What philosophers have in mind when they think about vagueness are sorites cases. Unlike vague scientific or artificial expressions, however, vague natural language expressions do not display the kind of vagueness that we associate with the sorites; they rather display what I call cluster vagueness. A non-trivial consequence of this is that those legal definitions that state precisifications of natural language concepts not only add aspects of meaning to existing expressions but also effectively change the meanings of these expressions. (...) From this, in turn, it follows that we should avoid precisifying ordinary expressions with the help of legal definitions to the extent that we wish legal language to be in line with natural language. And being in line with natural language may help us to deal with gaps in our laws at the very moment we become aware of them, and not just afterwards. (shrink)

The present article analyses the issues of the legal definition of the European Union. It has been noticed a while ago that the EU has outgrown the “gown” of a typical international organisation and that it has acquired some features specific to a State-like entity. It is no coincidence that some authors accentuate that the EU is a specific, unconventional international organisation, some – that it is an entity, very similar to a State (an incomplete federation, a post-modern (...) State), others, not being satisfied with the traditional distinction between an international organisation and a State, are trying to develop the third category, calling the EU sui generis organisation or supranational organisation. The arguments concerning the EU model of integration continue even after the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force. Not being able to fit this legal phenomenon into the usual typological scheme we need to consider the development of a new theory enabling to define the new phenomenon. The definition of this kind of category meets several obstacles: it is a unique legal phenomenon, it is constantly changing and, furthermore, the hybrid nature of the Union induces to qualify the EU following either the criteria of international or of national constitutional law while elaborating the abovementioned synthetic category. (shrink)

Differences in guidance from various organisations is preventing uniform standards of practiceThe emphasis in medical law and ethics on protecting the patient’s right to choose is at an all time high. Apart from circumscribed situations, for instance where the Mental Health Act 19831 is applicable, the only justification for medically treating an adult patient against his or her wishes is on the basis of common law, using the principle of best interests, and only when he or she lacks capacity to (...) refuse treatment. As a result, it is important that clinicians should be able to assess capacity to refuse treatment. Given that judgements of incapacity involve deciding that a person does not have the ability to refuse treatment, a great deal of care needs to go into the assessment and characterisation of incapacity.There is divergence between the characterisation of capacity that is used by the courts and that which is recommended by the British Medical Association . The BMA usefully expands on the first element of capacity as set out in the standard legal definition of capacity in the Re C judgment2 but ignores the other two elements. By doing this, the BMA makes it unclear whether it is rejecting these as relevant to capacity; it also misses the opportunity to expand on these elements in a clinically useful way.We will begin with a description of the BMA’s advice3 and the standard English legal definition of capacity.2,4 Then we will show that there are important discrepancies between these two sources of advice. We think that the BMA ought to clarify its position on capacity in order to safeguard the interests of physicians, healthcare workers, and patients.THE RE C TESTMr C was a patient in a psychiatric secure hospital who had chronic paranoid schizophrenia with …. (shrink)

According to some commentators of the Iranian Civil Code, the definition of sale stated in Article 183 is influenced by Article 1101 of French Civil Code. They have concluded that the essence of sale is confined to mutual consent, i.e. the sale would not be valid without the consent of either party. They have taken even a step further and considered the contents of Article 338 of the civil code, which describes contract of sale, contradictory to Article 183 and (...) argued that the sale of a specified concrete object is not contained in Article 183 while the sale of unascertained goods is obliged to that article. They believe that the definition of Article 183 of civil code excludes not only all commitments, but also swap contracts because there are two mutual commitments and two agreeing legal contracts in a swap contract while there is no mentioning of them in Article 183. However, the objections are not rightfully lodged because first, the contracts and obligations are not incompatible with the definition of Article 338 as the seller and the buyer within a contract of sale are obliged to give authority to the other party over the object of sale or the price. It means that there are two commitments and the obligation of the seller to give authority over the object of sale appears in two ways: dominion over concrete object while making a transaction and dominion over non-specified object with the obligation that it does not attend to fulfil possession by the time of the sale. Secondly, Article 183 contains the phrase “their acceptance” which includes swap contract too because this phrase indicates that the acceptance is mutual. (shrink)

