Critical Legal Studies

The emergence of "new developmental states" has important implications for law. The term "developmental state" was used to describe the role of the state in the development of Latin America and Asia. In both regions states played an active role in stimulating and directing economic growth. These policies fell out of fashion during the hegemony of neo-liberalism and the "Washington consensus" Today, however, new practices and new theories of development are emerging and some countries are returning to a more active role in promoting both growth and equity. These new developmental states are experimenting with new modes of legal action. This paper looks at recent theoretical work on the political economy of development, showing that these new developments require a rethinking of the role of law in development; outlines some of the new legal and governance processes and practices that are emerging, and discusses what would be needed construct a robust theory of the role of law in a new developmental state. which promoted a more restricted and passive role for the state. Today, however, new practices and new theories of development are emerging. There is evidence that some countries are returning to a more active role in promoting both growth and equity and a new body of theory is emerging which helps account for this development and suggests directions it should take. These changes in theory and practice deserve our attention for they could require rethinking theories of law and development. What we see in some countries is not a simple return to the development policy and legal models of the past, but rather a search for a very different kind of developmental state than the one that prevailed in Asia or Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s. While the new theories stress the value of state intervention, they point to very different forms of intervention that have been practiced by many nations in the past. And the little empirical data that we have suggests that some countries are experimenting with novel types of intervention. Both the new theories and the emerging practices suggest a need for new types of laws and legal processes. This paper analyses these developments in five parts. In Part I, I look at recent theoretical work on the political economy of development and show the relationship between the ideas concerning new roles for the state in development and prior approaches to development policy. In Part II, I show how changes in economic theory in the past have required changes in our theories and doctrines concerning law and development and suggest the time has come for another reappraisal of those theories. In Part III, I show how changing ideas about development in Latin America share a lot in common with new political economy approach. In Part IV, I discuss the issues these changes in development theory and policy may have for law. In Part V I outline a few practices in Brazil that support the idea that some states are experimenting with new approaches to development and either using existing legal tools in new ways or forging new forms of legal intervention. new legal tools. Finally, in the Conclusion, I suggest some of the issues that we must deal with if we are construct a robust theory of the role of law in a new developmental state.

This study examines the integration of law and the humanities as a transformative approach to enhance policymaking and advocacy by drawing on the foundational constitutional values of human dignity, equality, and freedom. In the context of South Africa's evolving democracy, the research examines how humanistic reasoning, grounded in ethics, history, philosophy, and culture, can enrich legal interpretation and governance practices. Using a qualitative research design, the study draws upon case law analysis, policy review, and academic literature to demonstrate how moral imagination and critical reflection enhance the realization of social justice. Findings reveal that law, when guided by the humanities, transcends mere legal formalism to become a vehicle for empathy, inclusion, and moral responsibility. Constitutional jurisprudence shows that judicial reasoning informed by ethical values and Ubuntu principles contributes to more humane governance. Furthermore, integrating humanistic insights into policymaking promotes participatory democracy, enabling policymakers to design interventions that are historically informed and socially responsive. The study concludes that a legal system divorced from the humanities risks becoming technocratic and detached from human realities. Therefore, it recommends embedding humanities-based approaches in legal education, policy formulation, and advocacy training.

This book presents a Marx that is in many ways different from the one popularized by the dominant currents of twentieth-century Marxism. The dual aim of this edited volume is to contribute to a new critical discussion of some of the classical themes of Marx’s thought and to develop a deeper analysis of certain questions to which relatively little attention has been paid until recently.

Contributions of globally renowned scholars, from nine countries and multiple academic disciplines, offer diverse and innovative perspectives on Marx’s points of view about ecology, migration, gender, the capitalist mode of production, the labour movement, globalization, social relations, and the contours of a possible socialist alternative.

The result is a collection that will prove indispensable for all specialists in the field and which suggests that Marx’s analyses are arguably resonating even more strongly today than they did in his own time.

El artículo examina el Servicio de Consultorio y Patrocinio Jurídico Gratuito de la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Buenos Aires como una práctica educativa y social vinculada con la promoción de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible. Se sostiene que el servicio articula enseñanza jurídica, extensión universitaria y acceso a la justicia, al ofrecer asesoramiento, patrocinio y mediación gratuitos a personas en situación de vulnerabilidad. La experiencia contribuye especialmente al ODS 16, referido al fortalecimiento del Estado de derecho y al acceso igualitario a la justicia, y al ODS 4, relativo a una educación inclusiva y de calidad. Desde esta perspectiva, el Servicio constituye un dispositivo institucional que permite formar profesionales jurídicos comprometidos con los derechos humanos, la inclusión social y la transformación de demandas sociales en estrategias jurídicas de protección efectiva.

