In this chapter I consider the moral status of radically impaired persons, such as those in a persistent vegetative state. Drawing on earlier arguments in the book, I show that human beings in such states retain their personal nature and entitlement to immunity from intentional killing.

This article offers an assessment of the current state of scholarship on animal ethics in Islam. It first discusses a group of texts that share the preoccupation of demonstrating the superiority of Islam’s animal teachings, thus exhibiting a clearly apologetic tone. Then it turns to the debate on animal ethics in Western academia. By raising challenging questions, the latter holds the promise of delving deeper into the subject, but at its current stage much of it is still hampered by factual inaccuracies and methodological flaws. In conclusion, the article explains why the subject of animal ethics in Islam is particularly deserving of careful study.

The classical doctrine of civil war had a second coming in the scholarly writings of international lawyers. This began in the 1890s around the time of the Chilean and Brazilian naval revolts and the Spanish-American War of 1898. Members of the new cosmopolitan profession of international lawyers sought to formulate a branch of international law to manage the phenomenon of civil war, combining the elements of belligerent recognition, recognition of insurgency, the laws of war, intervention, and state responsibility. Doing so, they produced something of a francophone synthesis of the classical doctrine of civil war at the turn of the century. This chapter explores the gradual process of this synthesis, from the writings of Carlos Wiesse and Antoine Rougier to the work of the Institut de droit international. However, it then concludes with an overview of the great disillusionment of the 1930s and shows how the legal debates during the Spanish Civil War laid bare the bankruptcy of the classical doctrine.

This chapter focuses on AI and its impact on transparency in judicial decision-making. Transparency is one of the core values of the rule of law, and essential for maintaining the trust and accountability of the judiciary and justice system as a whole. Drawing upon semi-structured expert interviews with members of judiciary and legal profession, case law and real-life examples of AI tools, the chapter considers four questions: why transparency matters in the context of judicial decision-making; the information that judges must have and communicate to satisfy the demands of transparency; whether they have access to this information; and, if not, what we might do about this deficit. We argue that two complementary solutions can strengthen judicial transparency in the age of AI: (1) a regulatory framework that mandates disclosure of specific information pertaining to the code and variables used in AI tools; and (2) robust use of the due process duty to provide adequate reasons for a judicial decision that depends upon the output of a predictive tool. These steps are essential to reconcile judicial use of AI with the need for transparency, as a foundational aspect of justice and rule of law.

Ignatius Sancho is largely known for a collection of his letters that were published by his friend after his death. Less well known is the fact that he holds the distinction of being the first published Black composer in Britain known to historians. In contrast to most of his letters, Sancho chose to write and publish at least one book of vocal music and four books of instrumental music over a period of thirteen years. In exploring the meanings of music in Sancho’s life through both production and consumption, this chapter argues that no one aspect of Sancho’s identity can be understood apart from his work in music. Music for Sancho was many things, including a personal avocation, a means of profit, and a vehicle for communicating his political opinions and honoring his friends and family. First and foremost, however, it was a sociable practice and a communal experience.

In this chapter I respond to the claim that medical assistance in dying (physician-assisted suicide, euthanasia) is justified if refusal or withdrawal of life-sustaining care is. I conclude with a reflection on the importance of a norm against intentional killing to the medical profession

The present volume focuses closely on the constituents of performing law in its transitive and mobile enactments both inside and outside the courthouses where trials are staged. Working with actors, dancers, musicians, and lawyers, Performing Law provides a novel approach to the dramatics of justice, the theatre of veridiction, through analysis of the elements of its manifestation in architectural, artistic, corporeal, choreographic, filmic, and dance modalities of relay of legal action in the public sphere. These include the stage directions that legal doctrine provides to legal actors, the masks worn, the affective spaces created, the phantasms of interior and exterior, desire and terror, resistance and laughter that perform the long neglected media of the auditory and visual transmission of law as a form of life.

In this chapter I argue that God’s love and goodness make it impossible for him either to intend the evil of human death or to delegate the authority to take a human life. This concludes my argument for the absolute norm against intending death.

This chapter investigates why people join pro-oil campaigns. Attending to the case study of Canada’s Energy Citizens (CEC), the chapter argues that the campaign’s early stages relied on personal connections between members as much as fealty to a political cause. The fledgling campaign mobilized staff’s friends and coworkers, who joined as a show of collegial support. These bonds were solidified by shared feelings of precarity, with members believing that their own livelihoods and communities were dependent on the largesse of oil companies. It was the threat of losing their way of life – or more exactly, the perception that their way of life was under attack from environmentalists and legislators –that kept pro-oil campaigners mobilized. Joiners’ enthusiasm for supporting industry was often tempered by feelings of risk, however, as they worried about how becoming the face of Big Oil might affect their employability or personal relationships. Joiners also critiqued CEC’s focus on civility, which they believed undercut the effectiveness of the campaign.

International human rights courts and treaty bodies are increasingly turning to automated decision-making (ADM) technologies to expedite and improve their review of individual complaints. These tribunals have yet to consider many of the legal, normative, and practical issues raised by the use of different types of automation technologies for these purposes. This chapter offers an initial assessment of the benefits and challenges of introducing ADM into international human rights adjudication. We weigh up the benefits of introducing these tools to improve international human rights adjudication – which include greater speed and efficiency in processing and sorting cases, identifying patterns in jurisprudence, and enabling judges and staff to focus on more complex responsibilities – against two types of cognitive biases – biases inherent in the datasets on which ADM is trained, and biases arising from interactions between humans and machines. We also introduce a framework for enhancing the accountability of ADM tools that mitigates the potential harms caused by automation technologies in this context.

Chapter 15 provides a biographical analysis of Manley O. Hudson’s role as a networker between the League of Nations and American elites during the interwar period. As a professor at Harvard Law School, Hudson played a pivotal role in advancing the League’s agenda in the United States. Through his extensive travels and engagements with American elites, Hudson circulated information, offered advice, and forged connections that helped to shape the American perspective on international law. The chapter examines how Hudson’s life and profession shaped his development into a prominent figure in a transatlantic network formed around the League of Nations system. Drawing on Hudson’s private papers and other archives, the chapter situates his intellectual and professional work within its social and historical context. By exploring Hudson’s intersecting roles as practitioner, advocate, and academic, we gain insight into his evolution as a leading American international lawyer. This examination allows us to understand the self-perception and worldview of one of the key figures in the development of international law and the complex relationship between the League and the United States. The chapter contributes to the trend in international and transnational history that uses biography to portray transnational spaces and experiences beyond national frameworks.

Say an AI program passes a Turing test because it can converse in a way indistinguishable from a human. And say that its developers can then teach it to converse – and even present an extended persuasive argument – in a way indistinguishable from the sort of human we call a ‘lawyer’. The program could thus become an AI brief-writer, capable of regularly winning brief-writing competitions against human lawyers. If and when that happens, this chapter argues, the same technology can be used to create AI judges, judges that we should accept as no less reliable than human judges, and more cost-effective. If the software can create persuasive opinions, capable of regularly winning opinion-writing competitions against human judges, we should accept it as a judge, even if the opinions do not stem from human judgment.