The article discusses the uncertainty of legal definitions of aviation safety and and aviation security, the implementation of which often result in certain restrictions of human rights. In the article, a hypothesis is made that, despite usually treated as well-known concepts, safety and security are not so clear and well-defined, often leaving the reader to guess at their precise meaning. The aim of this article is to identify the core features that characterise aviation safety and aviation security and could (...) disclose their legal content when assessing their comparative weight in relation to the protection of human rights. Supported by holistic approach from different perspectives (socio-cultural, historical, etc.), the phenomenological and hermeneutic analysis allowed providing an in-depth understanding of various meanings of safety and security concepts. An overview of the existing linguistic peculiarities of the use of the terms ‘safety’ and ‘security’ with an emphasis on the importance of determining the context in which they are used as primary evidence of their meaning is followed by the analysis of the common features and differences between the concepts of safety and security that supplements the discourse on the dilemma of combining subjective and objective, relative and absolute perceptions of safety and security. The research from the view point of normative jurisprudence reveals the polysemy inherent in aviation safety and aviation security, especially in terms of the values they represent, suggesting the conclusion that legal definitions of ‘aviation safety’ and ‘aviation security’ should in part be treated as a sort of ad hoc definitions, which have to be developed (clarified) in each particular case. (shrink)

Assume this hypothetical situation: an American pharmaceutical company, Maxwell Fisch Pharmaceuticals, Inc., wishes to perform clinical trials involving a new antipsychotic medication, Klezac. Klezac is in its third phase of the clinical stage of the drug research process. Once the testing is complete, Maxwell plans to submit a New Drug Application, the official request to begin marketing Klezac, to the Food and Drug Administration. The new drug is expected to receive FDA approval in 2 or more years. The company decides (...) to shift its research and development activities to Z, a small, developing country. In doing so, Maxwell is following the course taken by numerous other drug companies who wish to take advantage of faster governmental approval in foreign sites and ensuing cheaper research costs. (shrink)

We explore an underappreciated tension at the heart of the debate over legal positivism. On the one hand, many legal philosophers aspire for the debate to tell us what law is, and the nature of law. But on the other hand, the positions in the debate are generally formulated such that they’re about something else: what law is necessarily connected to or dependent on. This is a genuine tension, because theses about what law is necessarily connected to or (...) dependent on do not by themselves state or automatically settle what law is or the nature of law. This tension prompts us to propose a new approach to formulating positivism and antipositivism as theses about the real definition of law. Our proposal is simple, but fruitful. We argue that it better insulates and unifies the debate: that is, it prevents orthogonal theses from trivially vindicating or falsifying positivism and antipositivism, and it explains how different threads of the existing debate contribute to a single topic. We close by briefly considering two recent arguments about exclusive positivism, to illustrate how our discussion bears on contemporary jurisprudential debates. (shrink)

Although interest in business ethics has rapidly increased, little attention has been drawn to the relationship between ethics and sexual harassment. While most companies have addressed the problem of sexual harassment at the organizational level with corporate codes of ethics or sexual harassment policies, no research has examined the ethical ideology of individual employees. This study investigates the relationship between the ethical ideology of individual employees and their ability to identify social-sexual behaviors in superior-subordinate interactions. The results indicate that ethical (...) ideology does have an effect on employees' ability to identify verbal sexually harassing behaviors. This effect, however, is not demonstrated on nonverbal sexually harassing behaviors. (shrink)

Legal definitions will be examined from three perspectives: their pragmatic function, their propositional structure, and their argumentative role. In law, definitions can be used for different pragmatic purposes: they can be uttered to describe a concept, or to establish a new meaning for a term. The propositional content of definitional speech acts can be different. In law, like in ordinary conversation, there might be different types of definition: we can define by providing examples, or showing the fundamental characteristics (...) of the concept defined, or listing the constituent parts of the denotatum. All these definitions play different argumentative roles in legal discourse. At a third level, definitions can be thought of as premises in complex patterns of reasoning (for the subject of reasoning from definition in law, see Aarnio 1977; Moore 1980; Lindahl, 2004). They constitute the fundamental element of argument from classification, namely a pattern of inference in which a new property (or a name) is attributed to an entity on the basis of other properties. (shrink)

