Human Rights and Legal History

Essays in Honour of Brian Simpson

Katherine O'Donovan editor Gerry R Rubin editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

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Human Rights and Legal History cover

This book brings together essays on themes of human rights and legal history, reflecting the long and distinguished career as academic writer and human rights activist of Brian Simpson. Written by colleagues and friends in the United States and Britain, the essays are intended to reflect Simpson's own legal interests. The collection opens with biography of Simpson's academic life which notes his major contribution to legal thought, and closes with an account of his career in the United States and a bibliography of his writings. As a tribute to Simpson's varied interests in the law, the collection is grouped around themes in human rights, legal philosophy, and legal history. The human rights papers are concerned with the history of the right of individual petition to the European Court of Human Rights, and recent successes in which Brian Simpson played a part; the evolution of a transnational common law of human rights; the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the interpretation of the provisions on identity in France and England; the suspension of human rights which would have occurred, had the emergency War Zone Courts scheme been brought into effect during wartime; historical resistance to colonial laws in Papua New Guinea; and the ratio decidendi of the story of the Prodigal Son. Historical themes are found in essays concerned with three nineteenth-century Lord Chancellors; in two essays relating to the fate of the civil jury on either side of the Atlantic which provide a fascinating comparison; in the 'battle of the books' which led to changes in eighteenth-century copyright law; and judicial rivalry between King's Bench and Common Pleas in the early modern period.

... an eclectic collection of the highest quality: a description perhaps that best sums up Brian's output since he first graduated in 1954 from Queen's College Oxford with first class honours. * Legal History *
A particularly refreshing aspect of this edited work is the emphasis, not only on [Simpson's] many illustrious books, but also on his enormous ability as a teacher and human rights activist. * Legal History *
... a Festschrift celebrating the academic and practical fruits of Professor Brian Simpson's long and distinguished legal career. * Legal History *
... Human Rights and Legal History is a very good book indeed. * The Irish Jurist 2001 *
... immaculately edited ... the essays brought together in this collection - each very different but each instructive in its own way - offer a degree of stimulation that constitutes a worthy tribute to Simpson himself and should serve as an incentive to those who care about law and legal scholarship to acquire a copy. * The Irish Jurist 2001 *

ISBN: 9780198264965

Dimensions: 243mm x 163mm x 22mm

Weight: 652g

330 pages