Kirjahaku

Advancing a bold theory of the relevance of tort law in the fight against human rights abuses, celebrated US law professor George Fletcher here challenges the community of international lawyers to think again about how they can use the Alien Tort Statute. Beginning with an historical analysis Fletcher shows how tort and criminal law originally evolved to deal with similar problems, how tort came to be seen as primarily concerned with negligence and how the Alien Tort Statute has helped establish the importance of tort law in international cases. In a series of cases starting with Filartiga and culminating most recently in Sosa, Fletcher shows how torture cases led to the reawakening of the Alien Tort Statute, changing US law and giving legal practitioners a tool with which to assist victims of torture and other extreme human rights abuses. This leads to an examination of Agent Orange and the possible commission of war crimes in the course of its utilisation, and the theory of liability for aiding and abetting the US military and other military forces when they commit war crimes. The book concludes by looking at the cutting-edge cases in this area, particularly those involving liability for funding terrorism, and the remedies available, particularly the potential offered by the compensation chamber in the International Criminal Court.

Adam Gross, philosopher-cum-lawyer, teaches at an Ivy League law school in New York. Good looking, cultivated, bohemian, he was once considered the rising star of his faculty, but that was a decade ago, and times have changed. Doing the job he always wanted, shaping eager, young, minds, showing them what it takes to be a lawyer, Adam has to face the truth that his style is no longer what the students pay for; and his Dean is getting worried about the rising number of complaints. It doesn't help that he is about to start sleeping with the Dean's wife...Faced with a struggle for survival, sandwiched between headstrong students and colleagues eager to see him cut down to size, Adam knows no other course than to keep teaching law as he believes it must be taught - as a global, complex and multi-faceted phenomenon in which American law is just one part of the picture. In a world in which the old certainties have been swept away, in which torture happens on our doorstep, and inequalities multiply, more than ever Adam wants his students to understand that they hold the key to a better, more just, future. This novel by acclaimed Columbia Professor of Law, George Fletcher, is at one and the same time a tale of university life and a fascinating journey into the philosophical world of law. By turns provocative, challenging, shocking and amusing, THE BOND will change forever the way law students (and their teachers) think about the law. "A shrewd and funny insight into a world of ideas, love and intrigue: the American law school" Bernard Schlink, author of The Reader. "This novel provides a unique insight into the workings of the legal mind and the inner life of law schools." Bruce Ackerman, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University See the detailed website for this book: http://fletcher-thebond.com/?cat=4.