Legal history Legal history or the history of law is the study of how law has evolved and why it changed. Legal history is closely connected to the development of civilizations and is set in the wider context of social history. Among certain jurists and historians of legal process it has been seen as the recording of the evolution of laws and the technical explanation of how these laws have evolved with the view of better understanding the origins of various legal concepts, some consider it a branch of intellectual history. Twentieth century historians have viewed legal history in a more contextualized manner more in line with the thinking of social historians. They have looked at legal institutions as complex systems of rules, players and symbols and have seen these elements interact with society to change, adapt, resist or promote certain aspects of civil society. Ancient world[edit] Ancient Egyptian law, dating as far back as 3000 BC, had a civil code that was probably broken into twelve books.
Project Freeman: Peaceful, Lawfull Rebellion Set To Music by 'Litmus A Freeman' (NB: NEW MEDIA ADDED NOV 2011!!!) Abraham Lincoln's Crossroads About the Exhibit: Abraham Lincoln’s Crossroads is an educational game based on the traveling exhibition Lincoln: The Constitution & the Civil War, which debuted at the National Constitution Center in June 2005. The online game is intended for advanced middle- and high-school students. It invites them to learn about Lincoln’s leadership by exploring the political choices he made. An animated Lincoln introduces a situation, asks for advice and prompts players to decide the issue for themselves, before learning the actual outcome.
After years of debate, ICC Member States agree on definition of 14 June 2010 – Member States of the International Criminal Court (ICC) have agreed on what constitutes the crime of aggression, a long-running source of contention in international law, after nearly one decade of discussion. Nations agreed to amend the Rome Statute, which set up the Court, to define the crime of aggression as “the planning, preparation, initiation or execution, by a person in a position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the political or military action of a State, of an act of aggression which, by its character, gravity and scale, constitutes a manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations.” Under the resolution adopted at the end of the two-week-long ICC review conference in Kampala, Uganda, on Friday, blockades of ports or coasts of a State by armed forces of another State, as well as an invasion or attack by troops of one State on the territory of another, are considered as acts of aggression under the statute.
Dr Bruce Scott: Turn your illness into a weapon - mental distress from a socialist perspective Dr Bruce Scott explores the definitions and ideas attached mental health, and offers a socialist perspective THIS short and preliminary article was written as a response to an article that came to my attention that was posted on the CommonSpace website concerning 'mental health' and the fact that it was recently Mental Health Awareness Week. It is laudable that the aforementioned CommonSpace article, many such similar articles, and 'mental health' campaigns show concern for the 'mental health' of our citizens. However, I have serious reservations with the concept of 'mental health' which are routinely overlooked. The biological model of 'mental health' is not watertight and it remains a highly dubious concept. First, the discourse of 'mental health' or 'mental illness' is not all it is cracked up to be. Second, the cognitive imperialistic discourse of 'mental health' (e.g., cognitive behavioural therapy) is misleading and excludes other discourses of conceptualising mental distress.
Every BBC freedom of information request made - and what happened to it. As a spreadsheet | News Freedom of information requests to the BBC include questions about its iPlayer. Photograph: Jonathan Hordle / Rex Features The BBC has received 3,701 Freedom of Information requests covering information "held for purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature" since the Act was introduced in 2005, a(nother) FoI request shows, published via What Do They Know?. Due to the broadcaster's unique position as a publicly-funded body, the BBC is only obliged to facilitate requests not directly related to its creative output. In the seven months of 2010 alone, the BBC received 529 FoI requests to which it is obliged to provide the information. See this image at fullscreen So, what happened to the requests? Figures obtained by the Guardian in September 2009 showed the total number of FoI requests received by the corporation in a given year: 1,141 requests were filed in the first seven months of 2009. Get the full datasheet The raw data raises lots of questions - you can download it below.