The concept of legal power is important in the law since, with regard to actions having legal effect, the “exercise of legal power” delimits those actions for which manifestation of intention to achieve a legal effect is essential for the effect to ensue. The paper proposes a definition that captures this feature of legal power and marks it off from “direct effect,” as well as from permissibility and practical ability to achieve the legal (...) effect. This analysis of power is limited to the “immediate” legal power of a physical person characterized by the power-holder achieving a legal result by the power-holder's own behaviour. It is argued that in the literature on power the concept of legal power is frequently construed in such a way that it becomes either too broad or too narrow. (shrink)

An essential aim of this study is to present principles of the legal interpretation of the term “building structure” for the needs of the imposition of a real estate tax. The analysis of both administrative courts’ judgments and the subject literature indicates lack of consistency in the scope of this term’s meaning. In my opinion, interpretative discrepancies are caused by incorrect legal interpretation of the legal definition. It should be noticed that numerous controversies connected with the (...) legal interpretation of the term building structure are connected with considerable tax burden of this type of building objects. Taxpayers, for obvious reasons, are therefore “interested” in not finding the objects owned by them to be building structures in the meaning of the Tax Law, or possibly in finding only those objects’ specified parts to be building structures. It is easily apparent particularly in the case of objects of complex structures. On the other hand, however, for many municipalities in Poland, income from building structures’ taxation creates municipal budgets. This way the practice of applying local tax law encounters numerous disputes between taxpayers and self-government tax authorities. (shrink)

The paper argues for viewing legal validity as a doxastic obligation, i.e. as the obligation to accept a rule in legal reasoning. This notion of legal validity is shown to be both sufficient for the laywers' needs and neutral in regard to various theories of the grounds of validity, i.e. theories intended to identify what rules are legally valid, by proposing different grounds for attributing validity. All of these theories, rather then being alternative definitions of validity, presuppose (...) the notion here provided.This notion is purely normative, but it allows for the construction of theories of the grounds of validity which give due importance to social expectations and institutions. As an example of how this may happen, one such theory is also provided. This theory, which is presented through a detailed example of a judicial debate, is based upon the recognition of the (instrumental) value of co-ordination, as the necessary way to achieve the most valuable purposes of the law. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to analyze accounting and legal approaches to the definition of the term "accounts receivable" and to justify the need for its clarification to be fixed in regulatory documents. Scientific novelty: the definition of the term "accounts receivable" has been clarified using accounting and legal approaches, where it is proposed to understand the obligations of other legal entities and individuals to this economic entity for contributions to the authorized capital, for (...) advances issued, for bills of exchange receivable, for goods sold, monetary amounts issued under the report, arising on the basis of a law, contract or civil situation. As a result, the updated definition will make it possible to supplement Article 307 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, art. 3 of the Federal Law "On Accounting", Article 7 of the draft Federal Tax Service "Accounts Receivable and Payable ". (shrink)

No entendimento de Habermas, "direito", na expressão "direitos humanos", é um conceito jurídico, donde direitos humanos, para ele, serem direitos jurídicos, normas legais declaradas em atos de fundações do Estado ou anunciadas em convenções do direito internacional e/ou constituições estatais. Ao conceber assim os direitos e tematizar os direitos humanos numa abordagem tríplice (focando-os entre moral, direito e política), ele fornece diferentes definições teóricas dos direitos humanos. O texto apresenta uma exposição sistemática dessas definições e focaliza os diferentes problemas que (...) motivaram Habermas a alterar e ampliar suas concepções de direitos humanos. In the understanding of Habermas, "right" in the phrase "human rights" is a legal concept, where human rights are legal rights, i.e., legal norms declared in acts of foundations of the State or announced conventions of international law and/or State constitutions. By conceiving of rights in this way and by treating human rights in a threefold approach (placing them between morals, law and politics), he presents different theoretical definitions of human rights. This paper presents a systematic exposition of these definitions, and focuses on the different problems that motivated Habermas to change and expand his conceptions of human rights. (shrink)

