Featured Acquisitions

Courting Failure: How School Finance Lawsuits Exploit Judges' Good Intentions and Harm Our Children edited by Eric A. Hanushek
Stanford, Calif. : Education Next Books, 2006
LB2825 .C65 2006 Basement

Courting Failure examines the issues involved in school funding adequacy in light of recent court cases and shows that judicial actions regarding school finance—related to either equity or adequacy—have not had a beneficial effect on student performance. The expert contributors explain why low achievement is not inevitable for disadvantaged students and why school resources are not the dominant factor in whether students "beat the odds." They show that cost studies on the price of an adequate education turn out to be more politics than science. And they tell how many districts often do not spend the funds they have in the manner need.

These well-researched essays reveal that simply throwing more resources at the problem has not brought about a solution-because measures of school resources do not provide guidance about either the current quality of schools or the potential for improving them. The expert contributors call for more realistic changes centered around accountability, incentives, and more informed parents and policymakers.

The Institutional Framework of European Private Law edited by Fabrizio Cafaggi
Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2006
KJE995 .I57 2006 Annex 3

This volume explores the relationship between constitutional and regulatory questions on the one hand, and private law on the other hand, examining how European private law has developed under the influence of regional legal traditions and the EU acquis communautaire. It focuses on the multiple actors and institutions that today contribute to legal and cultural integration within a multi-level framework, involving Member States and subnational actors together with EU Institutions. It underlines the different roles of legislators, regulators and judges in building an integrated market which is consistent with fundamental rights and social policies. It also highlights the principles and institutions that may preserve national legal identities in the context of European legal and political integration, striking a difficult balance between harmonization and differentiation.

Within this framework the volume questions the current boundaries of European private laws and proposes a coordinated perspective which examines competition, regulation and private law alike. The book focuses in particular on competition and consumer law, and on tort and regulation. Attention is also drawn to the strategic role to be played by private international law. It is argued that the distinction between private and public law should be redefined by acknowledging a new balance between public institutions and private parties.

The collection contains several proposals for furthering the process of Europeanization of private law without losing the richness of existing western legal traditions as they have developed in previous centuries. It calls on European and national institutions to involve practitioners in devising new patterns of legal integration and in transforming European legal education.

In the Wake of Slavery: Civil War, Civil Rights, and the Reconstruction of Southern Law by Joseph A. Ranney
Westport, Conn. : Praeger Publishers, 2006
KF4541 .R37 2006 Balcony

The Civil War devastated the South, and the end of slavery turned Southern society upside down. How did the South regain social, economic, and political stability in the wake of emancipation and wartime destruction, and how did the South come together with its former enemies in the North? Why did the South not slip back into chaos? This book holds the keys to the answers to these tantalizing questions.Author Joseph Ranney explodes the myth of a unified South and exposes just how complex and fragile the postwar recovery was. The end of slavery and the emergence of a radically new social order raised a host of thorny legal issues: What place should newly freed slaves have in Southern society? What was the proper balance between states' rights and a newly powerful federal government? How could postwar economic distress be eased without destroying property rights? Should new civil rights be extended to women as well as blacks? Southern states addressed these issues in surprisingly different ways.

Ranney also shatters the popular myth that a new legal system was imposed upon the South by the victorious North during Reconstruction. Southern states took an active hand in shaping postwar changes, and Southern courts often defended civil rights and national reunification against hostile Southern legislators. How did that come about? Ranney provides some surprising answers. He also profiles judges and other lawmakers who shaped Southern law during and after Reconstruction, including heretofore little-known black leaders in the South. These extraordinary individuals created a legal heritage that assisted leaders of the second civil rights revolution a century after Reconstruction ended. This book adds immeasurably to our knowledge not only of Southern history, but also of American legal and social history.

More Than the Law: Behavioral and Social Facts in Legal Decision Making by Peter W. English and Bruce D. Sales
Washington, DC : American Psychological Association, c2005
KF385 .E54 2005 Balcony

Complex legal issues often involve contested facts that require expert knowledge. In such cases, legal decision makers look to experts from fields as diverse as the behavioral, social, biomedical, or physical sciences to help settle disputes.

More Than the Law provides a fascinating and accessible introduction for students and other readers to the ways in which behavioral and social knowledge can and should inform legal decisions, as well as ways in which such knowledge can be misused. Eleven different stories are presented, highlighting major legal decisions such as mandatory testing for drug use in schools, abortion, use of the death penalty, and jury selection, among others.

Chapters include a presentation of each decision and an analysis that critically explores the behavioral and social facts relevant to the case. Through these stories, students will discover the complexities and problems that can result from the application of behavioral science to legal decisions. Behavioral and social science experts will come to understand the special duty they bear to provide legal decision makers with the most accurate information available. And empirical researchers will recognize vast opportunities for research that could have a real impact in the courts, legislatures, and administrative agencies. This exceptional book fills a gap in the field of legal studies, offering a sophisticated examination of the use of behavioral and social science facts in judicial, legislative, and administrative determinations.

