This year's volume covers topics such as military detention, English criminal law, terrorism, democracy, human rights, civil liberties, the media and international law, family law, child welfare, health, feminism, economic theory, corporate law, competition regulation, contract law, biotechnology, biodiversity and more.

In international law, as in any other legal system, respect and protection of human rights can be guaranteed only by the availability of effective judicial remedies. When a right is violated or damage is caused, access to justice is of fundamental importance for the injured individual and it is an essential component of the rule of law. Yet, access to justice as a human right remains problematic in international law. First, because individual access to international justice remains exceptional and based on specific treaty arrangements, rather than on general principles of international law; second, because even when such right is guaranteed as a matter of treaty obligation, other norms or doctrines of international law may effectively impede its exercise, as in the case of sovereign immunity or non reviewability of UN Security Council measures directly affecting individuals. Further, even access to domestic legal remedies is suffering because of the constraints put by security threats, such as terrorism, on the full protection of freedom and human rights. This collection of essays offers seven distinct perspectives on the present status of access to justice: its development in customary international law, the stress put on it in times of emergency, its problematic exercise in the case of violations of the law of war, its application to torture victims, its development in the case law of the UN Human Rights Committee and of the European Court of Human Rights, its application to the emerging field of environmental justice, and finally access to justice as part of fundamental rights in European law.

Traditional separation of powers theories assumed that governmental despotism will be prevented by dividing the branches of government which will check one another. Modern governments function with unexpected complicity among these branches. Sometimes one of the branches becomes overwhelming. Other governmental structures, however, tend to mitigate these tendencies to domination. Among other structures courts have achieved considerable autonomy vis-à-vis the traditional political branches of power. They tend to maintain considerable distance from political parties in the name of professionalism and expertise. The conditions and criteria of independence are not clear, and even less clear are the conditions of institutional integrity. Independence (including depolitization) of public institutions is of particular practical relevance in the post-Communist countries where political partisanship penetrated institutions under the single party system. Institutional integrity, particularly in the context of administration of justice, became a precondition for accession to the European Union. Given this practical challenge the present volume is centered around three key areas of institutional integrity, primarily within the administration of justice: First, in a broader theoretical-interdisciplinary context the criteria of institutional independence are discussed. The second major issue is the relation of neutralized institutions to branches of government with reference to accountability. Thirdly, comparative experience regarding judicial independence is discussed to determine techniques to enhance integrity.

Preface.

Rights of robots, a closer collaboration between law and the health sector, the relation between justice and development - these are some of the topics covered in The Law of the Future and the Future of Law: Volume II. The central question is: how will law evolve in the coming years? This book gives you a rich array of visions on current legal trends. The readable think pieces offer indications of law's cutting edge. The book brings new material that is not available in the first volume of The Law of the Future and the Future of Law, published in June 2011. Among the authors in this volume are William Twining (Emeritus Quain Professor of Jurisprudence, University College London), David Eagleman (Director, Initiative on Neuroscience and Law), Hassane Cisse (Deputy General Counsel, The World Bank), Gabrielle Marceau (Counsellor, World Trade Organisation), Benjamin Odoki (Chief Justice, Republic of Uganda), Martijn W. Scheltema (Attorney at law, Pels Rijcken and Droogleever Fortuijn), Austin Onuoha (Founder, The Africa Centre for Corporate Responsibility), Lokke Moerel (Partner, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek), S.I. Strong (Senior Fellow, Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution), Jan M. Smits (Chair of European Private Law, Maastricht University).