The law stipulates that death is irreversible. Patients treated in accord with the Pittsburgh protocol have death pronounced when their condition might well be reversed by intervention that is intentionally withheld. Nevertheless, the protocol is in accord with the medical "Guidelines for the Determination of Death." However, the Guidelines fail to capture the intent of the law, which turns out to be a good thing, for the law embodies a faulty definition of death. The inclusion of "irreversible" in the (...) legal definition makes that definition excessively demanding and out of step with the ordinary concept of death. On this basis the protocol is absolved of the moral but not the legal charge that it involves vivisection. (shrink)

This article seeks to address the problem of the ‘resource consumption bottleneck’ of creating legal semantic technologies manually. It describes a semantic role labeling based information extraction system to extract definitions and norms from legislation and represent them as structured norms in legal ontologies. The output is intended to help make laws more accessible, understandable, and searchable in a legal document management system.

Two principal sources of imprecision in legal drafting (vagueness and ambiguity) are identified and illustrated. Virtually all of the ambiguity imprecision encountered in legal discourse is ambiguity in the language used to express logical structure, and virtually all of the imprecision resulting is inadvertent. On the other hand, the imprecision encountered in legal writing that results from vagueness is frequently, if not most often, included there deliberately; the drafter has considered it and decided that the vague language (...) best accomplishes the purpose at hand. This paper focuses on the use of some defined terminology for minimizing inadvertent ambiguity in the logical structure of legal discourse, where desired by the drafter. The current set of signaled structural definitions that are included in the A-Hohfeld language are first set forth and their use is illustrated in an extensive example from the treaty establishing the European Economic Community. The use of definitions in legal writing is widespread, butaddressed almost exclusively to controlling the vagueness of substantive legal terms; they are seldom used for structural purposes. Furthermore, their use in American legislative drafting is unsignaled. Here, attention is devoted to the relatively-neglected domain in legal discourse of imprecisely expressed logical structure, and the remedy offered, where desired by the drafter, is a set of signaled structuraldefinitions for use in controlling such imprecision. (shrink)

The nature of concepts is a subject of study of various disciplines, from philosophy to cognitive sciences, leading to fragmented understandings and conceptual dissociations. Legal concepts have been studied in an interdisciplinary manner across all these disciplines, suffering from similar fragmentation. Recently, the interdisciplinary crossroads between law and cognitive sciences have brought forward the notion of legal concepts as mental representations. However, this approach largely overlooks the systemic, historical, and societal elements essential to comprehending legal concepts. The (...) aim of this paper is to advocate for the Social Representations Theory as a useful framework that bridges cognitive and socio-cultural dimensions of meaning and can provide a holistic approach to understanding legal concepts. This paper unfolds in three sections. The first section contextualizes the social representations approach within the law and language framework, emphasizing the societal influences on thought and meaning. The second section explains the notion of social representations, building upon Serge Moscovici’s definitions and Ivana Marková’s arguments for the necessity of this approach to accommodate the social dimension of meaning. The third and last section underscores the claim that legal concepts are, in essence, social representations, advocating for the usefulness of this approach in legal scholarship, both paradigmatically and methodologically, consequently arguing for an inclusion for a stronger focus on the social dimension of legal meaning. (shrink)

Definitions of death are often referred to as legal fictions since brain death was conceived in the mid-twentieth century. Reference to legal fiction is generally paired with bioethicists’ concern that it facilitates post-mortem tissue donation and the health system generally, by determining death earlier on the continuum of dying and availing more viable tissue and therapeutic resources for others. The author argues that spatio-legal theory, drawing from legal geography, can account for the heterogeneity of effects that (...) the fiction has in spatially managing bodies (e.g., physicians, patient, family) at the bedside. The legal fiction is produced in physicians’ socio-legal practices, coordinating decision-making according to geographies of scarcity and severable, self-contained live- and dead-bodies. The determination liminally exists between private and public, enacting a sterile, affectless ordering of bodies but administered in the spectacle of sovereign death-making, conveying authority whilst managing patient’s and family’s consents. Spatialising traces of anatamo-politics and biopolitics thereby congeal and are enacted heterogeneously in and through the legal form of the fiction, securing preferred constructions of the body in the management of mortality. These spatio-legal features of the legal fiction are described from their collision with case law and literature that document competing nomoi produced from or secreted by antinomian bodies. (shrink)