Dead Wrong: Violence, Vengeance, & the Victims of Capital Punishment by Richard A. Stack, Foreward by Rob Warden
Westport, Conn. : Praeger, 2006
HV8699.U5 S48 2006 Basement

Attitudes toward the death penalty have changed dramatically throughout the course of history, evolving from times when public executions were occasions of solemn and pious ritual to excuses for raucous entertainment, and finally to the modern era of private, bureaucratized, mechanized, and sanitized executions that are out of sight and out of mind. Conforming thus to modern sensibilities, state-sanctioned killing is somehow more acceptable to us than public hangings would have been, because we can imagine that the inmate's death is relatively painless, and not in violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against "cruel and unusual" punishment. This may or may not be true; Stack presents compelling arguments to the contrary. What is certain is that Dead Wrong demonstrates beyond a doubt that death row is itself a form of psychological torture and of slow, painful dehumanization.

Experts in Court: Reconciling Law, Science, and Professional Knowledge by Bruce D. Sales and Daniel W. Shuman
Washington, DC : American Psychological Association, c2005
KF8965 .S25 2005 Balcony

Experts in Court examines the use of expert testimony across the legal system, including the unique issues faced by mental health professionals when they are called upon to serve as expert witnesses. Lawyers and judges often fear that mental health professionals' testimony is purely experiential and not based on objective criteria or a demonstrable scientific foundation.

Through the use of ground-breaking court rulings, Sales and Shuman explain the scrutiny that psychologists will need to use to survive admissibility determinations under new and evolving rules of evidence. Their skillful and detailed analysis of these rulings show how the standards of admissibility for expert testimony have changed and how they have altered the relationships among judges, juries, experts, and lawyers.

The book carefully reveals the evolution of laws regarding evidence admissibility, the requirements established by specific court rulings for scientific and non-scientific expert testimony, and the new rules for the submission of psychological expertise in court. It also explains how the law can use experts more effectively and how their behavior serves or complicates the goals of the rules of evidence. Finally, the authors propose a research agenda, designed to foster a better understanding of the attitudes and practices of trial courts concerning rules of evidence and expert testimony.

EU Law and the Welfare State: In Search of Solidarity edited by Grainne de Burca
Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2005
KJE3431 .E9 2005 Annex 3

This collection of essays addresses a topical subject of current importance, namely the impact of the EU on national welfare state systems. The volume aims to question the perception that matters of social welfare remain for Member States of the EU to decide, and that the EU's influence in this field is minor or incidental.

The Strange Case of Hellish Nell: The Story of Helen Duncan and the Witch Trial of World War II by Nina Shandler
Cambridge, MA : Da Capo Press, 2006
KD371.W56 S53 2006 Basement

On March 23, 1944, as the Allied Forces were preparing for D-Day, Helen Duncan--"Nell" to her six children and four grandchildren and "Hellish Nell" to her detractors--stood in the dock of Britain's highest criminal court accused of:witchcraft! At the time of her arrest, Helen Duncan was Britain's most controversial psychic, a celebrity medium with a notorious reputation. During her seances, she channeled spirits who spoke from the world beyond, and on a few occasions, her "spirit" seemed to know too much: Helen's seances were accurately revealing top-secret British ship movements. Intelligence authorities wanted "Hellish Nell" silenced. Using diaries, personal papers, interviews, and declassified documents, Nina Shandler resurrects this strange episode and explores the unanswered questions surrounding the trial: Did "Hellish Nell" channel spirits of the dead who gave away wartime secrets? Was she a calculating charlatan or the innocent target of obsessive wartime secrecy? Why did the Director of Public Prosecutions try her as a witch, and not a spy? Sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, The Strange Case of Hellish Nell is a true crime tale laced with psychic phenomena and wartime intrigue.

Global Justice: The Politics of War Crimes Trials by Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu
Westport, Conn. : Praeger Security International, c2006
KZ1190 .M64 2006 Sohn

After a controversial war in which he was ousted and captured by United States forces, Saddam Hussein was arraigned before a war crimes tribunal. Slobodan Milosevic died midway through his contentious trial by an international war crimes tribunal at The Hague. Calls for intervention and war crimes trials for the massacres and rapes in Sudan's Darfur region have been loud and clear, and the United States remains fiercely opposed to the permanent International Criminal Court. Are war crimes trials impartial, apolitical forums? Has international justice for war crimes become an entrenched aspect of globalization?

