Quintilian suggests that law be learned in significant part a comicis, from the usages, customs and comedies of everyday life. Starting out from the theatrical and foundational form of a legal dialogue between sovereign and philosopher on pedagogy, the body, letters and images, this chapter examines the fabrication of common law in terms of what the barrister Blount coined as comediography (comœdiographus). In whirl and jig, lawyers and playwrights of comedies share a trajectory from conflict to resolution, disruption to decision, that provides a harmonious conclusion for the audience if not necessarily the actors.

In this chapter, we will discuss how to implement the graph processes we have defined elsewhere in this book. The fundamental implementation obstacle is that for practical applications, the graphs one desires to use can be very large.

The attraction of using artificial intelligence (AI) to support judicial decision-making in the administrative context is obvious, but the considerations used for judicial review of algorithmic decision-making (ADM) ought also to be applied to judicial use of ADM in order to ensure its fair and optimal use. This chapter focuses on the UK experience to argue that five factors should be considered: (1) the potential for a particular area to be technologically justiciable; (2) the definition of a fair procedure and the need to choose the model or form of automation to fit the particular purpose and context of the system; (3) the need for gisting, wherever it is important to provide contestability of the system; (4) the iterative adoption of technology at a macro level, with a proportionate right to individual-level accuracy at the micro level; and (5) the need for safeguards on the use of data from one area in another. The availability of these insights in public law has the capacity to inform our choices, not only in the administrative justice context, but also across the board.

The fifth chapter examines the European Union’s course correction since the late 2000s, which is characterised by a paradigm shift away from market-oriented liberalisation towards a comprehensive security orientation. Empirically, the chapter is dedicated to EU crisis management between 2009 and 2025, examining key events such as the Eurozone crisis, the migration crisis, Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the war in Ukraine. The analysis considers both institutional changes and the development of political narratives and priorities. It identifies a third major transformation of European integration, after those of the 1950s and the 1970s/80s. This change was brought about not by planned reforms, but by crisis-driven adjustments. The new security orientation reflects both the loss of post-Cold War optimism and the realisation that the EU must act in an increasingly dangerous world. While this transformation has strengthened the EU’s ability to survive, questions remain about the democratic legitimacy and effectiveness of the new security architecture.

In conversation with Peters’s Law as Performance, I suggest paying closer attention to dialogue as one central element of performance itself. In this contribution, I analyze the configuration of affective spaces based on the characteristics of dialogue in legal settings, from legislation to inquisitorial cases.

Ignatius Sancho is the subject of a fabulous 1768 portrait by Thomas Gainsborough now in the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. He has also been associated with images by Hogarth, and copies of his business card for his Westminster shop, sometimes attributed to Hogarth, are held in the V&A and the British Museum. This chapter explores Sancho’s relationship to eighteenth-century London’s visual culture not only through images by Gainsborough and Hogarth, but also through Sancho’s own rhetorical style, and the networks and relationships with artist correspondents that emerge through his letters, arguing that Sancho emerges as an agent as well as a subject in eighteenth-century British visual culture.

Judicial independence is an essential part of democracies, based on the division of powers, rule of law, and respect for fundamental rights. In its most simplified version, judicial independence relies on the freedom from (and resilience to) the external and internal influences and pressures that the courts as institutions and judges as justice professionals are constantly subject to. Introducing AI into the judicial system could impact the judicial independence from a wide spectrum of angles: judicial independence can be compromised and shaped by the AI systems, in particular if these systems have been developed by private sector and/or designed by legislative or executive powers. Furthermore, AI systems can do this in much less perceptible ways that are difficult to detect and complicated to prove, for instance through the experts that courts rely on when the case requires specific knowledge or expertise. This chapter focuses on identifying these threats and addressing them in a constructive and solution-oriented manner, without compromising the potential of AI for the justice system.

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.