In Ḥanafī legal thought, ta‘ātī (mutual delivery of goods and price) has been seen as a sales contract without the need for an additional legal transaction. This situation raises the question of whether the delivery transaction took place after a void (bāṭil) or invalid (fāsid) sales contract can be considered as a new contract that is revealed through ta‘ātī. In this study, which we aim to answer the aforementioned question, first of all, the issue of what kind of (...) relationship is established between the definition of the sales contract and the legitimacy of the ta‘ātī is discussed. Secondly, the relationship between the principles of “When something is void, what is implicit in that thing is also void.”, “What builds on what is invalid is also invalid” and the delivery transaction that took place after a void or invalid contract is discussed. Thirdly, it has been discussed whether the acceptance of the delivery transaction after a void or invalid contract as a new contract is dependent on the fact that the first contract has been legally terminated. In Ḥanafī thought two approaches have emerged regarding the relationship between ta‘ātī and void or invalid contract. According to Ḥanafī jurists based on the above-mentioned two principles, the delivery transaction that took place after a void or invalid contract is not a new contract. The fact that the delivery transaction becomes a new contract depends on the fact that the first contract was terminated in a legal way. In the approach of Ḥalvānī and Kāsānī, the fact that the delivery transaction that took place after a void or invalid contract gains the quality of a new contract is not dependent on the fact that the first contract is legally terminated. This approach is very important in terms of making it possible for the idea that “Delivery that took place after a void or invalid contract has the quality of a new contract.” to attribute the classical Ḥanafī thought. (shrink)

The rapid advancement of artificial (computer) intelligence systems (CIS) has generated a means whereby assistive bionic prosthetics can become both more effective and practical for the patients who rely upon the use of such machines in their daily lives. However, de lege lata remains relatively unspoken as to the legal status of patients whose devices contain self-learning CIS that can interface directly with the peripheral nervous system. As a means to reconcile for this lack of legal foresight, this (...) article approaches the topic of CIS-nervous system interaction and the impacts it may have on the legal definition of “persons” under the law. While other literature of this nature centres upon notions of transhumanism or self-enhancement, the approach herein approached is designed to focus solely upon the legal nature of independent CIS actions when operating alongside human subjects. To this end, it is hoped that further discussion on the topic can be garnered outside of transhumanist discourse to expedite legal consideration for how these emerging relationships ought to be received by law-generating bodies internationally. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to provide an accurate grounding-based formulation of positivism in the philosophy of law. I start off by discussing some simple formulations, based on the ideas that social facts are always either full or partial grounds of legal facts. I then raise a number of objections against these definitions: the full grounding proposal rules out possibilities that are compatible with positivism; the partial grounding proposal fails, on its own, to vindicate the distinctive role that (...) is played by social facts within positivist accounts of law. Then, I present a more adequate and insightful formulation capable of solving their problems, which crucially relies on a robust notion of a social enabler. Finally, I model inclusive and exclusive positivism on the resulting template, and set out the advantages of the ground-enablers proposal. (shrink)

In light of new threats in the field of human rights stemming from global geopolitical shifts, criminal law is facing a myriad of new challenges that require adequate responses. Given this context, it is crucial to develop and refine criminal legal measures (CLMs) in order to safeguard societal interests and maintain stability in social relations. This paper undertakes an analysis of contemporary problems in the area of legal regulation and CLMs, as well as assesses the effectiveness of CLMs (...) for individuals engaged in criminal misconduct. The research provides grounds for arguing that the absence of a clear definition of CLMs in Ukrainian legal science renders the term potentially problematic. Moreover, there are currently no taxonomic markers or criteria for classifying CLMs, nor methods for evaluating the effectiveness of specific measures. Within the framework of the announced reforms in Ukraine’s criminal law, it becomes imperative not only to revisit the concept of CLMs but also to develop robust methodologies for assessing their effectiveness. This measure appears necessary both in light of the need to legally formalize CLMs and to systematize them in the future. (shrink)

