George Letsas is the Chair in Philosophy of Law at University College London. [1]
Human rights are moral principles or norms for certain standards of human behaviour and are regularly protected in municipal and international law. They are commonly understood as inalienable, fundamental rights "to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being" and which are "inherent in all human beings", regardless of their age, ethnic origin, location, language, religion, ethnicity, or any other status. They are applicable everywhere and at every time in the sense of being universal, and they are egalitarian in the sense of being the same for everyone. They are regarded as requiring empathy and the rule of law and imposing an obligation on persons to respect the human rights of others, and it is generally considered that they should not be taken away except as a result of due process based on specific circumstances.
Sharia is a religious law forming part of the Islamic tradition. It's derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the interpretations of the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the Hadith. In Arabic, the term sharīʿah refers to God's immutable divine law and is contrasted with fiqh, which refers to its human scholarly interpretations. The manner of its application in modern times has been a subject of dispute between Muslim fundamentalists and modernists.
The European Court of Human Rights, also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a contracting state has breached one or more of the human rights enumerated in the Convention or its optional protocols to which a member state is a party. The European Convention on Human Rights is also referred to by the initials "ECHR". The court is based in Strasbourg, France.
Public law is the part of law that governs relations between legal persons and a government, between different institutions within a state, between different branches of governments, as well as relationships between persons that are of direct concern to society. Public law comprises constitutional law, administrative law, tax law and criminal law, as well as all procedural law. Laws concerning relationships between individuals belong to private law.
Charles Margrave Taylor is a Canadian philosopher from Montreal, Quebec, and professor emeritus at McGill University best known for his contributions to political philosophy, the philosophy of social science, the history of philosophy, and intellectual history. His work has earned him the Kyoto Prize, the Templeton Prize, the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy, and the John W. Kluge Prize.
Law and economics or economic analysis of law is the application of economic theory to the analysis of law that began mostly with scholars from the Chicago school of economics. Economic concepts are used to explain the effects of laws, to assess which legal rules are economically efficient, and to predict which legal rules will be promulgated. There are two major branches of law and economics. The first branch is based on the application of the methods and theories of neoclassical economics to the positive and normative analysis of the law. The second branch focuses on an institutional analysis of law and legal institutions, with a broader focus on economic, political, and social outcomes. This second branch of law and economics thus overlaps more with work on political institutions and governance institutions more generally.
William Lane Craig is an American analytic philosopher, Christian theologian, Christian apologist, and author. He is Professor of Philosophy at Houston Baptist University and Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology . Craig has updated and defended the Kalam cosmological argument for the existence of God. He has also published work where he argues in favor of the historical plausibility of the resurrection of Jesus. His study of divine aseity and Platonism culminated with his book God Over All. He is a Wesleyan theologian who upholds the view of Molinism and neo-Apollinarianism.
Early modern philosophy is a period in the history of philosophy at the beginning or overlapping with the period known as modern philosophy.
In legal theory, particularly in law and economics, efficient breach is a voluntary breach of contract and payment of damages by a party who concludes that they would incur greater economic loss by performing under the contract.
The margin of appreciation is a legal doctrine with a wide scope in international human rights law. It was developed by the European Court of Human Rights, to judge whether a state party to the European Convention on Human Rights should be sanctioned for limiting the enjoyment of rights. The doctrine allows the Court to reconcile practical differences in implementing the articles of the Convention. Such differences create a limited right, for Contracting Parties, "to derogate from the obligations laid down in the Convention". The doctrine also reinforces the role of the European Convention, as a supervisory framework for human rights. In applying this discretion, European Court judges must take into account differences between domestic laws of the Contracting States as they relate to substance and procedure. The margin of appreciation doctrine contains concepts that are analogous to the principle of subsidiarity, which occurs in the unrelated field of European Union law. The purpose of the margin of appreciation is to balance individual rights with national interests, as well as resolve any potential conflicts. It has been suggested that the European Court should generally refer back to the State's decision, as they are an international court instead of a bill of rights.
