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International children’s rights law has established standards for the treatment of children in detention that are widely accepted. Yet, challenges in their implementation continue to persist around the world. Ireland has been undergoing significant reform in this area, in line with international standards, adopting a child-centred and rights-based model of detention for all children who come into conflict with the law. Drawing on theory and practice, this book analyses Ireland’s experience of translating children’s rights into the practice of detention, providing a model for international reform. The book documents and analyses the changes to Irish law and policy and explains the steps taken and challenges faced in their implementation. Particular focus is placed on the development of Ireland’s national detention facility – Oberstown Children Detention Campus – and the journey it has taken towards a children’s rights approach to detention. The book presents an original model for advancing children’s rights in detention – encompassing children’s rights to Provision; Protection; Participation; Preparation and Partnership. It explores child detention from the international perspective, traces the development of the Irish youth justice and detention systems, tracks the process of change in developing a specialist model of child-centred detention, documents the learning of implementing children’s rights in practice and assessing the international and national influences on change. It considers that the reform of child detention is a gradual and collaborative process requiring a series of interconnected steps and measures. The book presents the learning from a challenging change process which is designed to inform and influence the international application of a rights-based model of child detention.

Even though legal aid is available for people seeking asylum, there is uneven access to advice across Britain. Based on empirical research, this book offers fresh thinking on what has gone wrong in the legal aid market. It presents a rare picture of the barristers, solicitors and caseworkers practising immigration law in charities and private firms. In doing so, this book examines supply and demand and illuminates what constitutes high-quality legal aid work/provision, subsequent conflicts with financial rationality and how practitioners resolve these issues. Challenging existing legal aid policy, this book presents innovative insights to ensure public service markets around the globe function well for all those involved.

In this book, academic leaders in their respective fields of law address the Coronavirus crisis. Each chapter is designed as a thinkpiece, based on the contributor’s understandings and appreciations of their field. They reflect on the implications of the Coronavirus, express their anxieties about the development of policy and practice, and about the overweening, apparently neutral version of law and the economy which has taken root. Contributors draw on diverse resources, from survey evidence to economic rationalities. They are engaging with the current, reflecting on the past, and thinking about how the future response can be positive and productive. These chapters combine to offer challenges for action, and cause for optimism. The road ahead is likely to be exceptionally difficult. Capturing these difficulties is challenging, as this is also an exceptionally fast moving subject. The brave assertions by a journalist, in the opening paragraph of this introductory chapter, that the impact of Coronavirus is not experienced equally may well be replaced by another moment that both distracts, and focuses attention. What follows next, after Coronavirus, need not be as costly as what preceded it, and there are clear steps that may be taken in order to ensure that the legal system offers justice; that corporations and tax structures are based on values of true social responsibility; and, that the systems of health, care, housing, justice, and education are able to serve all who need it.

Marriage law in England and Wales is a historical relic which reflects a bygone age. Successive governments have made a series of progressive but ad hoc reforms, most notably the introduction of civil partnerships and same-sex marriage. However, this has resulted in a legal framework which is complex and controversial, especially in relation to religion. Different rules apply to different religions and some of the legal requirements indirectly discriminate against some religions that do not have a tradition of marriages occurring in a place of worship. This leads to the problem of unregistered religious marriages where the couple have a religious marriage but do not comply with the requirements to make it legally binding and so on relationship breakdown they do not have the rights that legally married couples enjoy. Moreover, unlike many jurisdictions English law does not recognise weddings conducted by humanist or independent celebrants as being legally binding. This book provides the first accessible guide to how contemporary marriage law affects religion and identifies pressure points particularly in relation to non-religious organisations and unregistered religious marriages. It reveals the need for the consolidation, modernisation and reform of marriage law and sets out proposals for how the transformation of these laws can be achieved.

This book explores how the life responds to the different stages of life. It explains how the law reflects and reinforces assumptions around, for example, childhood and old age. The book explains how the law tends to be based around an idealised model of what it is to be human, particularly with the weight place on autonomy and individualism. This causes difficulty for those who do not fit into the assumptions around their age or the expected norm for humanity. It also overlooks the importance to everyone of their relationships and our deep interconnection.

At a time when the collective redress landscape is undergoing a period of transformative change, this research focuses on class actions in England and Wales. The author provides an objective analysis of the costs and benefits of these proceedings from an access to justice perspective. Aiming to promote accessibility, this pioneering work separates fact from fiction in an easily digestible way, offering progressive solutions for reform. The book begins with a discussion on England and Wales's need for increasing access to justice, given that the capacity of people to access justice is paramount in a democracy governed by the rule of law. The Competition Appeal Tribunal (legislation introduced in Parliament on 23 January 2014) is considered the only area where class actions are available. The book outlines the historical and comparative context of class actions that have developed since their modern origins in the United States, and offers a deeper look into reforms in England and Wales. It concludes that the current landscape of collective claims-making leaves a major access-to-justice gap that demands reform.

This pioneering work offers important insights into peace mediation practice today and the role of third parties in the resolution of armed conflicts. The authors reveal how peace mediation has developed into a complex arena and how multifaced assistance has become an indispensable part of it. Offering unique reflections on the new frameworks set out by the United Nations, the book explores the challenges and the opportunities of third- party involvement in conflict resolution. With its policy focus and real-world examples from across the globe, this collection is essential reading for researchers of peace and conflict studies, and a go-to reference point for advisors involved in peace processes.

The book applies legal concepts to economic analysis. It explains that modern economies require the existence of a specific legal system to operate. The analysis builds on the prior work of institutional economists such as Douglas North. It brings it forward by integrating what was missing: the legal component. Taking its distance from the economic analysis of law, it provides a legal analysis of economics. It is superior in this regard because real life economic actors must abide by legal rules. Their economic activity is dependent on the existence of rules making it possible, something present economic analyses neglect completely. Without States and the services they provide (protection services, a legal system, property rights, justice, roads, contract enforcement, and so on), economic activity cannot flourish. The book concentrates on the particular importance of property rights. They always played a key role in economic development. They now play a key role in the operation of a global economy because of the surge of multinationals built on the right of property concentrated via corporations. The role of corporate law in the reconfiguration of the power system from a State System to a World Power System is explained. The book is of interest for all social scientists interested in the operation of our present world economy in an era of globalization. It provides new insight on how to address global issues, in particular global climate change, which is a direct consequence of the spreading of a world economy over a divided State System.

Legal professionals are thought to have higher levels of mental health issues and lower levels of wellbeing than the general population. Drawing on qualitative data from new research with legal practitioners, this in-depth study of mental health and wellbeing in the UK and Republic of Ireland’s legal sector is a timely contribution to the urgent international debate on these issues. The authors present a comprehensive discussion of the cultural, structural and other causes of legal professionals’ compromised wellbeing. They explore the everyday demands and difficulties of the legal working environment and consider the impacts on individuals, the legal profession and wider society. Making comparisons with systems overseas, this is an invaluable resource that provides evidence-based suggestions for swift and effective organisational and policy-related interventions in the legal sector.

From a Critical Social Policy perspective and with a Global Development remit, this book addresses a range of key questions regarding international human rights. With human rights constantly under challenge, this collection of chapters represent a comprehensive critique that adds a social policy perspective to recent political and legalistic analysis. Expert contributors draw on local and global examples to review constructs of universal rights and their impact on social policy and human welfare. With thorough analysis of their strengths, weaknesses and enforcement, it sets out their role in domestic and geo-political affairs. For those with an interest in social policy, ethics, development, politics and international relations, this is an honest appraisal of both the concepts of international human rights and their realities.