David Stojcevski's horrifying death in jail, explained During his 17-day stay in jail, 32-year-old David Stojcevski lost 50 pounds, hallucinated, and experienced seizures and convulsions. It was all caught on a security camera that jailers were supposed to regularly watch. But no one helped — and Stojcevski died. Now, the FBI is investigating the death, according to Detroit News. The horrifying death of Stojcevski in the Macomb County, Michigan, jail — first reported by Local 4 — is drawing national attention as the latest example of horrific neglect and brutality by the criminal justice system. And unlike previous cases, it was all caught on video — making it easy to see exactly what went wrong. But beyond the gruesome images and FBI investigation, Stojcevski's death speaks to a much larger problem in the criminal justice system: In many cases, jails aren't staffed, trained, or resourced to deal with cases like Stojcevski's. Stojcevski clearly suffered over 17 days — and died Local 4 Jails are notoriously overcrowded
Obama signs US legislation to stymie Britain's libel law | Media President Obama yesterday signed into US law legislation aimed at protecting American authors, journalists and academics from Britain's libel laws. The Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Act, known as the SPEECH Act, makes libel judgments against US writers in foreign territories unenforceable if they are perceived to counter the First Amendment right to free speech. The British-based Libel Reform Campaign has expressed concern that Britain's reputation is being damaged internationally due to what it calls "our restrictive, archaic and costly libel laws, which cost 140 times the European equivalent." The SPEECH Act is inspired by the Libel Terrorism Protection Act passed by the New York State assembly in February 2008, after American academic Dr Rachel Ehrenfeld was sued in London by an Arab businessman Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz. Only 23 copies of her book Funding Evil were sold in Britain compared to thousands distributed in the US.
ACTA Treaty Members Map EU-breed patentsysteem in strijd met wet Nieuws - Het Europese Hof van Justitie neigt naar afwijzing van een centraal patentsysteem voor de EU omdat dit juridisch niet strookt met de EU-verdragen. Uit een uitgelekt document blijkt dat de advocaat-generaal van het Europese Hof van Justitie in Luxemburg de plannen om te komen tot een centraal Europees patentsysteem wil afschieten, schrijft de IDG-nieuwsdienst. Europese bedrijven zijn al jaren voorstander van een EU-brede aanpak van patenten omdat dit de innovatie zou stimuleren. Het huidige systeem van patentregistraties in elk land is duur en onpraktisch, zeker voor kleine bedrijven. In strijd met EU-wetten Maar volgens de advocaat-generaal past het voorgestelde centrale patentsysteem niet bij de verdragen van de oprichting van de EU. Immers, als de rechters zich houden aan het nu voorgestelde patentsysteem, dat in strijd is met de EU-wetgeving, zullen uitspraken tussen twee partijen over een patentkwestie niet in lijn zijn met die bestaande EU-wetgeving. Talen
Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person | Gina Crosley-Corcoran Years ago some feminist on the Internet told me I was “privileged.” “THE F&CK!?!?” I said. I came from the kind of poor that people don’t want to believe still exists in this country. Have you ever spent a frigid northern-Illinois winter without heat or running water? I have. This is actually a much nicer trailer setup than the one I grew up in. So when that feminist told me I had “white privilege,” I told her that my white skin didn’t do shit to prevent me from experiencing poverty. After one reads McIntosh’s powerful essay, it’s impossible to deny that being born with white skin in America affords people certain unearned privileges in life that people of other skin colors simply are not afforded. “I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.” “When I am told about our national heritage or about ‘civilization,’ I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.” I know now that I am privileged in many ways. 10.
IEET (IEET) 4 Constructive Ways to Deal with Criticism To live and be part of a community at work, home or school means we are sometimes told truths we may not like to know or hear. We get labeled for our shortcomings and judged on our failures and mistakes. While the temptation to block out the unpleasant feedback is strong, we stunt our personal growth and potential by doing so. It’s terribly hard to be on the receiving end of disapproval and negative appraisals, but if we succeed in building our strengths and managing our weaknesses, the world can become our oyster. Below are four ways to deal with criticism: Take time to cool down, set boundaries, and respond, not react. Disapproving woman photo available from Shutterstock
United States Bill of Rights The Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. Proposed to assuage the fears of Anti-Federalists who had opposed Constitutional ratification, these amendments guarantee a number of personal freedoms, limit the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and reserve some powers to the states and the public. While originally the amendments applied only to the federal government, most of their provisions have since been extended to the states by way of the Fourteenth Amendment, a process known as incorporation. The amendments were introduced by James Madison to the 1st United States Congress as a series of legislative articles. They were adopted by the House of Representatives on August 21, 1789, formally proposed by joint resolution of Congress on September 25, 1789, and came into effect as Constitutional Amendments on December 15, 1791, through the process of ratification by three-fourths of the states. Background