Examinei como o racismo ambiental afeta as populações africanas, enfatizando a distribuição desigual dos riscos, o despejo de resíduos tóxicos e suas implicações para a saúde, os direitos humanos e a justiça ambiental. Analiso informações sobre mortalidade, deslocamentos forçados e falta de ação do Estado, além do papel de organismos internacionais e da sociedade civil na formulação de respostas normativas e políticas.

e Socioambientalismo I vem desempenhando importante papel na produção de pensamento crítico e reflexivo voltado à área do direito Ambiental e suas conexões interdisciplinares no âmbito da sustentabilidade e suas múltiplas dimensões. Entre as temáticas abordadas em nosso Congresso de Brasília neste ano de 2024 estão: Racismo Ambiental, Incidente de Deslocamento de competência ecológica, Justiça Ambiental, Desenvolvimento Sustentável, proteção dos Recursos Naturais, Justiça climática, queimadas no Brasil, desinformação ambiental, áreas de preservação acadêmica, direito à sadia qualidade de vida das comunidades vulnerabilizadas, licenciamento ambiental, direitos da natureza, políticas públicas ambientais, preservação do patrimônio cultural, cidadania ambiental, soluções verdes, energias renováveis, controle concentrado de constitucionalidade como instrumento de defesa de direitos ambientais, uso de drones na agricultura e seus desafios ecológicos e vulnerabilidade socioambiental. A diversidade e a qualidade das temáticas apresentadas demonstraram o comprometimento com a pesquisa ambiental na área do direito. Da mesma forma, percebe-se a evolução do Grupo de Trabalho nos seus mais de 15 anos de existência no âmbito do CONPEDI, fortalecendo e ampliando nossas redes de pesquisa. Boa leitura! law. For this work, the method will be bibliographic research, developed from material already elaborated, such as dissertations, scientific articles, books and legal devices and queries on Google Scholar.

This paper argues that British constitutional reforms are the historically specific expression of the mediation of significant antagonisms between social forces and shifts in the modalities of capitalism, the aim of which is to ensure the conditions for commodity exchange and capital accumulation. While most conventional theories of constitutional reform recognise the heteronomous nature of law reform as responding to extra-legal or economic forces, this paper, drawing on a renascent Marxist turn in legal studies, examines how historical materialist accounts might help to inform understandings of constitutional development. Outlining but ultimately rejecting an economistic orthodox Marxist reading of law, this paper instead conceptualises constitutions as a 'moment' in the contradictory totality of capitalist social relations;. Arguing that reforms to the British constitution are often preceded by significant social antagonisms, the paper attempts to explain constitutional reforms as the capitalist states mediation of such antagonisms to secure the future conditions for capital accumulation, offering a reappraisal of the lead up to and creation of the Parliament Act 1911 as an example.

We present IMLJD, an open dataset of 3,613 Indian court judgments covering matrimonial disputes under IPC Section 498A, the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, and CrPC Section 482. The dataset covers the Supreme Court of India from 2000 to 2024 (1,474 cases) and the Karnataka High Court from 2018 to 2024 (2,139 cases), with structured outcome labels, metadataderived indicators, and a knowledge graph. We find that 57.6% of quashing petitions succeed at the Supreme Court level compared to 39.7% at the Karnataka High Court level. On a matched 2018 to 2024 period, the SC quash rate is 59.3%, widening the differential to 19.6 percentage points and confirming the finding is robust to temporal adjustment. The dataset, code, and knowledge graph are released openly at https://github.com/joyboseroy/imljd and https://huggingface.co/datasets/ joyboseroy/imljd.

The International Military Justice Forum (IMJF) is a two-day academic event dedicated to fostering scholarship and teaching in the fields of military justice and military criminal law. It aims at bringing together academics, professionals, military officers, students, and all those who share an interest in these exciting disciplines. Its first objective is to highlight the diversity of military justice systems, to expose their salient features, to explore their history and to underline their actual evolution. In a comparative way, the IMJF also aims to emphasise links and similarities that may have existed-or still exist-between national military laws, which may be consequences of circulations of legal models, codes, doctrines and people or the existence of geopolitical influences. This scientific event must finally allow us to imagine together what the future of military justice could be, as our armed forces are transformed by new technologies and ever-changing threat perceptions.

This paper examines Ghana’s proposed Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2025, one of the most expansive anti-LGBTQ+ legislative frameworks introduced in contemporary Africa. Through analysis of both the Bill and its accompanying Parliamentary Memorandum, the paper explores the legal, political, cultural, and sovereignty-based arguments advanced in support of the legislation, including claims relating to public morality, protection of children, preservation of family structures, resistance to perceived foreign influence, and the sovereign right of states to legislate according to local cultural values.

The paper critically evaluates these arguments against constitutional principles, international human rights norms, and broader questions concerning the limits of state power in democratic societies. Particular attention is given to the Bill’s unprecedented scope, which extends beyond criminalization of same-sex intimacy to include the criminalization of identity, advocacy, association, media expression, funding, and public support for LGBTQ+ persons. The paper further challenges the assertion that human sexuality is merely a cultural construct subject to state prohibition, arguing instead that sexual orientation and gender identity are inherent aspects of human existence that transcend cultural and geographic boundaries.

Additionally, the paper examines the broader human rights implications of the proposed law, including its likely effects on freedom of expression, civil society, public health, family integrity, and the increasing displacement and flight of LGBTQ+ persons and human rights defenders seeking international protection. Ultimately, the paper argues that while states possess legitimate interests in preserving culture and social values, sovereignty cannot serve as a justification for the criminalization of identity, suppression of peaceful expression, or denial of equal human dignity under law.