Law is a system of rules created and enforced through social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and the art of justice. State-enforced laws can be made by a group legislature or by a single legislator, resulting in statutes; by the executive through decrees and regulations; or established by judges through precedent, usually in common law jurisdictions. Private individuals may create legally binding contracts, including arbitration agreements that adopt alternative ways of resolving disputes to standard court litigation. The creation of laws themselves may be influenced by a constitution, written or tacit, and the rights encoded therein. The law shapes politics, economics, history and society in various ways and serves as a mediator of relations between people.
The Geneva Conventions are four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. The singular term Geneva Convention usually denotes the agreements of 1949, negotiated in the aftermath of the Second World War (1939–1945), which updated the terms of the two 1929 treaties and added two new conventions. The Geneva Conventions extensively define the basic rights of wartime prisoners, established protections for the wounded and sick, and provided protections for the civilians in and around a war-zone; moreover, the Geneva Convention also defines the rights and protections afforded to non-combatants. The treaties of 1949 were ratified, in their entirety or with reservations, by 196 countries. The Geneva Conventions concern only combatants in war; they do not address the use of weapons of war, which are instead addressed by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which concern conventional weapons, and the Geneva Protocol, which concerns biological and chemical warfare.
Professor David Simon Oderberg is an Australian philosopher of metaphysics and ethics based in Britain since 1987. He is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading. He describes himself as a non-consequentialist or a traditionalist in his works. Broadly speaking, Oderberg places himself in opposition to Peter Singer and other utilitarian or consequentialist thinkers. He has published over thirty academic papers and has authored four books, Real Essentialism, Applied Ethics, Moral Theory, and The Metaphysics of Identity over Time. Professor Oderberg is an alumnus of the Universities of Melbourne, where he completed his first degrees, and Oxford where he gained his D.Phil.
Cristina Lafont is Harold H. and Virginia Anderson Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University.
S. Matthew Liao is an American philosopher specializing in bioethics and normative ethics. He is internationally known for his work on topics including children’s rights and human rights, novel reproductive technologies, neuroethics, and the ethics of artificial intelligence. Liao currently holds the Arthur Zitrin Chair of Bioethics, and is the Director of the Center for Bioethics and Affiliated Professor in the Department of Philosophy at New York University. He has previously held appointments at Oxford, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, and Princeton.
Laurence D. Houlgate is an American philosopher, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and former department chair at California Polytechnic State University. He specializes in social ethics, philosophy of law and political philosophy. He was one of the first philosophers in the 20th century to theorize about the moral foundations of children's rights and the ethics of family relationships. After his retirement, Professor Houlgate wrote a popular series of six study guides on the classical philosophers for beginning philosophy students. Houlgate also stood as the Democratic Party candidate for his district in the California State Assembly election of 2000 and California State Assembly election, 2002.
"Necessary in a democratic society" is a test found in Articles 8–11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides that the state may impose restrictions of these rights only if such restrictions are "necessary in a democratic society" and proportional to the legitimate aims enumerated in each article. According to the Council of Europe's handbook on the subject, the phrase is "arguably one of the most important clauses in the entire Convention". Indeed, the Court has itself written that "the concept of a democratic society ... prevails throughout the Convention". The purpose of making such claims justiciable is to ensure that the restriction is actually necessary, rather than enacted for political expediency, which is not allowed. Articles 8–11 of the convention are those that protect right to family life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of association respectively. Along with the other tests which are applied to these articles, the restrictions on Articles 8–11 have been described as "vast limitations", in contrast to American law which recognizes nearly unlimited right to freedom of speech under the First Amendment.
The living instrument doctrine is a method of judicial interpretation developed and used by the European Court of Human Rights to interpret the European Convention on Human Rights in light of present-day conditions. The doctrine was first articulated in Tyrer v. United Kingdom (1978), and has led both to different rulings on certain issues as well as evaluating the human rights implications of new technologies.
Autonomous concepts is a principle in the judicial interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights and European Union law.
Human rights inflation expresses the belief that increasing numbers of human rights are claimed, in particular by commentators who believe that an increasing number of claims will erode the regard for human rights they consider more fundamental. Fears of human rights inflation have been expressed since the mid-twentieth century. Economic and social rights are particularly likely to be cited as examples of human rights inflation.