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Law and compassion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2017

Dermot Feenan
Dermot Feenan*
Affiliation:
Associate Research Fellow, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London, UK. E-mail: Dermot.Feenan@sas.ac.uk.
*
Dermot.Feenan@sas.ac.uk; dermotfeenan@yahoo.com
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Abstract

This paper provides the first overarching exploration and discussion of the relationship between law and compassion, based on a broad review of law and associated literature. The paper reviews the English-language literature worldwide, identifying and analysing key themes. It lays out a number of themes by which the relationship may be examined, including the problematic of defining compassion, addressing the concept of compassion, its components, to whom it is owed and under what conditions it is owed. The paper reviews how compassion is defined in formal law, including in case-law and legislation across a range of common-law and civil-law countries, and in international human rights and humanitarian law−revealing various judicial and legislative approaches to the place, meaning and application of compassion. The discussion of primary and secondary sources suggests a number of ways of thinking about the place or absence of compassion in law: how it helps theorise law, including its normative presuppositions and the conceptualisation of law. The paper concludes with consideration of possible pathways for future research on law and compassion.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 13 , Special Issue 2: Law and Compassion , June 2017 , pp. 121 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

Thanks to Rebecca O'Rourke, the journal editors and anonymous reviewer; the co-contributors of papers to the special issue that this paper introduces; the American Bar Foundation, which provided a supportive environment to me as Visiting Scholar to conduct some research for the paper, May 2016; Belinda Crothers, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London, for cooperation in hosting the Symposium from which the papers emanate; participants in the Compassion Reading Group, who helped me cultivate some early thoughts; and Daniel Bedford for assistance in organising the Symposium, with regret that he was unable to co-edit the issue. Versions of this paper were presented at the Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, 2016, and the Socio-Legal Studies Association Conference, Lancaster, 2016; and I am grateful to all those there who offered comment.

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