Among members of the legal profession and judiciarysional throughout the world, there is a genuine concern with establishing and maintaining high ethical standards. It is not difficult to understand why this should be so. But, in order to ensure that the standards established are the right ones, it is necessary first of all to examine important philosophical and policy issues. Such an examination is the purpose of this book. Written by a distinguished group of law teachers and practitioners together (...) with senior members of the judiciary, the book has as its underlying themes: BL that the move to more definite rules is not only inevitable but also desirable BL that existing codes of professional practice cannot simply be treated as a system of specific rules BL that the current set of ethical rules is contestable and requires further refinement, perhaps even radical surgery BL and that legal ethics must be conceived in the more general area of professional responsibility. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) has sparked interest in various areas, including marketing. However, this exhilaration is being tempered by growing concerns about the moral and legal implications of using AI in marketing. Although previous research has revealed various ethical and legal issues, such as algorithmic discrimination and data privacy, there are no definitive answers. This paper aims to fill this gap by investigating AI’s ethical and legal concerns in marketing and suggesting feasible solutions.,The paper synthesises information from academic (...) articles, industry reports, case studies and legal documents through a thematic literature review. A qualitative analysis approach categorises and interprets ethical and legal challenges and proposes potential solutions.,The findings of this paper raise concerns about ethical and legal challenges related to AI in the marketing area. Ethical concerns related to discrimination, bias, manipulation, job displacement, absence of social interaction, cybersecurity, unintended consequences, environmental impact, privacy and legal issues such as consumer security, responsibility, liability, brand protection, competition law, agreements, data protection, consumer protection and intellectual property rights are discussed in the paper, and their potential solutions are discussed.,Notwithstanding the interesting insights gathered from this investigation of the ethical and legal consequences of AI in marketing, it is important to recognise the limits of this research. Initially, the focus of this study is confined to a review of the most important ethical and legal issues pertaining to AI in marketing. Additional possible repercussions, such as those associated with intellectual property, contracts and licencing, should be investigated more deeply in future studies. Despite the fact that this study gives various answers and best practices for tackling the stated ethical and legal concerns, the viability and efficacy of these solutions may differ depending on the context and industry. Thus, more research and case studies are required to evaluate the applicability and efficacy of these solutions in other circumstances. This research is mostly based on a literature review and may not represent the experiences or opinions of all stakeholders engaged in AI-powered marketing. Further study might involve interviews or surveys with marketing professionals, customers and other key stakeholders to offer a full knowledge of the practical difficulties and solutions. Because of the rapid speed of technical progress, AI’s ethical and regulatory ramifications in marketing are continually increasing. Consequently, this work should be a springboard for more research and continuing conversations on this subject.,This study’s findings have several practical implications for marketing professionals. Emphasising openness and explainability: Marketing professionals should prioritise transparency in their use of AI, ensuring that customers are fully informed about data collection and utilisation for targeted advertising. By promoting openness and explainability, marketers can foster customer trust and avoid the negative consequences of a lack of transparency. Establishing ethical guidelines: Marketing professionals need to develop ethical rules for the creation and implementation of AI-powered marketing strategies. Adhering to ethical principles ensures compliance with legal norms and aligns with the organisation’s values and ideals. Investing in bias detection tools and privacy-enhancing technology: To mitigate risks associated with AI in marketing, marketers should allocate resources to develop and implement bias detection tools and privacy-enhancing technology. These tools can identify and address biases in AI algorithms, safeguard consumer privacy and extract valuable insights from consumer data.,This study’s social implications emphasise the need for a comprehensive approach to address the ethical and legal challenges of AI in marketing. This includes adopting a responsible innovation framework, promoting ethical leadership, using ethical decision-making frameworks and conducting multidisciplinary research. By incorporating these approaches, marketers can navigate the complexities of AI in marketing responsibly, foster an ethical organisational culture, make informed ethical decisions and develop effective solutions. Such practices promote public trust, ensure equitable distribution of benefits and risk, and mitigate potential negative social consequences associated with AI in marketing.,To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is among the first to explore potential solutions comprehensively. This paper provides a nuanced understanding of the challenges by using a multidisciplinary framework and synthesising various sources. It contributes valuable insights for academia and industry. (shrink)

