Islamic environmental law presents a comprehensive approach to ecological preservation, grounded in religious principles and ethical responsibilities. This research explores the Islamic legal framework for environmental protection, positioning humans as stewards (khalifa) of nature rather than absolute owners. The study illuminates how Islamic jurisprudence integrates environmental conservation into a holistic system of social and spiritual responsibility. The research examines key institutional mechanisms within Islamic law for environmental management, including land reclamation (Ihia’ Al-Arad Al-Mawat), natural reserves (Al-Hima), protective zones (Al-Harim), and charitable endowments (Al-Waqf). Central to this approach is the principle of prioritizing collective welfare over individual interests, with a strong emphasis on preventing environmental harm and promoting sustainable development. The paper critically analyzes the potential for implementing Islamic environmental principles in contemporary legal frameworks, particularly in Muslim-majority countries. It advocates for a renewed environmental governance model that synthesizes religious ethics, scientific understanding, and proactive institutional strategies to address ecological challenges.

This chapter concludes the book by revisiting its key findings and by reflecting on their meaning from a broader perspective. The first half of the chapter consists of a summary of the rise and fall of the classical doctrine of civil war as explained in the preceding chapters. The second half assesses the overall legacy of the classical doctrine in the light of modern legal theory, and observes how the classical law was hardly better able to overcome the problems of indeterminacy and recognition than current principles are. Yet this does not mean that the classical doctrine would have been meaningless, as its practical utility may have been based precisely on its limited effectiveness and inevitable ambiguity.

Legal futurists have urged judiciaries to experiment with automated legal systems. However, for many aspects of legal systems, there is a common sense that their translation into computation would be inappropriate. The simultaneous malleability of legal systems and prevalence of constitutive practices within them, should lead to a two-level consideration of (1) what aspects of a liberal legal order are crucial, and (2) for those that are crucial, what is lost when that aspect is either partially or fully automated. In legal decision-making, some patterns of action are merely instrumental to achieving ends, while others are essential, or constitutive: the activity should no longer even be considered part of a liberal legal order when the practice ceases. Administrative processes that are simply incidental and instrumental to the legitimate resolution of a case are well primed for automation. Other practices are essential and intrinsically important, and properly resist being converted into machine-readable code. Distinctions between incidental and constitutive, or instrumentally and intrinsically important, aspects of law, should both bound and guide legal automation.

Appearing at the tail end of this volume, I begin with a brief meditation on the coda. A (musical) ending, the vulgar form of cauda (tail or privy member), figure of our fallen state, the coda may also be a whip or goad to inspiration or even exaltation. Attempting to turn my posterior position to good ends, I have, in the place of an ending, used the chapters here as provocations and inspirations. Recognizing in them a more expansive account of legal performance than my own, I point to how they unbind law and performance from the rigid definitional strictures on which I have relied, how they challenge the boundaries between text and performance, performance and law, law and world, world and fiction (the veritas falsa of theatre and the falsitas verus of law), how they show the methodological Über-Ich (with its rules and dogmas) to be unseated by an ontological Id that scoffs at its laws. That force – like the comedic cauda in the courtroom – answers legal solemnities with impudent laughter and other “minor jurisprudences of refusal,” creating heterotopias, wild zones, rehearsals for alternative futures.

Can AI adjudicative tools in principle better enable us to achieve the rule of law by replacing judges? This chapter argues that answers to this question have been excessively focused on ‘output’ dimensions of the rule of law – such as conformity of decisions with the applicable law – at the expense of vital ‘process’ considerations such as explainability, answerability, and reciprocity. These process considerations do not by themselves warrant the conclusion that AI adjudicative tools can never, in any context, properly replace human judges. But they help bring out the complexity of the issues – and the potential costs – that are involved in this domain.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has started to make its way into Spanish court practice, especially in criminal justice. Furthermore, this trend has been accompanied by two new regulations: the EU AI Act, the world’s first comprehensive law on the topic, and the Spanish Royal Decree-Law No. 6 of 2023. At present, there are already several AI-based tools used by Spanish courts and the application of them proves highly beneficial, in particular in certain areas of criminal justice. Nevertheless, AI use can pose serious problems related to conflict with different fundamental rights of the accused. Therefore, its use should be considered with great caution.

Artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly intersects with judicial processes, raising new challenges for courts and judges. One significant concern linked to this development is the ability of judges and court personnel to understand, evaluate, and critically engage with AI systems. The EU Artificial Intelligence Act adopted in 2024 addresses this directly, requiring public bodies using AI to ensure their staff possess a ‘sufficient level of AI literacy’. This chapter argues that enhancing AI competence among judges and court personnel is essential to safeguarding the right to a fair trial, legal certainty, and the rule of law in an increasingly digitalised legal environment. After providing a brief overview of AI literacy obligations in the EU AI Act, the chapter offers insights into how national judicial training institutions could integrate AI literacy into their curricula.

In Sections 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3, we defined graph versions of the Allen–Cahn equation, MBO scheme, and MCF respectively. It was first speculated in Van Gennip et al. (2014) that these dynamics on graphs might be related.

Sancho’s Letters begins with an extensive list of “Subscribers Names,” crediting 1,181 individuals who financed the book as a source of funds for Sancho’s widow and children. This chapter examines that list and the process of publishing “by subscription,” highlighting Sancho’s differences from other 1782 subscription publications and the later Black British authors Olaudah Equiano and Ottobah Cugoano. In Sancho’s list, the variety of honorifics associated with each name reveal that the book’s supporters came from a broad spectrum of social ranks – and that a strikingly high percentage of them were women. Several specific individuals are discussed to illustrate the motives of Sancho’s subscribers: patronage and clout; friendship and philanthropy; and abolitionist politics. Despite the later embrace of Sancho’s book by abolitionists, this chapter contends that its subscriber list is more strongly shaped by a sentimental literary milieu and the social ties of the book’s editor.

This chapter deals with Nuer Protestant hymnody and explains how and why various Nuer Christian groups came to adopt different musical styles and aesthetics. The chapter sketches the history of Nuer hymnody, starting from the colonial period and the work of missionaries, through the development of a large corpus of hymns by Nuer Protestants, to the Pentecostalisation of Nuer church music in recent decades. It then discusses the ways in which Adventists and Messianics responded to the latter process with their own sonic practices and compositions. The chapter shows how different musical styles were grounded in different understandings of the ways in which the divine is made present and different views of the sensibilities and dispositions a born-again must cultivate. It also argues, however, that these styles and aesthetics constantly evolved and were the subject of ongoing conversations and debates that, like Bible Study and Christian literacy, were central to the endless project of born-again subjectivation.

This chapter concludes the historical story arc of the book by identifying the final surrender of the classical doctrine of civil war in international law during the twentieth century. First, it examines the rise of the concept of non-international armed conflicts in the work of the International Committee of the Red Cross and its breakthrough in the Geneva Conference of 1949. As the conference rejected the option of framing Common Article 3 in the conceptual language of the classical doctrine, it in fact abandoned the classical law of civil war by choice. The chapter then shows that many international lawyers soon realised the significance of the event, but notes how the classical concepts nevertheless continued to persist in academic writings, especially in Europe. Finally, the chapter discusses the meetings of the Institut de droit international in 1973 and 1975, where academic lawyers as well accepted the end of the classical doctrine.

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into judicial decision-making presents both opportunities and challenges, particularly in balancing legal certainty and judicial discretion. While AI-driven tools are designed to enhance consistency and efficiency, their growing influence may subtly reshape judicial reasoning, potentially narrowing judicial discretion. This chapter examines how algorithmic recommendations – rather than merely assisting adjudication – can become dominant reference points, steering judicial outcomes toward standardisation over case-specific interpretation. Drawing on empirical psychological research, behavioural law, and economics, and the works of Richard Posner, Aharon Barak, and other legal theorists, the chapter explores the psychological mechanisms underlying this shift, particularly phenomena known as ‘automation bias’ and the ‘anchoring effect’, which may unconsciously influence judicial decision-making. The analysis highlights these psychological and structural challenges, inviting reflection on how AI-driven legal certainty impacts judicial discretion and the space for individualised legal reasoning in modern adjudication.