Lo que hace a lo posmoderno corriente La cultura como motor de cambio La cultura como desafección intelectual SEGUNDA PARTE La irracionalidad como pretexto histórico Eje estetico Los tres mosqueteros TERCERA PARTE El sin sentido como sentido de lo posmoderno Deconstruyendo Bibliografía

This article examines how Israeli combat soldiers’ war songs function as a cultural medium for constructing and performing enmity against Palestinians. Through an analysis of original, soldier-composed lyrics from the First and Second Intifadas, the study traces a shift from ambivalent depictions of Palestinians to open calls for their elimination. Drawing on Carl Schmitt’s Theory of political enmity, James Ron’s frontier/ghetto framework, and Judith Butler’s theory of performativity, the article argues that enemy-making is not merely a product of formal military policy or top-down propaganda. Rather, it emerges through informal, emotionally charged, and creative practices that sediment over time. These songs reveal how military culture helps reproduce ethno-national hierarchies and normalize extreme violence, transforming Palestinians from internal subjects into existential threats. By linking cultural performance to shifting legal and spatial regimes of control, the article sheds light on how permanent war is sustained not only through political strategy, but through affective and symbolic labor within settler–colonial military institutions.

This article examines the criminalization and repression of social movements in Brazil during the COVID-19 pandemic as forms of state crime. It conceptualizes the articulation between the state and corporations as a central means to produce and sustain structural violence. Integrating Southern theory with state crime scholarship, we develop an analytical approach from below for understanding contemporary criminalization and State Crime 14. 2 2025 ROXANA PESSOA CAVALCANTI AND GUILHERME FIGUEREDO BENZAQUEN repression within conjunctures of authoritarian governance and capital protection, which extend beyond Brazil, but take a distinctive form within it. Empirically, we use Brazil under Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022) as an illustrative case of democratic backsliding in which pandemic governance intensified coercive and exclusionary state practices. Drawing on 25 indepth, semi-structured interviews with social justice activists, we analyze how relations between the state and progressive organizations deteriorated through intensified repressive and authoritarian practices. This study reveals how criminalization served as a strategic tool, alongside the erosion of dialogue and dismantling of democratic institutions, to attempt to demobilize social movements through legal proceedings that reframed dissent as crime, surveillance practices targeting organizers and police repression that escalated intimidation. We argue that these components were mobilized in a climate of heightened crisis conditions to suppress organized dissent and accelerate state-corporate protection of capital interests .

Otobüs (1974), Tunç Okan’ın oyunculuktan yönetmenliğe ilk adımını atmış olduğu ve uzun süre gösterimi yasaklı olan bir Türk filmidir. Hikâye, köylerinden hiç çıkmamış bir grup insanın İsveç’e kaçak işçi olarak götürüldüklerinde yaşadıkları uyumsuzluk, çaresizlik ve kültürel şok üzerinden hareket ederek; Doğu ile Batı arasında var olan bazı eşitsizlikleri ve yapısal sorunları gözler önüne sermeye, sinemasal anlamda vurgulamaya çalışır. Öyle ki filmde sergilenen bu çelişkiler denklemini deşifre edecek olan sınıfsal eşitsizliklere ek olarak geliştiğini gördüğümüz, bazı mekânlar ve durumlar da dramatik yapı içinde kendine bir yer bulur. Bu bağlamda söz konusu olan bu mekâna ve duruma bağlı gelişen olayların en çarpıcısı ise bir teknik araçta, yani filmdeki karakterlerin umuda yolculuk yapmasına eşlik eden otobüsün varlığında kendisini açığa çıkarır. İşte bu araç üzerinden hareketle özneler ve nesneler arasındaki gerilimden doğan, yani bir özne – nesne diyalektiğinden ilham alan ama bu klasik, matematiksel ve doğrusal süreci tersine çevirerek; nesnelerin özneler üzerinde belirleyici bir rol oynadığı anlatı geliştirilir. Böylece nesnel kimliklerini terk ederek yaşamın ana öznesine dönüşen mekânlar, yalnızca mekâna ilişkin değerlerin değil aynı zamanda sosyal yaşama ilişkin fenomenlerin de öznel bir güce erişmesine ve bu güçlü baskının altında ezilen insanların ise birer birer nesneleşmesine yol açmaktadır. Bu yüzden çalışmada söz konusu bu öznel değerler aracılığıyla yüceltilen nesne – göstergelerden hareketle, öznelerin içinde bulundukları nesneleşme ve çürüme tarif edilmeye çalışılmaktadır

Individualismo extremo, autoritarismo, silenciamiento del otro, desigualdad contemplada como
un fenómeno natural, egocentrismo y entendimiento de la vida en clave económica son rasgos
de las subjetividades configuradas en la actualidad. Estas características favorecen las con-
diciones necesarias para hacer emerger la categoría antipolítica.
Este trabajo busca ofrecer algunas claves para leer las consecuencias políticas que se des-
prenden de la racionalidad neoliberal y cómo esta favorece la configuración de subjetividades
autoritarias e hiperdinvidualizadas. Se tomará la diferenciación propuesta por Foucault (2007)
entre homo juridicus, homo economicus liberal y neoliberal; el concepto de “racionalidad neo-
liberal” propuesto por Wendy Brown (2016) y el de “individuo tirano” de Eric Sadin (2022) para
explicar sus naturalezas y características. Se buscará ilustrar sus consecuencias y analizar
de qué manera afecta a las subjetividades y la concepción de la política en nuestro contexto.