First published in 1917 and 1918, with a second edition in 1946, this is the first English translation of Santi Romano's classic work, L'ordinamento giuridico. The main focus of The Legal Order is the notion of institution, which Romano considers to be both the core and distinguishing feature of law. After criticising accounts of the nature of law centred on notions of rule, coercion or authority, he offers a compelling conception, not merely of law as an institution, but of (...) the institution as 'the first, original and essential manifestation of law'. Romano advances a definition of a legal institution as any group who share rules within a bounded context: for example, a family, a firm, a factory, a prison, an association, a church, an illegal organisation, a state, the community of states, and so on. Therefore, this understanding of legal institutionalism at the same time provides a ground-breaking theory of legal pluralism whereby 'there are as many legal orders as institutions'. The acme of a jurisprudential current long overlooked in the Anglophone environment, The Legal Order not only proposes what Carl Schmitt described as a 'very significant theory', but, more importantly, it offers precious insights for a thorough rethinking of the relationship between law and society in today's world. (shrink)

In this work we study, design, and evaluate computational methods to support interpretation of statutory terms. We propose a novel task of discovering sentences for argumentation about the meaning of statutory terms. The task models the analysis of past treatment of statutory terms, an exercise lawyers routinely perform using a combination of manual and computational approaches. We treat the discovery of sentences as a special case of ad hoc document retrieval. The specifics include retrieval of short texts, specialized document types, (...) and, above all, the unique definition of document relevance provided in detailed annotation guidelines. To support our experiments we assembled a data set comprising 42 queries which we plan to release to the public in the near future in order to support further research. Most importantly, we investigate the feasibility of developing a system that responds to a query with a list of sentences that mention the term in a way that is useful for understanding and elaborating its meaning. This is accomplished by a systematic assessment of different features that model the sentences’ usefulness for interpretation. We combine features into a compound measure that accounts for multiple aspects. The definition of the task, the assembly of the data set, and the detailed task analysis provide a solid foundation for employing a learning-to-rank approach. (shrink)

This issue’s “Legal Briefing” column covers recent legal developments involving voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED). Over the past decade, clinicians and bioethicists have increasingly recognized VSED as a medically and ethically appropriate means to hasten death. Most recently, in September 2013, the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) called on its 2,000 member hospices to develop policies and guidelines addressing VSED. And VSED is getting more attention not only in healthcare communities, but also in the general (...) public. For example, VSED was recently highlighted on the front page of the New York Times and in other national and local media. Nevertheless, despite the growing interest in VSED, there remains little onpoint legal authority and only sparse bioethics literature analyzing its legality. This article aims to fill this gap. Specifically, we focus on new legislative, regulatory, and judicial acts that clarify the permissibility of VSED. We categorize these legal developments into the following seven categories: 1. Definition of VSED2. Uncertainty Whether Oral Nutrition and Hydration Are Medical Treatment3. Uncertainty Regarding Providers’ Obligations to Patients Who Choose VSED4. Judicial Guidance from Australia5. Judicial Guidance from the United Kingdom6. Judicial Guidance from Canada7. Case of Margot Bentley. (shrink)

This work adopts H. Kelsen’s concept of legal system, proposes a formal definition for such notion, and introduces an operational semantical framework for legal systems that are situated in agent societies. Agent societies are defined. Relevant formal properties of situated legal systems are discussed; the way they are exposed in the operational semantical framework is explained, and their truth formally proved. Also, for the sake of a better understanding of the legal-theoretic assumptions of the paper, (...) recurring issues regarding Kelsen’s theory of law are briefly reviewed. They are put in confrontation with the points of view of R. Dworkin, H. Hart, and J. Raz, and an attempt is made to clarify them from the perspective of the provided formalization. A brief case study in agent-based modeling and simulation of public policy processes is presented, as an illustration of the way of using situated legal systems, and the proposed operational semantical framework, in a practical application. (shrink)

This paper begins with a discussion of the current legal definition of sex laid down in Corbett v Corbett. The implications of this test for three areas of the law, marriage, birth certificates and employment are then examined. Solutions from the United States of America and West Germany are studied and the suitability of similar solutions being transplanted into British law discussed.

