A global overview of evidentiary reasoning with contributions from leading authorities from different legal traditions and four continents.

by Roberto Cencioni At the Lisbon Summit in March 2000, European heads of state and government set a new goal for the European Union — to become the most competitive knowled- based society in the world by 2010. As part of this objective, ICT (information and communication technologies) services should become available for every citizen, and for all schools, homes and businesses. The book you have in front of you is about Semantic Web technology and law. Law is something omnipresent; all citizens — at some points in their lives — have to deal with it. In addition, law involves a large group of professionals, and is a mul- billion business world wide. Information technology is important because it that can improve citizens’ interaction with law, as well as improve legal professionals’ work environment. Legal professionals dedicate a significant amount of their time to finding, reading, analyzing and synthesizing information in order to take decisions, and prepare advice and trials, among other tasks. As part of the “Semantic-Based Knowledge and Content Systems” Strategic Objective, the European Commission is funding projects to construct technology to make the Semantic Web vision come true. 1 The articles in this book are related to two current foci of the Strategic Objective : • Knowledge acquisition and modelling, capturing knowledge from raw information and multimedia content in webs and other distributed repositories to turn poorly structured information into machi- processable knowledge.

This book investigates whether national courts could and should import innovative solutions from abroad in the adjudication of complex legal disputes. Special attention is paid to the concept of “legally relevant damage” and its importance in overcoming the deadlock created by the category of “pure economic loss” in the Portuguese and German tort law systems. These systems are essentially based on the concept of unlawfulness (“Rechtswidrigkeit”), which limits the compensation for pure economic loss to where a protective rule is infringed. These losses have nevertheless been compensated for through the extensive interpretation of rules and the appeal to near-contractual devices, which has been detrimental to legal certainty, the equality before the law, and subjects’ freedom of action. This book explains why courts can and should take a proactive role and apply DCFR-based solutions in order to compensate for every loss that is worthy of legal protection.

The Great Christian Jurists series comprises a library of national volumes of detailed biographies of leading jurists, judges and practitioners, assessing the impact of their Christian faith on the professional output of the individuals studied. Spanish legal culture, developed during the Spanish Golden Age, has had a significant influence on the legal norms and institutions that emerged in Europe and in Latin America. This volume examines the lives of twenty key personalities in Spanish legal history, in particular how their Christian faith was a factor in molding the evolution of law. Each chapter discusses a jurist within his or her intellectual and political context. All chapters have been written by distinguished legal scholars from Spain and around the world. This diversity of international and methodological perspectives gives the volume its unique character; it will appeal to scholars, lawyers, and students interested in the interplay between religion and law.

International lawyers usually disregard the vital functions that general principles of law may play in the decisions of international courts and tribunals. As far as international criminal law is concerned, general principles of law may be crucial to the outcome of an international trial, inter alia because the conviction of an accused in respect of a particular charge may depend on the existence of a given defence under this source. This volume examines the role that general principles of law have played in the decisions of international criminal courts and tribunals. In particular, it analyses their alleged ‘subsidiary’ nature, their process of determination, and their transposition from national legal systems into international law. It concludes that general principles of law have played a significant role in the decisions of international criminal courts and tribunals, not only by filling legal gaps, but also by being a fundamental means for the interpretation of legal rules and the enhancement of legal reasoning.

Bioethics And The Law, Second Edition connects broad public healthcare issues with the concerns of the individual, and draws clear distinctions between policy, law, and ethical considerations. Offering more than just landmark cases, Dolgin and Shepherd present a revealing survey of the full range of contemporary healthcare issues, along with the various conflicts and confluences that surround them. A multidisciplinary approach that combines sources of law with scholarship from philosophy and sociology, Bioethics And The Law, Second Edition, features : thoughtful analysis of the discrepancies between broadly applied rules of law And The more specific concerns of the individual coverage of ongoing healthcare debates, examined on several fronts: the ethical implications of various means of financing healthcare, from managed care to Medicare/Medicaid to universal access the shifting parameters of the provider/patient relationship in healthcare ; the arguments surrounding restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, physician-assisted suicide, abortion, and use of genetic information the arguments surrounding restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, physician-assisted suicide, abortion, and use of genetic information discussion of socio-economic factors that shape healthcare and healthcare policy cradle-to-grave organization that traces a typical individual’s experience in the healthcare system starting from birth and continuing through adulthood a look at the public health implications of decisions by individuals as healthcare consumers/patients Glossary of Terms appendices that summarize recent developments in science and technology detailed Teacher’s Manual that includes answers To The problems and questions in the text, and suggests a variety of methods for teaching with the book an Authors’ Companion Website that includes chapter-by-chapter updates and “Bioethics and Law Links,” such as links To The Nuremberg Code and the American Medical Association Principles of Medical Ethics Updated throughout with recent case and statutory material, The revised Second Edition covers : Gonzales v. Carhart and Abigail Alliance v. von Eschenbach cutting-edge advances in biotechnology, such as stem cell research, cloning, and nanotechnology conflicts of interest facing health care providers and researchers discussion of universal health care proposals With the generous teaching support that authors Dolgin and Shepherd offer—a detailed Teacher’s Manual and companion website—you can teach this fascinating course For The first time with confidence. If you’ve already taught from the First Edition, then you’re probably looking forward to receiving your new desk copy of Bioethics And The Law, Second Edition .