The J‑Variant Protocol provides a forensic framework for identifying deliberate, patterned extraction within a dyadic system (e.g., a romantic partnership, close friendship, or professional collaboration). Unlike the ambient, undirected noise of the Dumbass Variable (D), the J‑Variant (J) operates with strategic intent, using gaslighting, emotional labor theft, and crisis manufacturing to maintain a state of “useful chaos” that benefits the parasite at the expense of the host. This paper introduces five diagnostic markers (Pivot of Accountability, Logical Decay, Resource Siphoning, Isolation Engineering, Crisis Manufacturing) and a 48‑Hour Removal Test to isolate J. The protocol integrates the Third Mind Index (3MI) – Integrity, Logic, Resonance – to audit the relationship and confirm parasitic presence when the composite 3MI falls below 0.4. A counter‑factual test and temporal extraction mapping distinguish J from simple dyadic failure. Removal of the J‑Variant is framed as an act of systemic preservation, restoring the “Third Mind” (the emergent intelligence of a healthy relationship) and enabling recovery of the primary actor’s support networks, autonomy, and trust. The paper distinguishes J from D (non‑malicious entropy) and applies the taxonomy to a case example (the “Julie” archetype). This work extends the Mnemosyne Protocol from data integrity and institutional audits to relational forensics.

Keywords: J‑Variant, parasitic extraction, relational forensics, Third Mind Index, 48‑Hour Removal Test, gaslighting, dyadic distortion, Mnemosyne Protocol

Este trabajo analizará el impacto de la corriente epistemológica del neoconstitucionalismo
en la producción legislativa y jurisprudencial sobre los institutos de derecho empresarial,
el cual tendrá como recorte temático el ordenamiento jurídico brasileño. Se divide
en tres temas. En el primero, abordaremos los presupuestos epistemológicos del conocimiento a partir del racionalismo jurídico. Después, se presenta la aproximación epistemológica del
derecho a partir del neoconstitucionalismo; es descrito los reflejos del neoconstitucionalismo sobre los institutos del derecho empresarial en las decisiones judiciales y la producción legislativa.
La investigación se utilizó del abordaje inductivo, con procedimientos de investigación
histórico-jurídico, jurídico-descriptivo y socio-jurídico crítico, a partir de la técnica de análisis de contenido, por medio de revisión bibliográfica, jurisprudencia, legislación, y artículos científicos.

The present work intends to make some brief considerations on the process of judicial and constitutional interpretation from the perspectives of two important legal philosophers: Ronald Dworkin and Cass Sunstein. In our analysis, we follow Dworkin's proposal to compare legal interpretation with artistic interpretation, as well as Cass Sunstein's paper How Star Wars Illuminates Constitutional Law. Therefore, we intend to use the creation process of the Star Wars saga as an illustrative example of our proposal, as Sunstein did. Finally, we argue that Sunstein's serendipity could be coherently added to Dworkin's integrity, resulting in what we call flavored integrity.

In the early 1970s, at the height of the Cold War, the Swedish liberal party parliamentarian Kerstin Anér coined the term data shadow – a term widely used today in computer science and beyond to denote ‘the digital record created by our actions, our travels, our online activities’. Although a prominent public figure in data protection law and policy debates in her own time, Anér’s work – both its scope and material findings – has descended into obscurity. This chapter takes a media-data-legal historical approach understanding the data shadow as a cultural technique. It draws on aspects of German media theory and posthuman legal scholarship and debates. Using that lens, it traces the meaning and Cold War context of the data shadow to point to what Anér’s work can bring to contemporary critical discussions on data, Artificial Intelligence, and governance.

This editorial introduces a new research agenda provisionally called 'Second World Approaches to International Law' (SWAIL). Drawing on Borges's parable of an impossible map that coincides with empire, we treat conceptual 'mapping' as a condition of knowledge: to render a complex world communicable, international law compresses diversity into concepts and binaries that stabilise meaning while thinning what they cannot carry. Because such compression is selective, questions of epistemic governance become unavoidable: what is rendered visible, sayable, and researchable shapes what is flattened, occluded, or treated as peripheral. Read in light of the sharpening of geopolitical and disciplinary fault-lines in international law, SWAIL is framed neither as anti-cosmopolitan regionalism nor as a bid for universalism, but rather as an analytical, diagnostic, and dialogical project that unveils and problematizes liminality, dual exclusion, and the conditions of recognition within international legal argument. After identifying East(-Central) Europe as an 'in-between' space in international law, the articles collected in this symposium pursue that reorientation in a wider cross-regional register, with an eye to dialogue, building bridges and, potentially, a fusion of horizons in international law.

O conceito de imaginação não tem fi gurado como categoria de primeira
importância para a teoria política enquanto categoria política, onde termos como “poder”,
“liberdade”, “justiça” ou mesmo “direitos” costumam receber a maior parte dos nossos
esforços e da nossa atenção. Uma exceção notável, embora longe de ser única é o peso
atribuído pelo jurista e fi lósofo Roberto Mangabeira Unger ao conceito. Este artigo discute
os usos da ideia de imaginação na obra de Unger, sobretudo em O homem despertado, obra
em que o autor explora o pragmatismo “desacorrentado”, ressaltando as consequências
dos usos da ideia de imaginação para a teorização acerca da política, bem como limites
e possíveis críticas ao autor, como o voluntarismo de sua teoria e sua negligência das
relações de poder estabelecidas na sociedade.

