The Permanent Court of International Justice (1919–1946) may be seen as an unprecedented institutional experiment. Its impact and output have been substantial, and consequently its legacy might equally be called fundamental. This chapter seeks to demonstrate the veracity of the foregoing statements, situating the Court in its contemporary context while building on similar scholarly ventures that were undertaken previously. In contrast to earlier inquiries, the study reflects rather more broadly on the institution’s positioning, especially on how it interacted with the principal organs of the League of Nations. It begins by placing a focus on the Court’s inception, from an idea to fully settled status. Thereafter, the chapter analyses the environment within which the Court functioned, and the interplay with its League interlocutors. Next, a review is undertaken of a series of leading pronouncements, both judgments and advisory opinions, concentrating on those verdicts that have obtained a genuinely enduring value. Drawing from these analyses, an assessment is made of the Court’s overall contribution to the multilateral order against the background of interwar-era politics followed in turn by a brief series of concluding observations.

Litigation makes the European Union’s (EU) legal order work: By claiming their EU rights, private and public actors can argue their case before the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and shape supranational policymaking. This chapter situates EU law litigation in comparative context to answer three questions: Who litigates EU law, who influences ECJ decisions, and with what downstream effects? Leveraging a dataset of 7,353 cases adjudicated by the ECJ, it compares whether well-established litigation patterns in the United States also arise in the EU and uncovers several illuminating patterns. First, EU law litigation is not only driven by resourceful business and trade associations, but also by a surprising abundance of resourceless individuals and a paucity of labor unions and advocacy groups. Second, individuals, labor unions, and trade associations are most effective in influencing the ECJ, but in counterintuitive ways: whereas labor unions and individuals prompt liberalising rulings that restrict national autonomy, trade associations prompt protectionist rulings. Finally, individuals and advocacy groups are better able to attract attention and shape downstream legal debates via litigation than businesses and trade associations. The “haves” are certainly protagonists of EU law litigation, but they are neither the sole nor the most effective protagonists.

One in five Americans struggle with a mental health condition in a given year, yet many struggle with accessing health insurance coverage for its treatment. This chapter examines the ways that health insurance coverage denials and delays contribute to challenges with access to care. Though the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act is meant to ensure comparable treatment in physical and behavioral health care, its goals are not fully realized. Drawing on interviews with patients and mental health professionals, as well as state examinations into health insurers’ parity violations, this chapter highlights the myriad ways that this population may face particular uphill battles in securing coverage for needed treatments. What’s more, physician administrative burden may be particularly pronounced in this setting because psychiatrists are less likely to have staffing to assist with prior authorization. While the case of Wit v. United Behavioral Health highlights the large-scale nature of behavioral health denials, the time required to pursue class action litigation is often infeasible in the setting of a mental health struggle.

This chapter introduces you to tort law. One aim is to equip you with an overview of fundamental torts that will form an integral first step in your learning journey of tort law. In this chapter, we explain important theoretical frameworks that underpin tort law, such as corrective justice, economic efficiency theory, distributive justice and feminist critiques. We also explore the important connection between torts and human rights, along with tort law and the Stolen Generations litigation. Next, the chapter addresses important practical considerations such as litigating a tort claim. Finally, it outlines some key reforms in tort law that impact the law as it operates in modern society, along with statutory schemes that can supplement fault-based tort claims.

This chapter begins by exploring the concept of legitimacy, which the CCP regime seeks to achieve in part through its project of legal construction. It employs official data and primary documents to present multiple aspects of access to justice nominally afforded by the legal system: training of a cadre of legal professionals, provision of institutions for dispute resolution—including mediation, petition, and litigation, establishment of state-sponsored legal aid, and implementation of an official campaign to imbue Chinese citizens with legal consciousness. It concludes with an assessment of China’s model of legal development, reviewing arguments about law and order, order maintenance, pure legality, normative and prerogative aspects of the dual state, and legal dualism. The illiberal system of law is a powerful tool in the hands of the party-state.

Chapter 9 calls the direct sales wars in Tesla’s favor. It has sold over 2 million cars without using a dealer, established a national footprint, and obtained a loyal customer following that vouches for its direct sales approach. This chapter pulls together the fifty-state story of the direct sales wars, showing where each state stands on the issue and how Tesla used creative tactics like locating on Native American lands to circumvent remaining restrictions in holdout states.

