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Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence
Nomos And Thanatos (Part B). Feminism As Jurisgenerative Transformation, Or Resistance Through Partial Incorporation?, Richard F. Devlin
Nomos And Thanatos (Part B). Feminism As Jurisgenerative Transformation, Or Resistance Through Partial Incorporation?, Richard F. Devlin
Dalhousie Law Journal
In Part A of this essay, "The Killing Fields", I developed a critique of the disciplinary impulses that underlie modern law and legal theory. Invoking a number of perspectives and a plurality of analyses, I proposed that male-stream legal theory and contemporary law both assume as inevitable, and legitimize as appropriate, the funnelling of violence through law. The problem with a funnel, however, is that it does not curtail or reduce that which is channelled through it. On the contrary, to funnel is to condense and to intensify. Viewed from this perspective, interpreted from the bottom up, law and legal …
Of Persons And Property: The Politics Of Legal Taxonomy, David Cohen, Allan C. Hutchinson
Of Persons And Property: The Politics Of Legal Taxonomy, David Cohen, Allan C. Hutchinson
Dalhousie Law Journal
To talk of law without politics or history is nonsensical. All lawyers must concede that what they do takes place in historical circumstances and has political consequences. Every piece of law-making and law-application is a governmental act; it relies on political authority and claims binding force. Moreover, all legal activity occurs within a particular historical context; it is intended to respond to or influence a past, existing or anticipated state of affairs. This means that the study of law must concern itself with politics and history generally: it must not confine itself to only the politics and history of law. …
Retrieving Positivism: Law As Bibliolatry, Frederick C. Decoste
Retrieving Positivism: Law As Bibliolatry, Frederick C. Decoste
Dalhousie Law Journal
Legal positivism is a curious phenomenon in both its theoretical and sociological parts. It is curious as theory because its very existence, as theory, is often questioned, and because, even when its existence is admitted, the nature of the theory, and who does and does not qualify as an adherent most often remains in dispute. It is curious sociologically because rare is the legal theoretician who forthrightly endorses positivism: positivists, it would appear, are as scarce as the formalists among whom they used to be numbered.
Mandates, Legal Foundations, Powers And Conduct Ofcommissions Of Inquiry, A. Wayne Mackay
Mandates, Legal Foundations, Powers And Conduct Ofcommissions Of Inquiry, A. Wayne Mackay
Dalhousie Law Journal
Indeed, it may be just as difficult to disentangle law and politics as it is to separate religious and sexual passions. While law has traditionally been presented as more value-neutral than politics, in either its academic or applied form, the inaccuracy of this view of law is becoming widely recognized. Value choices have always been a vital aspect of legal adjudication and the arrival of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 has forced judges to be more overt about this aspect of their job.' The separation of law and politics is more a matter of mythology than …