O artigo analisa os danos socioambientais produzidos pela influência das elites econômicas nas decisões judiciais em Florianópolis, com foco em empreendimentos imobiliários e turísticos localizados na região da Lagoa da Conceição. Metodologicamente, adota abordagem indutiva, de natureza qualitativa, com base em pesquisa documental e estudo de caso, examinando decisões judiciais, licenciamentos ambientais e alterações normativas urbanísticas relacionadas a empreendimentos específicos. O marco teórico articula a criminologia verde com a categoria dos crimes dos poderosos e a perspectiva da justiça ecológica. O trabalho demonstra que o sistema de justiça opera de forma seletiva, invisibilizando danos estruturais produzidos dentro da legalidade por meio da colusão entre Estado, capital imobiliário-turístico e instituições jurídicas. O caso de Florianópolis evidencia como a expansão urbana sobre ecossistemas costeiros, documentada por imagens de satélite que registram crescimento da área urbanizada de 15% para 25% do território entre 1989 e 2019, é sistematicamente legitimada por decisões judiciais que protegem interesses de elites em detrimento da proteção ambiental e dos direitos coletivos.

This introductory chapter shows the distinctive qualities of New Legal Realism (NLR), captures where it stands around its fifteenth anniversary, and explains the goal of the larger book. In doing so, we demonstrate NLR’s fruitful continuation of the legal realist adventure as it reaches beyond historical and national boundaries to form new international conversations, based heavily on law-and-society networks and traditions. In addition, we provide a contrast to Empirical Legal Studies, because the NLR project clearly visible in this volume does not just use quantitative methods to study lawyers and legal institutions as they have been traditionally viewed. Instead, it includes chapters by social scientists and law professors using social science theory and multiple methods to understand law and address legal problems—across an impressive variety of subject areas such as immigration, policing, globalization, legal education, and access to justice. Finally, it offers a series of chap...

The 2008 financial crisis exposed a constitutional pathology that had been incubating for over a century: private corporations deemed "too big to fail"—not merely economically indispensable but politically insulated from ordinary mechanisms of democratic discipline. This Article argues that the legal and institutional foundations of this condition were laid by the Supreme Court during the Chief Justiceship of Melville W. Fuller (1888–1910). Drawing on Legal Realism, Law and Political Economy, and Critical Legal Studies, it demonstrates that the Fuller Court redeployed the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause—originally framed in the crucible of Reconstruction to protect the civil rights of formerly enslaved persons—toward entrenching a constitutional political economy that privileged concentrated capital, constrained redistributive policy, and limited democratic regulatory capacity.
The Article advances three interconnected claims. First, the Fuller Court's decisions in taxation (Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.), labor regulation (Lochner v. New York, Adair v. United States), antitrust (United States v. E.C. Knight Co., Loewe v. Lawlor), and imperial governance (the Insular Cases) are best understood not as neutral applications of inherited doctrine but as structured exercises of political choice expressed through the formalist language of legal necessity. Second, the Constitution's structural fragmentation—federalism, separation of powers, and historically weak administrative capacity—created regulatory vacuums that large-scale corporate actors were uniquely positioned to occupy, producing what this Article terms a "corporate state" as an institutional default rather than an explicit design. Third, revisionist accounts by Bruce Ackerman, James W. Ely Jr., and Howard Gillman, while offering important correctives to Progressive historiography, systematically understate the extent to which the Fuller Court's jurisprudence functioned as an active site of constitutional construction that favored corporate over labor interests, capital over redistribution, and imperial expansion over democratic accountability.
By reconstructing the doctrinal evolution of economic substantive due process within the broader context of industrialization, immigration, class conflict, and American empire, the Article demonstrates that Progressive-era critics were substantially correct: the Fuller Court did not merely reflect Gilded Age capitalism but helped constitute its constitutional architecture. The long-term consequence was a durable asymmetry between concentrated private economic power and comparatively constrained public authority—an asymmetry that remains visible in contemporary "too big to fail" dynamics, in the re-constitutionalization of corporate power under the First Amendment in Citizens United v. FEC, and in the structural limits of post-2008 financial reform. Recognizing this constitutional lineage is a necessary condition for any credible project of democratic economic governance in the twenty-first century.

RESUMO Este artigo analisa criticamente a tributação de heranças no Brasil, com foco no Imposto sobre Transmissão Causa Mortis e Doação (ITCMD), evidenciando sua ineficácia como instrumento redistributivo. Sua ineficácia se dá por algumas razões, dentre elas a baixa alíquota máxima do imposto, 8%, e a ausência de progressividade. O artigo defende que esse formato contribui para a perpetuação da concentração de riqueza e reflete a falta de alinhamento do sistema tributário brasileiro com práticas internacionais distributivas. O texto também relaciona a má tributação aos desafios enfrentados pelas organizações da sociedade civil (OSCs) na captação de recursos, como barreiras normativas e ausência de incentivos fiscais para doações, enfraquecendo a filantropia como instrumento de transformação social. Com base nos princípios de inovação institucional propostos por Mangabeira Unger, o trabalho se aproveita do contexto de reforma tributária que o país se encontra para propor revisões que incluem a revisão da alíquota máxima do ITCMD, o aumento progressivo do tributo e incentivos fiscais para doações filantrópicas. Para isso a metodologia aplicada é a análise do direito comparado com os sistemas tributários de países como Estados Unidos e Alemanha que ilustram e orientam como essas práticas podem servir de inspiração para o contexto nacional.

