribal compacts--written both by Natives from many different nations and some non-Natives, that reflect how indigenous peoples continued to exercise a significant measure of self-determination long after it was presumed to have been lost, surrendered, or vanquished. The documents are arranged chronologically, and Wilkins provides brief, introductory essays to each document, placing them within the proper context. Each introduction is followed by a brief list of suggestions for further reading.

Covering a fascinating and relatively unknown period in Native American history, from the earliest examples of indigenous political writings to the formal constitutions crafted just before the American intervention of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, this anthology will be an invaluable resource for scholars and students of the political development of indigenous peoples the world over.

Taussig, Anthony. Blackstone and his contemporaries.
Tex. : Jamail Center for Legal Research, University of Texas at Austin, 2009. Call number: KD621.B54 T39x 2009

Publisher's Description:
As part of its Legal History Series, the Tarlton Law Library at The University of Texas School of Law has recently published Blackstone and His Contemporaries. The publication is based on the fourth annual rare book lecture presented by Anthony Taussig in February 2008. Taussig, a London barrister, has collected an outstanding collection of manuscripts and early printed books on English law. In his lecture, Taussig questioned traditional views about Sir William Blackstone, the English law professor and jurist who is best known for his Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69). This historical and analytic treatise on the common law significantly influenced the development of the American legal system.

The lecture and the publication were based largely on manuscript materials recently made available, including letters by and about Blackstone in Taussig's own collection, and in the libraries of Lambeth Palace, London, and All Souls College, Oxford. A number of these manuscript resources are reproduced in facsimile or transcribed in the published volume. In the light of those materials, Taussig reviewed Blackstone's work as a barrister and his transition from legal practice in London to a professorship of law at Oxford and then back again to the London Bar. In particular, Taussig scrutinized Blackstone's handling of his most important case--the litigation over the preferential treatment granted to the kin of the Founder (Archbishop Chichele) at All Souls College, Oxford--to evaluate Blackstone's legal skills.
More info: http://www.utexas.edu/law/news/2009/052709_taussig.html

Publisher's Description:
At home and abroad, public policy debates are dominated by a free market ideology that emphasizes the pursuit of economic objectives through competitive markets. The invisible hand is rarely questioned, and non-economic objectives are overlooked. Similarly, employment-related scholarship is frequently silent on the objectives of the employment relationship and the underlying assumptions of how that relationship operates.

This book develops a fresh, holistic framework to undertake a "big picture" examination of U.S. workplace regulation. A new scorecard for workplace law and public policy reveals an uneven achievement of efficiency, equity, and voice at work. In response, the authors--a legal scholar and an economics and industrial relations scholar--blend their expertise to propose a comprehensive set of reforms, tackling such issues as regulatory enforcement, portable employee benefits, training programs, living wages, workplace safety and health, work-family balance, security and social safety nets, nondiscrimination, good cause dismissal, balanced income distributions, free speech protections for employees, individual and collective workplace decision-making, and labor unions.

Invisible Hands, Invisible Objectives is not just another book that sketches a reform agenda. The book provides the much-needed rubric for how we think about employment policy specifically and economic policy more generally and is distinctively structured around objectives rather than policy issues.

Prentiss Cox, ed. Consumer fraud and deceptive trade practice regulation in Minnesota. 2nd ed.
St. Paul, Minn. : Minnesota Continuing Legal Education, c2009. Call number: KF209 .M54x 2009 no.43

Publisher's Description:
With its emphasis on the practical - tips, warnings, admonitions, and frank author's notes - Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Trade Practice Regulation in Minnesota is an absolutely essential resource for anyone in Minnesota who protects clients damaged by fraud and deceptive trade practices. Reflecting the expertise of a wide range of contributors, from professors and advocates to private practitioners, this manual furthers the mission of all Minnesota CLE deskbooks: to make practice easier and research faster, and to help attorneys throughout Minnesota get answers when they need them!

Bix, Brian. Diccionario de teoría jurídica / Brian H. Bix ; traducción, Enrique Rodríguez Trujano, Pedro A. Villarreal Lizárraga.
México : Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2009. Call number: Rare Books (Faculty Collection) Bix

Spanish language translation of Professor Bix's Dictionary of Legal Theory (Oxford University Press, 2004).

Publisher's description Dictionary of Legal Theory:
Modern legal theory contains a wide range of approaches and topics: from economic analysis of law to feminist legal theory to traditional analytical legal philosophy to a range of theories about justice. This healthy variety of jurisprudential work has created a problem: students and theorists working in one tradition may have difficulty understanding the concepts and terminology of a different tradition. This book works to make terminology and ways of thinking accessible. This dictionary covers topics from 'the autonomy of law' to the 'will theory of rights', from 'autopoiesis' to 'wealth maximization', and from 'John Austin' to 'Ludwig Wittgenstein'. The most important concepts and ideas are presented in a simple dictionary format. There are also many longer entries, where the initial definition gives an accessible explanation, but the entry goes on to give more detailed information about the history of an idea and the debates currently surrounding it.

Publisher's description:
In this book Joseph Raz develops his views on some of the central questions in practical philosophy: legal, political and moral. The book provides an overview of Raz's work on jurisprudence and the nature of law in the context of broader questions in the philosophy of practical reason.

