Chapter 4 examines the changes from 1992 to 2009, a period that was characterised by the end of the Cold War. The focus is on examining how the EU became a politicised actor with increasing public visibility. The study analyses the most important developments of this period chronologically, including the introduction of the euro, the Schengen Agreement, several rounds of enlargement, and the Common Foreign and Security Policy. Both the institutional reforms and their social and political effects are considered. While considerable successes were achieved in economic integration and geographical enlargement, fundamental problems remained unresolved: incomplete institutional structures (especially in monetary and political union), growing social inequalities due to the neoliberal agenda, and a growing democratic deficit. These developments laid the foundations for the crises that were to shake the EU in the following decades. The period exemplifies the tensions between economic integration and political legitimacy, between enlargement and deepening, and between national sovereignty and supranational governance that still characterise European integration today.

This chapter explores the comprehensive Islamic legal and ethical framework for environmental protection and sustainable development. Rooted in the principles of divine unity (Tawhid) and stewardship, Islamic law presents a holistic approach to natural resource management that emphasizes the intrinsic connection between human responsibility and environmental preservation. The text meticulously analyzes Islamic jurisprudential principles governing the protection of fundamental natural resources including water, air, land, animals, and plants.

The research demonstrates that Islamic environmental ethics transcend mere conservation, viewing environmental protection as a spiritual and moral obligation. Key principles include the prohibition of waste, the concept of trust (amanah), and the fundamental right of all creatures to benefit from natural resources. The study highlights how Islamic law prioritizes public interest, ecological balance, and the prevention of harm through sophisticated legal mechanisms.

By examining Quranic injunctions, Prophetic traditions, and Islamic juristic principles, the work provides a nuanced understanding of how Islamic law conceptualizes humanity’s relationship with the natural world. It presents a robust framework for environmental management that balances human needs with ecological sustainability, offering a distinctive perspective on environmental protection rooted in religious ethics and spiritual responsibility.

In this Chapter I argue, contrary to Aquinas and modern day defenders, that capital punishment is unjustified killing. Capital punishment is not required by retributivism, and Aqunas’s arguments defending the practice are unconvincing.

Using tools from translation studies, this chapter seeks to analyse translations of Pindar in both systematic and historical terms. Metre is chosen as an ordering principle because it allows for an easier classification and understanding of various translation strategies that have been deployed (Holmes’ distinction between ‘analogical’, ‘mimetic’, and ‘organic’ strategies for translating metre turns out to be particularly useful here). But the detailed discussion of select translations – by Cowley, Hölderlin, Boeckh, Tycho Mommsen, and a host of more modern translators – automatically leads to other translatorial challenges posed by this poet, (in)famous since antiquity for his grandeur, variety, and difficulty.

The chapter examines some of the multiple and intriguing ways in which Pindar configures and shapes experiences of time, in an attempt to provide a sketch of what we could call ‘Pindaric temporality’. The discussion revolves around the principal temporalities that feature in Pindar’s epinician corpus (human, divine, Hyperborean), laying particular emphasis on their interrelationship and Pindar’s ‘obsession’ with, and positive portrayal of, time. Even though the focus of the chapter is mainly on the victory odes, it also touches on the distinctive temporality of his cult songs.

Pindar is perhaps the most metapoetic of the early Greek poets: his songs constantly refer self-referentially back to their own circumstances, poetics, and the social relationships that they dramatize and exemplify. This chapter examines some typical tropes used by Pindar and (to a lesser extent) other Greek choral poets to reflect on what they as poets and their poems as songs are doing. More broadly, it looks at the metapoetics and implied poetics of early Greek choral song as reflected and systematized in Pindar’s victory odes. The nature of song; the internal form of the poem; the poetics of genre; and the social relationships between poet, audience, and patron that underlie praise poetry are all given brief consideration.

This chapter critiques Judith Jarvis Thomson’s famous defense of abortion by addressing the question of ownership of the mother’s body. It then addresses the question of "vital conflict" cases: cases of abortion in which the mother’s life is in imminent danger.

Impartiality, broadly meaning the absence of bias and according equal treatment before the law, is a foundational element of judicial decision-making around the world. In this chapter, we consider how the goal of judicial impartiality may be either enhanced and supported or undermined by the use of artificial intelligence. Key developments in legal AI include innovations directed toward courts and decision- makers. These may be process-driven – for example, triaging or decision-supporting systems; in the case of pre-trial processes, judges may need to manage technology-facilitated document discovery. AI systems may also be involved in the production of evidence submitted to the court. Finally, courts and judges themselves may be the subjects of AI tools, such as those which identify patterns in decision-making. As this chapter explores, these different uses all have implications for the way that judicial impartiality is enacted and tested.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is influencing many fields around the world, including court practice and procedure. This chapter focuses on AI and the courts in Australia and New Zealand, examining both criminal and civil trial applications. The first section discusses generative AI, technology-assisted review, and automated decision- making; and the second considers the influence of AI on criminal cases, with a focus on child protection and sentencing. AI has many useful applications in this context, however, it should be carefully regulated. In relation to the development of policy and guidelines on AI, Australia and New Zealand courts are only beginning their implementation and may not be as advanced as other jurisdictions, but there is increasing recognition in government and by legal regulatory bodies, and this will be an area of significant policy development over the next decade.

One of the most significant innovations made by the League of Nations was its new disciplinary mechanism against violators of international peace: the instrument of economic sanctions. Instead of going to war to prevent more war, the League would summon the combined material force of its members to exert strong pressure against aggressors. But to implement this procedure, codified in the Covenant’s Article 16, a number of longstanding international legal norms had to be challenged and modified. This chapter examines the legal revolution constituted by the introduction of sanctions by examining debates surrounding C.241, a key League study about the legality of blockade, in 1927. It shows that justifying the use of crippling blockade-style pressure outside of war destabilized the existing laws of war and peace and was more controversial than is usually assumed.