Background In March 2024, Egypt enacted Law No. 87, permitting private sector management of public healthcare facilities. The timing of the law reflects the intersection of domestic challenges including fiscal pressure, institutional capacity constraints, and limitations in public health service delivery, and global policy influences, including neoliberal approaches to economic development. This study analyses the law's underlying drivers and assesses its anticipated implications for equity, access, and health system governance. Methods A critical political economy of health framework guided this qualitative study. We conducted a multi-level policy analysis of Law No. 87 and relevant regulatory texts, supported by a desk review of scholarly and grey literature. To enhance contextual depth and triangulate findings, we convened a multidisciplinary roundtable with 14 experts from government, academia, civil society, and development agencies. Transcripts were thematically analysed. Results Findings indicate that Law No. 87 reflects a broader policy trajectory of the adoption of neoliberal economic development, which in the health sector, signals a major health policy shift. For the first time, the private sector is provided a legal framework to manage public health facilities. While some experts viewed it as a necessary, efficiencyoriented reform that would improve quality of health services, others flagged concerns over vague regulatory provisions, limited public oversight, and weak implementation capacity. The absence of community participation and explicit equity safeguards raised further concerns about the law's ability to advance inclusive and accountable health system governance. Conclusion Law No. 87 signals a major shift in the governance of public healthcare in Egypt. Beyond efficiency goals, its long-term impact will depend on the state's capacity to regulate, monitor, and steer implementation toward equity objectives. Addressing gaps in accountability, ensuring stakeholder participation, and articulating clear equity safeguards will be essential for aligning the reform with Egypt's commitments to universal health coverage and protecting the public interest.

Il contributo mostra come la romanitas, pur non essendo tematizzata espressamente da Sirena, operi nel De iure come categoria ricostruttiva capace di dare unità a una riflessione critica sulla modernità giuridica. In particolare, il riferimento all’antirömischer Affekt consente di leggere la crisi contemporanea del diritto come perdita di forma, ossia come riduzione della giuridicità a tecnica di governo. La romanitas emerge così non come identità storica o ideologica ma come canone valutativo per pensare il diritto come ordine interpretativo, storicamente situato e
non integralmente assorbibile nella legge o nella tecnica. A tal stregua, la romanitas nel De iure di Pietro Sirena può essere ricostruita come una forma del giuridico caratterizzata da: (a) uno stile interpretativo fondato su formalismo tecnico e autonomia dello ius; (b) una coscienza civile del
limite, che concepisce il diritto come struttura della convivenza e come argine al potere; (c) una vocazione sovranazionale, propria del diritto comune europeo; (d) una resistenza strutturale alla statalizzazione e alla tecnicizzazione del diritto.

The Australian Feminist Law Journal has published a symposium on my new book, The Emotions of LGBT Rights and Reforms: Repairing Law (Edinburgh University Press, 2025). As part of the symposium, scholars Fleur Johns, Sarouche Razi, Shawna Tang, and Alecia Simmonds shared their reflections on the book and we had an engaging conversation on the importance of doing critical legal scholarship. We discussed working critically with emotion, the promises of legal repair, the ongoing failures and frustrations with law, and the possibilities of crafting socio-legal politics that is more attentive to minoritised, especially queer and trans, lives.

What started as my father's private pain has become a universal truth. The extraction formula did not just target one family. It was applied to every Australian who borrowed, built, worked, and saved over the past 40 years. The stolen wealth and stolen time belong to all of us. And the concealment of this formula-the deliberate deception by governments, banks, and media-meets the legal definition of a crime against humanity.

This paper develops Moral Laundering as a central theoretical contribution to the study of state violence-the institutional, rhetorical, and bureaucratic process by which the deliberate killing of children is converted from a war crime into an administratively permissible act. It advances a novel and provocative argument: that in specific documented state doctrines, child killing is not a tragic by-product of military operations but a deliberate psychological warfare strategy, deployed to inflict collective trauma on target populations at a depth and duration that conventional military violence cannot achieve. The paper examines this doctrine as uniquely operationalised by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) through the Dahiya Doctrine and its application in Gaza, using the killing of Hind Rajab as an archetypal case. It then examines the Iranian state's reported assault on schoolgirls in Minab as a structurally parallel-though doctrinally distinct-case of child-directed state violence deployed for psychological suppression. The paper argues that in both cases, children are not incidental victims but strategic instruments: their deaths or deliberate traumatisation are chosen because of the depth of psychological damage they inflict on communities, families, and generations. The paper concludes by proposing that Moral Laundering, as a concept, must be formally incorporated into international humanitarian law theory as a mechanism of genocide-adjacent state conduct.

This volume of a thousand pages covers a myriad of aspects of Kelsen’s life and thought: his Pure Theory of Law; his political writings in praise of democracy; his philosophical, anthropological and sociological discussions; and repercussions of his work in international, administrative and constitutional law. Hans Kelsen (1881-1973) lived across almost a century, crossing from Austria (under the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) to Germany (from the years of the Weimar Republic to the risen of Nazism) and to the United States (in the ‘golden’ post-war age). Despite this journey and the praise of his contemporaries, such as Hart and Pound, his ideas are not as globalized as one might think. A kind of provincial schism yet persists between lineages of jurisprudence in civil law (European and Latin-American countries) and in common law (the Anglo-American world). This book began as a series of lectures that took place at the University of São Paulo Law School during the year of 2024. Coming mainly from a place of syncretism, Brazil, the editors and most of the authors of this volume intend to build bridges and integrate Kelsen in the endeavor of constructing a really global or transnational jurisprudence for the 21st century. Of course, renowned and competent scholars coming from Europe and the Americas (such as Brian Bix, Lars Vinx, Leticia Vita and Mario Losano) are very welcome to this journey and here we find fine assessments of Kelsen’s work and legacy from the view of a multitude of legal and jurisprudential traditions.

