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The Role of Courts in a Democracy

An analytical report of the workshop and public debate featuring Charles Clarke, Joshua Rozenberg, Lord Justice Jacob and others examines the growing trend towards the ‘...

Berlusconi on Trial: Some Lessons for Judicial Accountability

The policy brief shows how the wide powers afforded public prosecutors and the high rate of prosecutions of politicians in Italy has embroiled the judiciary in political...

How Governments React to Financial Crises: The Savings and Loans Crisis as a Test Case

This paper assesses the regulatory response to the savings and loans crisis of the 1980s to highlight the responsibility of various agents - goverment, regulators, financial...

A Model for Dispute Resolution in Europe

This policy brief addresses alternative dispute resolution mechanisms in Europe to propose an integrated, holistic approach to encompass the range of mechanisms for resolving...

The Role of Courts in a Democracy: Alternatives to Judicial Supremacy

This policy brief assesses the adoption of US models of judicial activism in post-Communist countries of central and Eastern Europe, and proposes an alternative model in the...

Findings of a Major Comparative Study on Litigation Funding and Costs

This policy brief, written by Dr Christopher Hodges and Professor Stefan Vogenauer of Oxford University, is published as costs and funding are assuming far greater importance...

Debating International Justice in Africa

Drawing together academic and practitioner contributors from Africa and beyond, this collection highlights the challenges that international justice has faced in addressing...

Towards a Global Social Contract: The Challenge of Hard Times

Global inequality has risen in recent years, even in circumstances where aggregate growth rates have risen.

'Loyalty Benefits' and the Welfare State

‘Loyalty benefits’ are transfer payments designed to motivate or reward citizens for serving the state, either tangibly or symbolically.

Crisis and the Welfare State: The Need for a New Distributinal Agenda

Contemporary welfare states remain in need of powerful policies aimed at protecting against new social risks, inclusion through work, and more equality in education and the...

The Social Contract in Hard Times

This report and series of policy briefs emanate from a workshop held in Oxford in October 2009, in which political scientists and legal experts examine the impact of recent...

Constitutionalism, Quasi-Constitutionalism, and Representative Democracy

This paper advances a conception of quasi-constitutionalism, consisting of far-reaching but legally unenforceable constraints and limits on the power of political majorities in...

Between the People and the Constitution: The Constitutional Role(s) of the Legislature

This paper analyses the different senses in which the legislature’s relationship to the constitution can be understood.

Judicial Independence in China: Introduction

This is the first book in English on judicial independence in China.

Justice for Apartheid Crimes: Corporations, States, and Human Rights

Report of a symposium exploring issues surrounding post-apartheid justice and redress in South Africa for human rights abuses in which corporations are allegedly implicated....

Individual Responsibility and Welfare Contractualism

Jobseekers Agreements are just one type of behaviour management contract. Other contemporary examples include home-school agreements, youth offender contracts, and parenting...

Incrementalism and Complexity

Courts are very often required to adjudicate complex social policy disputes, and there is no sign of the tide turning back.

Complexity and the US Civil Jury

As the fall-out from the Huhne case continues, this policy brief asks: Are civil juries today incapable of understanding the complex issues presented to them? Are the results...

Enhancing Court Capacity to Enforce Education Rights

This policy brief examines a critical aspect of quality education litigation: the tools available to courts to fashion and ensure implementation of a constitutional method of...

The Capacity of Courts to Handle Complex Cases: Lessons from Technological Risk Regulation

This policy brief provides an overview of technological risk regulation and assesses the role of courts in reviewing the same.

The Capacity of Courts to Handle Complexity

This report and associated policy briefs examine the effectiveness of courts at adjudicating complex cases, through analysis of cases involving health care, education,...

Can International Courts Do Justice? Conceptions of Justice in Responding to Conflict

A report of a workshop which explored a range of issues regarding how international criminal tribunals and courts respond to harm caused during violent conflict. 

How to Equalize Opportunities

A policymaker wishes to choose a policy, from a set of possible policies, that will equalize opportunities among a group of individuals for the acquisition of some desirable...

Against Personal Responsibility for Welfare

Sometimes people's misfortunes are the consequence of chance, bad luck pure and simple. Other times they are the natural consequence of choices those people have freely made....

Equality and Responsibility in Education Policy

The new social contract aims to establish a society in which individuals can live meaningful lives.

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