Pakistan is one of the few countries worldwide whose Constitution does not explicitly address the environment. The higher courts have filled the vacuum by turning to the constitutional right to dignity, which the Constitution says is ‘inviolable’, as the basis for improving environmental outcomes to water, sanitation, and a stable climate, to name a few. This paper hazards an explanation as to the judicial reasoning behind this development. It posits that Pakistan takes the idea of dignity under law so seriously as to embrace environmental matters. In recent years, the courts have increasingly recognised the links between environmental protection and the enjoyment of human rights, including in particular, the human right to dignity. This article maintains that this is a positive development. As a conceptual matter, attention to human dignity foregrounds the impacts on human beings of environmental decisions, including decisions that contribute towards addressing climate change issues. It requires courts to address the ways in which those decisions diminish the ability of people to manage their own lives, often in ways that disproportionately affect those who are already the most vulnerable and marginalised.

This chapter charts the origins of the classical law of civil war. It observes the doctrine’s roots in the old Roman ius gentium and argues that the classical doctrine itself was born in the early modern period alongside the European colonial empires and the Westphalian understanding of the law of nations. The chapter then illustrates this process by examining in detail the impact of insurgent prize jurisdictions and belligerent counter-revolutionary actions on foreign diplomacy during the Dutch Revolt (1566–1648) and the English Civil War (1642–1651).In light of these events, the chapter summarises the key doctrinal developments of the law of civil war in the writings of Grotius, Gentili, and their contemporaries, and the crystallisation of the classical doctrine of civil war in Emer de Vattel’s Droit des gens. The chapter concludes here, having set the scene for the legal debates of the age of revolutions.

This chapter examines key ideas concerning the dialect and metre in which Pindar’s poems were written, as well as the story of the transmission of his works from his day, through antiquity and the Middle Ages, then down to our own times.

Using the case study of the American Petroleum Institute’s citizen mobilization efforts, this chapter explores how the largest U.S.-based oil trade group came to embrace, for the first time, a constant and preemptive mode of citizen mobilization. Through interviews with API staff and analysis of campaign materials, the chapter traces the Institute’s efforts to build a predictable support base for the industry, identifying backers ready to fight on the sector’s behalf as new issues or projects become politically controversial. This “citizen reserve” has become an influential model of mobilization, allowing oil companies to vie for short-term legislative wins and the industry’s long-term repute.

Chapter 4 shows how novels engaged with narratives of racial coherence as Cuban slavery came to an end. Because of their ability to construct clashing voices, bring them into a tense truce via free indirect discourse, and engage the reader’s own knowing and refusal to know, novels were uniquely poised to stage racial passing. The chapter puts the first novel published by a Cuban of African descent, Martín Morúa Delgado’s Sofía (1892), in dialogue with two others: Cirilo Villaverde’s Cecilia Valdés (1882) and Ramón Meza’s Carmela (1887). As Sofía shows, white identities were secured through hypocrisy and cynicism – an open secret that Villaverde and Meza had not fully acknowledged. In this way, the chapter traces the conditions of possibility for passing-as-open-secret. While in the United States passing is generally understood as a divergence between the private and public identities of a given subject – the public one being perceived as a deception that serves to hide the private one – these novels delved into situations in which this divergence was willfully ignored, and in which white identity was not invalidated by the perception of fraud.

This chapter explains how the oil sector’s citizen mobilization ends up being commandeered by registered lobbyists, who use their manufactured publics to speak to politicians and regulators. Examining the case of the Keystone XL pipeline in Nebraska, the chapter explores how state government developed an array of forums for hearing citizen sentiment about the proposed project. The chapter shows that although pro- pipeline groups attracted a robust base of support, they leveraged their memberships to allow oil lobbyists to speak on behalf of citizens in these new government forums. By claiming to represent a public, pro-pipeline groups’ paid lobbyists were afforded a right to speak in meetings, hearings, and online spaces intended for everyday people. This, the chapter argues, is a main strategic driver behind the formation of many contemporary pro-oil groups.

The media tends to portray a European Union lurching from one crisis to the next. And in this brief history I have had plenty to say about problems, dangers, risks, and threats in the decades-long process of European integration. The founders were well aware of this aspect. Jean Monnet always believed that ‘Europe would be built through crisis, and that it would be the sum of their solutions’. Indeed, the European Union – as the European Communities before it – does seem to have a knack for turning crises to its advantage. Rather than leading to any kind of reversal, challenges have tended to reorient and expand the European project. So, we should not get carried away by excitable headlines, which often fail to do justice to the EU’s complex and sometimes contradictory trajectory.

Integrating algorithmic tools into judicial systems prompts critical questions on public trust, due process, and fairness, alongside inherent risks of the pursuit of ‘technical fix’. In response to growing demands for transparency and consistency, Taiwan has introduced algorithmic and AI-powered sentencing tools, representing significant steps toward reforming sentencing practices and improving judicial accountability. However, their implementation has encountered formidable challenges, including low adoption rates, judicial misunderstandings, algorithmic biases, and insufficient regulatory frameworks. This chapter explores these issues within Taiwan’s historical and legal context, providing an in-depth analysis of empirical data and judicial practices. By situating Taiwan’s experience within the global discourse on AI in judicial systems, the chapter illuminates the complexities of integrating AI into a civil law tradition while striving to maintain judicial independence. Taiwan’s approach offers insights for jurisdictions worldwide, contributing to broader discussions on leveraging AI to enhance justice without compromising foundational legal principles and values.

This chapter analyses the first two decades of European integration from 1950 to 1969, a period marked by ambitious plans, spectacular setbacks, and unexpected successes. Starting with the foundation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951, the study examines how a complex system of supranational and intergovernmental institutions developed from modest beginnings. It shows that early integration was characterised less by a master plan than by pragmatic compromises and the external constraints of the Cold War. While the failure of the European Defence Community in 1954 showed the limits of supranational ambitions, the Treaties of Rome of 1957 proved to be surprisingly dynamic. The European Economic Community in particular developed into the centre of gravity of integration. One central outcome of this was the realisation that the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), originally only an appendage to market integration, became the ‘green heart’ of the Community. Despite fundamental approval, people in Europe largely lacked concrete knowledge about the Communities. The chapter shows that in this phase the EC was still one of many international organisations: its later dominance was by no means predetermined.