Increasing genetic knowledge over the last decade has enabled hundreds of genetic variants associated with inherited cardiac conditions to be identified, many of which cause increased risk of sudden cardiac death. While individually these conditions are rare, taken together they impose a significant burden. The severity of these conditions—the possibility that they might cause sudden unheralded death of a teenager or young adult—juxtaposed with uncertainty about the pathology linked with many of the genetic variants is significant in terms of professional (...) practice because, increasingly, clinicians have been encouraged to cascade out genetic testing from the proband or consultand to other family members who may be at risk of developing the same condition. This process often involves sharing human tissue samples, DNA or personal information. This paper reviews the legal and regulatory frameworks which may apply when tissue and DNA samples are collected, used and retained, both for the purpose of diagnosis and for benefiting other family members, when a suspected or definitive diagnosis of an inherited cardiovascular condition is made. Sometimes the interests of family members may conflict, and it may be difficult for practitioners to reconcile the interests of one family member with another, particularly if the balance of benefits and harms from testing is unclear. The paper then examines some of the ethical tensions which may arise in practice and concludes that all involved should be conversant with the legal and ethical frameworks that apply. (shrink)

This article introduces definitions for direct, means-end, oblique (or indirect) and ulterior intent which can be used to test for intent in an algorithmic actor. These definitions of intent are informed by legal theory from common law jurisdictions. Certain crimes exist where the harm caused is dependent on the reason it was done so. Here the actus reus or performative element of the crime is dependent on the mental state or mens rea of the actor. The ability to prosecute (...) these crimes is dependent on the ability to identify and diagnose intentional states in the accused. A certain class of auto didactic algorithmic actor can be given broad objectives without being told how to meet them. Without a definition of intent, they cannot be told not to engage in certain law breaking behaviour nor can they ever be identified as having done it. This ambiguity is neither positive for the owner of the algorithm or for society. The problem exists over and above more familiar debates concerning the eligibility of algorithms for culpability judgements that mens rea is usually associated with. Aside from inchoate offences, many economic crimes with elements of fraud or deceit fall into this category of crime. Algorithms operate in areas where these crimes could be plausibly undertaken depending on whether the intent existed in the algorithm or not. (shrink)

Many legal theorists and linguists have addressed the notion of legal language from different perspectives. Despite that, the definitions of legal language vary. Almost all of the approaches conclude that legal language entails several types of communication. Nevertheless, not all of these categories are sufficiently researched. Some types of legal communication seem to be neglected. This lack of interest might be rooted in the uncertainty of whether these texts or utterances even fall under the scope (...) of the concept of legal language. In order to avoid this superficiality in subsequent research, it is first necessary to come to a clear determination of which communicative acts can be considered a part of legal language and which cannot. Accordingly, in this search for the definition of legal language, we should not neglect the fact that language is executed in concrete communicative acts, and the only means to grasp the language is through communication. The aim of this article is therefore to clearly delineate the boundaries of this concept. Based on analysis of how the given term is currently defined, I draw out the common features and trace the characteristics in which they differ. Taking into account these findings, I propose a novel comprehensive demarcation of legal language. This concept argues that the ‘legal’ nature of language should be determined by the context and function of the particular statement or exchange, in connection with the role of participants in the communication. This means that a particular act may be considered a part of legal language not in accordance with a certain form or lexicon used, but mainly by extralinguistic circumstances in the context of which it is being performed. (shrink)

The dominant social scientific approach to studying judicial behavior treats judges as strategic actors pursuing their political preferences under institutional constraint. The intellectual roots of this rational choice approach are in American law’s long but sporadic engagement with pragmatist ideas. This article challenges that approach: a fully pragmatist account of judicial action provides a better description of the intellectual and social work of judging, and better explains how judges reach a decision in difficult cases that most affect the development of (...) law and its relationship to society. The article argues that the foundational intellectual problem for appellate judges is how to define the legal questions presented in a case. Definitions of legal questions arise from the interplay of habitual and creative action in the local social context of an appeals court. Professional and local interpretive habits and legal forms ordinarily do a great deal to define the key questions, which are not strictly determined when a case comes before a court. Unscripted small group interactions at oral arguments also figure in question definition; oral arguments are most important in the rare but legally important cases where habitual practices alone are insufficient to delimit the legal question judges must answer. Supported by extensive interviews with federal appeals judges and clerks, the article illustrates judges’ creative, interactional efforts to define an answerable question in a major asylum case decided in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Building from this case, the article describes the factors that shape judicial question definition, and describes the conditions when creative judicial action is likely to be most prominent. (shrink)