The book opens with a discussion of methodological issues, focusing on understanding the nature of jurisprudence, asking how the nature of law can be explained, and how the success of a legal theory can be established. The book then addresses central questions on the nature of law, its relation to morality, the nature and justification of authority, and the nature of legal reasoning. It explains how legitimate law, while being a branch of applied morality, is also a relatively autonomous system, which has the potential to bridge moral differences among its subjects. Raz offers responses to some critical reactions to his theory of authority, adumbrating and modifying the theory to meet some of them. The final part of the book brings together for the first time Raz's work on the nature of interpretation in law and the humanities. It includes a new essay explaining interpretive pluralism and the possibility of interpretive innovation.

Taken together, the essays in the volume offer a valuable introduction for students coming for the first time to Raz's work in the philosophy of law, and an original contribution to many of the current debates in practical philosophy.

Jamal. J.A. Nasir. The status of women under Islamic law and modern Islamic legislation. 3rd ed. of the rev. and updated work.
Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2009. Call number: KBP526.32.N37 A37 2009

Publisher's description:
This book is believed to be the first of its kind written by a renowned Muslim lawyer in the English language, and by an Arab author who is probably the leading authority writing in English in the subject of Islamic law (the Sharia), and modern Islamic legislation.

There has long been a need for an objective study such as this dealing with the legal rights and obligations of women under the Sharia and under modern Arab Islamic legislation. Seen within the broad principles of Islamic law, the book examines the status of women with regard to marriage, the iddat, parentage and fosterage and custody, and fills an important gap left by recent and more general publications on Islamic law.
The author has researched original Arabic and Islamic text books and reviewed legislation in the different Arab countries in order to present the most up-to-date information on the subject.

It is hoped that this clear, objective account will dispel many of the commonly-held misconceptions about the status of Muslim women in the modern world. This book will provide an enlightenment and deeper understanding of the subject, not only for legal practitioners, but for all those concerned, or with an interest in the subject, particularly Muslim communities in non-Muslim countries, indeed non-Muslim women who may be married to Muslims.

Publisher's Description:
The Asian Financial Crisis dramatically illustrated the vulnerability of financial markets in emerging, transitional, and advanced economies. In response, international organizations insisted that legal reforms could help protect markets from financial breakdowns. Sitting at the nexus between the legal system and the market, corporate bankruptcy law ensures that the casualties of capitalism are treated in an orderly way.

Halliday and Carruthers show how global actors--including the IMF, World Bank, UN, and international professional associations--developed comprehensive norms for corporate bankruptcy laws and how national policymakers responded in turn. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in China, Indonesia and Korea, the authors reveal how national policymakers contested and negotiated domestic laws in the context of global pressures. The first study of its kind, this book offers a theory of legal change to explain why global/local tensions produce implementation gaps. Through its analysis of globalization, this book has lessons for international organizations and developing and transition economies the world over.

Artz, Lilian and Dee Smythe, eds. Should we consent? : rape law reform in South Africa.
Cape Town : Juta, c2008. Call number: KTL4202 .S56x 2008

Publisher's Description:
For more than a decade, South Africans have been advocating a reform of the country's laws on sexual offences. South Africa has one of the highest levels of reported rape in the world, and legislative reform was seen as an essential step towards shifting the understanding of rape and its treatment within the criminal justice system. Since 1996 the activism has focused on the South African Law Reform Commission's investigation into sexual offences, and the parliamentary process, which culminated at the end of 2007 in the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act.

Many of the authors of Should We Consent? were involved in substantive legal submissions, research and legislative drafting and promoting changes to the law to provide rape victims with effective redress and protection. Drawing on a body of empirical, social and legal scholarship, this unique text charts the critical social and legal debates and jurisprudential developments that took place during the rape law reform process. This book also provides important insights into the engagement of civil society with law reform and includes thoughtful and contemporary discussions on topics such as 'defining' rape, HIV, sexual offences against children and sentencing of sexual offenders.

Publisher’s Description:
Proliferation of WMD technologies is by no means a new concern for the international community. Indeed, since the signing of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty in 1968, tremendous energies have been expended upon diplomatic efforts to create a web of treaties and international organizations regulating the production and stockpiling of WMD sensitive materials within states, as well as their spread through the increasingly globalized channels of international trade to other states and non-state actors.

However, the intervention in 2003 by Western powers in Iraq has served as an illustration of the importance of greater understanding of and attention to this area of law, as disagreements over its content and application have once again lead to a potentially destabilizing armed intervention by members of the United Nations into the sovereign territory of another member state. Other ongoing disputes between states regarding the character of obligations work assumed under non-proliferation treaty instruments, and the effect of international organizations' decisions in this area, form some of the most contentious and potentially destabilizing issues of foreign policy concern for many states.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of international law and organizations in the area of WMD proliferation. It will serve both as a reference for understanding the law as it currently exists in its political and economic context, as well as an analysis of areas in which amendments to existing law and organizations are needed.

Bowden, Brett, Hilary Charlesworth and Jeremy Farrall, eds. The role of international law in rebuilding societies after conflict : great expectations.
Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2009. Call number: KZ6785 .R65 2009

Publisher’s Description:
International law can create great expectations in those seeking to rebuild societies that have been torn apart by conflict. For outsiders, international law can mandate or militate against intervention, bolstering or undermining the legitimacy of intervention. International legal principles promise equality, justice and human rights. Yet international law's promises are difficult to fulfill. This volume of essays investigates the phenomenon of post-conflict state-building and the engagement of international law in this enterprise. It draws together original essays by scholars and practitioners who consider the many roles international law can play in rehabilitating societies after conflict. The essays explore troubled zones across the world, from Afghanistan to Africa's Great Lakes region, and from Timor-Leste to the Balkans. They identify a range of possibilities for international law in tempering, regulating, legitimating or undermining efforts to rebuild post-conflict societies.