216 research outputs found
A Paradigm Shift?:Arbitration and Court-Like Mechanisms in Investors' Disputes
No full textRecently, several court-like mechanisms have been considered as a substitute for investor-state arbitration. Suggestions for creating such mechanisms have been around for a long time, but new trade agreements may make court-like mechanisms for investors’ disputes a reality. This paper starts by asking whether the shift from arbitration to court-like mechanism is likely to happen and how deep is the change to dispute resolution going to be. The advantages and disadvantages of replacing ad-hoc arbitrators with court-like mechanisms are examined. Courts are more centralized than arbitrators, which gives them the ability to act in a coherent way and consider long-term consequences. However, centralization may imply a greater risk of capture by special interests and could lead to more radical legal developments than the stable system of diverse arbitration. Furthermore, compromise solutions that create numerous competing court-like mechanisms instead of a universal court may escalate the fragmentation of international law
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How to master English as a multilingual ::a guide for students, lawyers and professionals /
No full text"Based on years of experience teaching English to non-native speakers, this insightful How to guide describes not only the particular challenges that multilinguals face compared to native English speakers but also the unique benefits of working in multiple languages. Throughout this engaging and practical book, Shai Dothan explores the mastery of the English language, reflecting on the common problem of perfecting your English whilst also practicing and refining other languages. This book serves as a guide to improving writing styles and presentation skills, especially of non-native English speakers by providing techniques for improved public speaking, reading, and writing. With an accessible approach, chapters teach a wide range of useful skills including how to excel in exams, publish in multiple languages, and develop your 'inner ear'. Designed for multilinguals who wish to improve their English, this guide will be an invaluable and invigorating resource for students and researchers who are seeking to hone their English language skills. It can be used to accompany courses for the improvement of English for students or professionals and can also be read individually as a self-help book. Researchers, students, and professionals working in the field of law should find the book particularly relevant"-
Elites, power struggles, and the law ::how courts support diffuse interests /
No full text"This book challenges Mancur Olson's famous observation that concentrated interests inevitably dominate diffuse ones in democracies by presenting an alternative view that strong, independent courts can effectively protect the rights of diffuse interests against powerful, concentrated groups. Drawing on diverse examples from national and international courts, this book demonstrates how judicial institutions can rebalance democratic power dynamics. The analysis contributes to two fundamental debates in law and social sciences: the competition between diffuse and concentrated interests in democratic systems, and the evolving societal role of courts at both national and international levels. Dothan argues that courts support diffuse interests not due to judges' ideologies, but through structural incentives that make such support strategically beneficial. Even when courts cannot directly help diffuse interests or when their judgments face compliance issues, they still strengthen these groups by providing information and motivation for political engagement. Elites, Power Struggles, and the Law be of interest to scholars and students of socio-legal studies, international law, and comparative law, as well as others with relevant interests in sociology and political science"-- Provided by publisher
Interview with Prof. Kgothatso B. Shai, University of Limpopo, South Africa Afrocentric Epistemology for Social Sciences
No full textKgothatso Shai is a Full Professor of Political Science and the immediate past Head of the Department of Cultural & Political Studies at the University of Limpopo in South Africa. He previously served as President of the South African Association of Political Studies (SAAPS). He is also the incumbent President of the South African Association of Public Administration and Management (SAAPAM), where he is also serving as the founding Editor in Chief of the association’s flagship Book Series. He is a National Research Foundation (NRF)-rated researcher and the author of three academic books. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed and Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET)-accredited journal articles and book chapters. His research interests interweave between African politics, international relations, and the politics of knowledge.
In his interview, Professor Kgothatso Shai talks about Afrocentricity as a central theoretical framework and analytical lens that should be applied in African social sciences. He describes his personal way of implementing Afrocentric approaches and discusses the main scholars of Afrocentricity, representing both the continent and those living outside it. He also talks about his experience of presiding over the South African Association of Political Studies (SAAPS) and the South African Association of Public Administration and Management (SAAPAM), the challenges and prospects of these organizations. The interview also touches on the problem of the knowledge hierarchies in Africa, structured by scientific journals, many of which are published in South Africa
A New Model of Reasoning by Analogy
No full textThe paper suggests a novel methodology for determining the state of legal doctrine on a particular issue by legal scholars. This methodology is inspired by the philosophical field of phenomenology. In particular, the tool of eidetic reduction developed by Edmund Husserl is applied to reach inter-subjectively valid assessments of doctrine. The methodology developed here argues that scholars who wish to discover legal doctrine on a particular issue need to first define general paradigms that explain the relevant legal field. Then, they should develop a hypothesis about the law on the particular issue that concurs with the essential qualities of all these paradigms. Finally, to determine if a hypothesis about the content of the law should be accepted or rejected, it must be checked against legal sources that often include judgments. Reasoning by analogy should be used to learn from judgments with the same policy implications as the doctrine suggested by the hypothesis. The paper offers several heuristics—demonstrated with examples from international law—that can be used to find judgments that have the same policy implications without determining conclusively what these implications are
Law as a Science
No full textThe purpose of this book is to investigate what methods of interpretation and understanding of the law are useful for legal scholarship. The main idea is that legal scholarship needs to regularly make assumptions about the content of the law and about human behavior to better understand legal doctrine. For example, law and economics scholars often assume that people are rational or that the law aspires to efficiency. These assumptions may be untrue, but they can lead to hypotheses about the content of the law that are susceptible to empirical investigation against relevant legal sources. In contrast, conceptual thinking about the essence of the law does not make claims that can be falsified by observing legal sources. The book offers a methodology for examining the state of the law on a specific topic that aspires to be rigorous. It recommends first establishing what are the conflicting paradigms that explain the relevant legal field. These paradigms can serve as assumptions and scholars need to build a hypothesis that complies with all the relevant assumptions. The hypothesis can then be checked against legal sources. If there are relevant judgments on a similar topic, scholars can use reasoning by analogy to test the hypothesis against them, but only if the analogy is grounded in policy reasons. Analogies cannot be used only because legal solutions look conceptually similar. If a hypothesis about the law is confirmed by legal sources, it can be adopted as the best interpretation of the law on a particular point. To demonstrate that every assumption about the law can be contested, the book reviews three basic legal principles: proportionality, consistency, and legal truth. It suggests that such principles are useful assumptions that can lead to good predictions about the content of the law most of the time, but in certain situations, they should be discarded and replaced by other assumptions
The Three Traditional Approaches to Treaty Interpretation: A Current Application to the European Court of Human Rights
No full textMargin of Appreciation and Democracy: Human Rights and Deference to Political Bodies:Introduction to the Symposium Issue
No full textInternational Courts Improve Public Deliberation
No full textThe paper starts with the effects of international courts on the broader public and narrows down to their influence on a small elite of lawyers. Part I suggests that international courts captivate the public imagination, allowing citizens to articulate their rights. Part II demonstrates how governments, parliaments, and national courts around the world interact with international courts in ways that improve public deliberation. Part III studies the global elite of lawyers that work in conjunction with international courts to shape policy. Part IV concludes by arguing that the dialogue fostered between international courts and democratic bodies does, in fact, lead to more vibrant democratic deliberation
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