Despite Chile’s recent failed attempts at constitutional reform, Indigenous land rights are (still) governed by the much-contested Indigenous Law of 1993 (Law No. 19,253). The land restitution program foreseen in this law is extremely slow and controversial, and the establishment of Indigenous territories (by ordinary law) appears far from reality. At the same time, there are a few recognized Indigenous territories in Chile, and they are constantly faced with a high density of hydro-electric plants, extractivist activities, disproportionate forest and logging exploitation, salmon farming and a growing tourism industry. Over the years, Indigenous Peoples have reacted in different ways to dispossession and encroachment. Driven by frustration, some have assertively occupied their ancestral lands. Others have filed lawsuits and found a more equitable venue to claim their rights in the national courts. Against this background, this chapter analyzes the processes of dispossession faced by Indigenous Peoples in relation to their traditional lands in the north and south of Chile over recent decades, how they contested the titles to ownership and possession of such territories, and the outcomes of their litigation strategies. After the public rejections of constitutional reforms in 2022 and 2023, it remains uncertain how Indigenous land rights will be governed in the coming years or how they will be treated in any potential reforms to Pinochet’s Constitution of 1980. Despite the unfavorable legislative framework, this chapter argues that Indigenous strategic litigation can best advance and support land rights in Chile.

Since independence in 1966, the Republic of Botswana in southern Africa has had a long history of democratic elections. Botswana also has one of the highest populations of San peoples in the region, who have faced discrimination and marginalization for centuries. The San, who consider themselves to be Indigenous Peoples, are not accepted as such by Botswana’s government, which holds that all its citizens are Indigenous. San, who number some 60,000 in Botswana, have faced severe difficulties in getting access to land and natural resources. This chapter describes some of the processes of dispossession that San have faced. While some lands have been set aside as remote area settlements, these areas are not solely for San people. Communal land in the country is alienable, and there are no legal guarantees to land for San and other minorities. The expansion of the livestock, agriculture, tourism and mining industries have also had impacts on San people and their neighbors. San have responded to these situations by organizing non-government organizations (NGOs), lobbying for their rights nationally and internationally, and going to the High Court with legal cases, some of which have been successful. The legal cases involving the Central Kalahari San, in particular, have set international precedents – for example, to the human right to water – which have global relevance. However, the government has not honored many of the High Court judgments, leaving the San in a position where their land and resource rights are still precarious.

Concluding chapter that synthesises the experiences from all the book, and relates these to the Sami land rights journey.

In Malaysia, three ethnic groups identify as “Indigenous Peoples”: the heterogeneous Peninsular Malaysia Orang Asli, natives of Sabah, and natives of Sarawak. Malaysia’s hybrid legal system confers differing constitutional, statutory, and common law rights and privileges to Indigenous Peoples, which present distinct yet shared experiences of their land rights. These Indigenous groups were granted differing levels of constitutional privileges during Malaysia’s constitutional formation, which resulted in divergent written laws for the protection and recognition of their customary lands and resources. These differing laws and histories have functioned to dispossess these communities of their traditional lands, territories, and resources in their own ways. The strategy of litigation has afforded Indigenous communities some recourse for gaps in the written law but common law development of such rights and the court process have equally proven to be a barrier in some cases. Although international commitments to the sustainable management of resources have increased possibilities for the inclusion of Indigenous communities in matters concerning their lands and resources, constitutionally-entrenched legal privileges have yet to translate to the effective protection and recognition of traditional Indigenous lands and resources in Malaysia.

The federal courts ultimately came to the nation’s rescue. In 1794, the Supreme Court abruptly reversed course and decided that federal judges could adjudicate cases arising from captures made by French privateers operating from the United States. British officials were initially skeptical about vindicating their sovereign’s rights through the courts, but they came to embrace litigation as a useful weapon in their global struggle with revolutionary France. French diplomats resented judicial interference with privateering, and they demanded that executive branch officers intervene in proceedings to defend France’s prerogatives under treaty and international law. But the Washington administration refused. The courts, in Thomas Jefferson’s words, were “liable neither to controul nor opposition from any other branch of the Government.” Judges continued to have doubts about their role in resolving international legal disputes, but they came to accept responsibility for establishing American sovereignty. This tale of judicial ascendancy might seem at odds with our usual understanding of the courts as the “least dangerous branch” of the early federal government, but the truth is that American policymakers deliberately sought to make the courts supreme, at least at sea.