Group litigation has been recognised by political scientists in the States as a useful method of gaining ground and attracting publicity for pressure groups since the turn of the century. In Britain however, recognition that the courts fill such a role has come more slowly. Despite this lack of recognition, pressure through law is far from a modern phenomenon. As the authors show, such cases can be identified in Britain as early as 1749 when abolitionists used the court to test conflicting views of slavery in common law. This book looks at the extent to which pressure groups in Britain use litigation, presenting a view of the courts as a target for campaigners and a vehicle for campaigning. It begins with a description of the tradition of pressure through law in Britain, tracing the development of a parallel tradition in the United States, which has been influential in shaping current British attitudes. The authors analyse the significance of the political environment in Britain in test-case strategy. In contrast with America, Britain has no written constitution and no Bill of Rights and its lack of Freedom of Information legislation makes both litigation and the monitoring of its effects very difficult. However, the centralised character of the British government means that the effects of lobbying are rather more visible in the corridors of power. The authors examine a large number of case studies in order to analyse current practice, and they look at the rapidly changing European and international scene, discussing transnational law, the European community and the Council of Europe. They also look at the campaign tactics of global organisations such as Amnesty and Greenpeace. Carol Harlow and Richard Rawlings are experienced in public law and familiar with political science literature. They are therefore able to relate legal systems to the political process, in a book designed to be accessible and important to lawyers, to political scientists and to lobby group activists.

Group litigation has been recognised by political scientists in the States as a useful method of gaining ground and attracting publicity for pressure groups since the turn of the century. In Britain however, recognition that the courts fill such a role has come more slowly. Despite this lack of recognition, pressure through law is far from a modern phenomenon. As the authors show, such cases can be identified in Britain as early as 1749 when abolitionists used the court to test conflicting views of slavery in common law. This book looks at the extent to which pressure groups in Britain use litigation, presenting a view of the courts as a target for campaigners and a vehicle for campaigning. It begins with a description of the tradition of pressure through law in Britain, tracing the development of a parallel tradition in the United States, which has been influential in shaping current British attitudes. The authors analyse the significance of the political environment in Britain in test-case strategy. In contrast with America, Britain has no written constitution and no Bill of Rights and its lack of Freedom of Information legislation makes both litigation and the monitoring of its effects very difficult. However, the centralised character of the British government means that the effects of lobbying are rather more visible in the corridors of power. The authors examine a large number of case studies in order to analyse current practice, and they look at the rapidly changing European and international scene, discussing transnational law, the European community and the Council of Europe. They also look at the campaign tactics of global organisations such as Amnesty and Greenpeace. Carol Harlow and Richard Rawlings are experienced in public law and familiar with political science literature. They are therefore able to relate legal systems to the political process, in a book designed to be accessible and important to lawyers, to political scientists and to lobby group activists.

In Lawmaking under Pressure, Giovanni Mantilla analyzes the origins and development of the international humanitarian treaty rules that now exist to regulate internal armed conflict. Until well into the twentieth century, states allowed atrocious violence as an acceptable product of internal conflict. Why have states created international laws to control internal armed conflict? Why did states compromise their national security by accepting these international humanitarian constraints? Why did they create these rules at improbable moments, as European empires cracked, freedom fighters emerged, and fears of communist rebellion spread? Mantilla explores the global politics and diplomatic dynamics that led to the creation of such laws in 1949 and in the 1970s. By the 1949 Diplomatic Conference that revised the Geneva Conventions, most countries supported legislation committing states and rebels to humane principles of wartime behavior and to the avoidance of abhorrent atrocities, including torture and the murder of non-combatants. However, for decades, states had long refused to codify similar regulations concerning violence within their own borders. Diplomatic conferences in Geneva twice channeled humanitarian attitudes alongside Cold War and decolonization politics, even compelling reluctant European empires Britain and France to accept them. Lawmaking under Pressure documents the tense politics behind the making of humanitarian laws that have become touchstones of the contemporary international normative order. Mantilla not only explains the pressures that resulted in constraints on national sovereignty but also uncovers the fascinating international politics of shame, status, and hypocrisy that helped to produce the humanitarian rules now governing internal conflict.

"This book represents our efforts, and the efforts of our contributors, to center questions of inequality in the teaching, learning, and practice of civil procedure by shining a light on the ways in which civil procedure may privilege-or silence-voices in our courts"--