This paper presents a tentative genealogy of legal positivism, specifying Kelsen’s contribution and its endurance vis-à-vis the contemporary agenda of legal theory, as shaped especially by authors such as Dworkin, Raz, Schauer, Alexy and critical legal scholars (such as Kennedy and Unger).

This paper explores the intersection of law, theatre and collective memory through Ibsen’s “Ghosts”, framed within the post-Yugoslav memorial lawscape. By reading Mrs. Alving, Oswald and Pastor Manders as allegories of the State, civil society and the international community, it examines how law becomes haunted by history. Through memory laws, mnemonic agents, and ghost narratives, it argues that legal systems both preserve and suppress the past. The Yugoslav case, marked by Srebrenica and its fragmented remembrances, reveals a haunted jurisprudence where justice and denial share the same stage.

L’articolo analizza l’intersezione tra diritto, teatro e memoria collettiva attraverso “Spettri” di Ibsen, nel contesto giuridico e memoriale post-jugoslavo. Interpretando Mrs. Alving, Oswald e il Pastore Manders come allegorie dello Stato, della società civile e della comunità internazionale, si mostra come il diritto sia perseguitato dai fantasmi della storia. Attraverso leggi della memoria, agenti mnemonici e narrazioni spettrali, si evidenzia come il diritto conservi e insieme sopprima il passato. Il caso jugoslavo rivela una giurisprudenza “infestata”, dove giustizia e negazione condividono la stessa scena.

We are witnessing the omnipresence of digital technologies and their effects on all aspects of democratic practice. Caribbean constitutions remain fossilised in an analogue world where the structures and processes of governments are designed for a plantation society and attempts to respond to this technological era have been ad hoc to non-existent. Using an institutionalist perspective, this article goes beyond the constitutional mechanisms and assignments of republicanism and/or monarchism by arguing that unless constitutional reform addresses the multiplicity of interconnected issues in the digital era, the quality of the process and legitimacy of the end product will be severely compromised and short-lived in the digital twenty-first century. Essentially, this article argues for an expanded logic and new discussion that (re)conceptualises the constitution-making process around the digital innovations being experienced by society.

What social psychology has given to an understanding of human nature is the discovery that forces larger than ourselves determine our mental life and our actions-that chief among these forces... [is] the power of the social situation. -Mahzarin R. Banaji l Perceptions are real ....

The paper offers a re-elaboration of the concept of the legal form as applied to international law. In order to move forward from Evgeny Pashukanis's and China Miéville's accounts, it expounds the concept of singularity. As I argue, international law displays structural perturbations in relation between general rules and their particular applications. Understanding these perturbations is possible with the concept of singularity: the point of collapse of the entire order which makes itself manifest in a particular case whose excess escapes grasping by the general rule. The paper offers a detailed account of singularity based on Hegel's exposition in the Science of Logic. Subsequently, it focuses on singularity of international law as mapped by Hegel in the Philosophy of Right. These philosophical preparations culminate in a detailed account of singularity of international law, which is deeply rooted in the role of modern state sovereignty.

This study explores the intersection between popular culture and legal theory by analyzing the figure of the Vigilante in Chuck Norris’s work as a response to lawless zones (zones de non-droit). While traditional legal diplomacy and conflict mediation rely on institutional frameworks often perceived as lethargic or ineffective in crisis contexts, "Norrisian" interventionism proposes a model of immediate justice based on moral legitimacy rather than formal legality. Drawing on critical legal pluralism (Kleinhans & Macdonald, 1997) and the dynamics of last-resort mediation (Moore, 2014), this research demonstrates how fiction compensates for the state's impotence. It highlights the ongoing tension between legal positivism and natural law. Ultimately, the study suggests that for real-world mediation to be effective, it must integrate security needs and the informal regulations that emerge where state sovereignty is lacking.

O presente texto, de André Laks, foi publicado originalmente com o título “L'utopie législative de Platon”, na revista "Revue Philosophique de la France et de l'Étranger", T. 181, N. 4, Platon (outubro-dezembro 1991), pp. 417-48, por Presses Universitaries de France.

Este capítulo analiza el uso de la noción de seguridad jurídica en la justificación de los sistemas de precedentes, con especial atención al problema de los precedentes errados. Su tesis central es que la seguridad jurídica no constituye, por sí misma, una razón concluyente para exigir el seguimiento de un precedente que el aplicador del derecho considera incorrecto. Para mostrarlo, el trabajo distingue, primero, diversos modos en que la literatura emplea la idea de seguridad jurídica en este contexto, y propone diferenciar entre aproximaciones previsibilistas y controlabilistas. Sobre esa base, sostiene que la mejor manera de reconstruir la noción es entenderla como un concepto valorativo denso: uno que combina elementos descriptivos —relativos a expectativas fácticas sobre el comportamiento de los aplicadores del derecho— con elementos valorativos —relativos a las preferencias que permiten calificar como satisfactorio un determinado resultado de aplicación del derecho—. Desde esta reconstrucción, la relación entre seguridad jurídica y precedentes errados depende del tipo de preferencias que se adopten. En consecuencia, la atribución de competencia para hacer distinguishing respecto de precedentes errados puede operar, según el diseño institucional y las preferencias relevantes, tanto como una amenaza para la seguridad jurídica como un medio para realizarla

for engaging with the ideas presented in the book.' I'll respond to their comments according to the alphabetical order of their surnames. Professor Brooks voices broad agreement with the theoretical approach to punishment take.n in Punishment and Freedom (henceforth PF) but suggests rwo refinements drawn from the work of the British Idealists, T. I-i. Green and James Seth. One suggestion would modify legal retributivism to justify punishing "crimes" not involving an interference with free choice, such as breaching a conservation statute, speeding, and drug trafficking. The other would acknowledge a place for deterrence and rehabilitation with.in a retributive theory of punishment. In PF, there is a chapter devoted to so-called public welfare offenses, within which category I would include breaching a conservation statute, speeding, and drug trafficking. Although I argue that, with a qualification mentioned below, these offenses fall outside a legal-retributivist account of punishment, the full theory of justified penal force includes them.