In Global Justice, Moghalu examines the phenomenon of war crimes trials from an unusual, political perspective--that of an "anarchical" international society. He argues that, contrary to conventional wisdom, war crimes trials are neither motivated nor influenced solely by abstract notions of justice. Instead, war crimes trials are the product of the interplay of political forces that have led to an inevitable clash between globalization and sovereignty on the sensitive question of who should judge war criminals. From Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm to the Japanese Emperor Hirohito, from the trials of Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, and Charles Taylor to Belgium's attempts to enforce the contested doctrine of "universal jurisdiction," Moghalu renders a compelling tour de force of one of the most controversial subjects in world politics. He argues that, necessary though it was, international justice has run into a crisis of legitimacy. While international trials will remain a policy option, local or regional responses to mass atrocities will prove more durable.

Law in Public Health Practice edited by Richard A. Goodman, et al.
Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2007
KF3775 .L384 2007 Balcony

Continually changing health threats, technologies, science, and demographics require that public health professionals have an understanding of law sufficient to address complex new problems as they come into being. Law in Public Health Practice, Second Edition provides a thorough review of the legal basis and authorities for the core elements of public health practice and solid discussions of existing and emerging high-priority areas where law and public health intersect.

As in the previous edition, each chapter is authored jointly by experts in law and public health. The second edition features three completely new chapters, with several others thoroughly revised and updated. New chapters address such topics as the statutory bases for US public health systems and practice, the judiciary role in public health, and chronic disease prevention and control. The chapter on public health emergencies has also been fully revised and rewritten to take into account both the SARS epidemic of 2003 and the events of the Fall of 2001. The chapter discusses subsequent changes in federal and state laws involving consequence management of public health emergencies. Other fully revised chapters include those on genomics, injury prevention, identifiable health information, and ethics in the practice of public health.

The book begins with a section on the legal basis for public health practice, including foundations and structure of the law, discussions of the judiciary, ethics and practice of public health, and criminal law and international considerations. The second section focuses on core public health applications and the law, and includes chapters on legal counsel for public health practitioners, legal authorities for interventions in public health emergencies, and considerations for special populations. The third section discusses the law in controlling and preventing diseases, injuries, and disabilities. This section includes chapters on genomics, vaccinations, foodborne illness, STDs, reproductive health, chronic disease control, tobacco use, and occupational and environmental health.

The Canon of American Legal Thought edited by David Kennedy and William W. Fisher III
Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c2006
KF380 .C36 2006 Balcony

This anthology presents, for the first time, full texts of the twenty most important works of American legal thought since 1890. Drawing on a course the editors teach at Harvard Law School, the book traces the rise and evolution of a distinctly American form of legal reasoning. These are the articles that have made these authors--from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., to Ronald Coase, from Ronald Dworkin to Catherine MacKinnon--among the most recognized names in American legal history.

These authors proposed answers to the classic question: "What does it mean to think like a lawyer--an American lawyer?" Their answers differed, but taken together they form a powerful brief for the existence of a distinct and powerful style of reasoning--and of rulership. The legal mind is as often critical as constructive, however, and these texts form a canon of critical thinking, a toolbox for resisting and unravelling the arguments of the best legal minds. Each article is preceded by a short introduction highlighting the article's main ideas and situating it in the context of its author's broader intellectual projects, the scholarly debates of his or her time, and the reception the article received.

The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations by Paul Kennedy
New York : Random House, c2006
JZ4984.5 .K46 2006 Annex 3

The signing of the United Nations Charter in 1945 was an unprecedented development in the history of humankind. For the first time, the world’s most powerful sovereign nation states came together to create an autonomous organization designed to, in the Charter’s words, “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war [and] reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights.” Sixty years later, the UN still doggedly pursues that mandate, albeit not without difficulty and certainly not without criticism.

In The Parliament of Man, the distinguished scholar Paul Kennedy gives a thorough and timely history of the United Nations that explains the institution’s roots and functions while also casting an objective eye on the UN’s effectiveness as a body and on its prospects for success in meeting the challenges that lie ahead.

Building on expertise he gained in drafting official reports for the UN’s fiftieth anniversary on how to improve the organization’s performance, Kennedy makes sense of the many commissions and committees, and how its six main operating bodies–General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council (UNESCO), Trusteeship Council, Secretariat, and International Court–operate and interact. Citing examples from the UN’s history, he shows how the five permanent members of the Security Council–the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, China, and France–on numerous occasions overcame political antagonisms to spearhead military supervision of aid in humanitarian crises, and how lack of cooperation among the great powers has hamstrung such initiatives as the control of greenhouse gas emissions and exacerbated the deleterious effects of globalization on developing nations’ economies.

As a body, the UN emerges here for what it is: fallible, human-based, oftentimes dependent on the whims of powerful national governments or the foibles of individual senior UN administrators, but utterly indispensable. In The Parliament of Man, Kennedy ably proves that “it is difficult to imagine how much more riven and ruinous our world of six billion people would be if there had been no UN social, environmental, and cultural agendas–and no institutions to attempt to put them into practice on the ground.”