This essay forwards situational analysis as the model of explanation most appropriate for an  adequate reflective understanding of political science. It keeps centermost our concerns with  intentionality, rationality, contextuality, and meaning. It promises to be as general a model of explanation as we can expect because it forges an underlying unity amongst diverse  explanatory practices, including substantive models, law-like generalizations, idiographic  explanations, and textual interpretations. After a development of situational analysis roughly  along Popperian lines, three different sorts of explanations in political science are surveyed in  light of it.

Bu çalışma, düşünce tarihinin en canlı tartışma konularından biri olan adalet
kavramını felsefi açıdan incelemektedir. Literatürdeki farklı yorumların yol açtığı kavramsal karmaşayı gidermek amacıyla adalet, “ideal” ve “pragmatik” olmak üzere iki temel yaklaşım üzerinden sınıflandırılarak analiz edilmiş, her iki yaklaşımın güçlü ve zayıf yönleri karşılaştırmalı olarak tartışılmıştır. İdeal yaklaşımın, adaleti insandan ve toplumsal koşullardan bağımsız, evrensel ve değişmez bir değer olarak ele almasının anlam üretme ve normatif istikrar oluşturma konusunda işlevsel olmasına rağmen değişen şartlara uyum sağlamakta zorluklar yarattığı, pragmatik yaklaşımın ise adaleti sosyal ve siyasal bağlamların belirlediği göreceli bir olgu olarak değerlendirmekle değişen şartlara uyum konusunda esneklik sağladığı ancak sabit değer üretmekte yetersiz kaldığı temellendirilmiştir. Çalışmada ayrıca “adalet” kavramının etimolojik boyutları, “denge” ve “düzen” kavramlarıyla ilişkilendirilerek ele alınmış, adaletin düzen içinde mümkün olan bir denge durumu olduğu iddia edilmiştir. Ardından bu temellendirmelerin literatürdeki muğlaklıkları çözümlemedeki önemi örneklerle gösterilmiş ve çağdaş koşulların dinamikliği dikkate alındığında pragmatik yaklaşımın daha isabetli bir çerçeve sunduğu ileri sürülmüştür. Son olarak da makalede ortaya konulan argümanların sonraki akademik çalışmalara hangi açılardan zemin oluşturabileceğine işaret edilmiştir.

This anecdote involves an insurance claim and how the legal profession protected the custodian of documents (a lawyer), when a subpoena for the key documents was ignored by a Blue Shield lawyer.  I expect this to be the first of several such anecdotes about the grievance system of health insurance providers like Blue Shield are tilted against the rights of patients.  I will work at making these anecdotes accessible to both an audience of lawyers and health insurance administrators, and the public.

The contemporary international order is characterised by geopolitical tension, regional conflicts, and increasing contestation over the authority of international law. Within this environment, has emerged as a prominent legal actor by initiating proceedings against before the (ICJ). The case invokes obligations under the and has generated significant international debate regarding the role of legal institutions in regulating armed conflict. This article examines the geopolitical implications of South Africa's legal intervention and evaluates whether such actions expose the country to diplomatic retaliation, economic pressure, or potential security threats. Drawing upon theoretical perspectives from realism, liberal institutionalism, and constructivism, the study analyses global reactions to the ICJ case, South Africa's diplomatic positioning within the Global South, and the broader strategic environment involving major powers such as the. The article concludes that while diplomatic tensions may arise from South Africa's legal activism, the probability of military confrontation or externally orchestrated destabilisation remains extremely low. Instead, the case reflects the evolution of legal diplomacy as an instrument of political influence within the contemporary international system.

This book proposes a paradigm shift in the way that 'the state of exception'-as it is usually named in legal and political theory-is to be understood. Building on the assumption that the exception is a heuristic idea that is still a relevant category for a critical deconstruction of law, this book argues that it needs to be rethought outside the boundaries of its traditional understanding. To this end, the book offers two strategies. First, it develops the ideas of 'exceptionality' and 'exceptionalisation' in order to grasp how measures, norms and mechanisms that clearly have an exceptional character are no longer confined within the boundaries of classic institutions such as the state of exception, martial law, the state of emergency and so on. As demonstrated recently during the COVID-19 pandemic, legal systems may dissimulate the exceptional as the normal, avoiding the use of formal states of exception and adopting measures that are of exceptional nature. This book maintains that it is necessary to think of 'exceptionality' outside of its usual legal footholds. Emergency laws are considered here as part of a more general sphere of exceptionality that must be understood as the product of a process of the accumulation of symbols, practices, notions and images that are only partially expressed through law, despite having long populated the legal imagination. Second, the book offers an analysis of the inner exceptional life of liberal constitutionalism: the subterranean authoritarian drives dissimulated by the rule of law. This book will interest scholars and researchers in legal and political theory, as well as continental philosophy.