Philosophical Foundations of Precedent offers a broad, deep, and diverse range of philosophical investigations of the role of precedent in law, adjudication, and morality. The forty chapters present the work of a large and inclusive group of authors which comprises of well-established leaders in the discipline and new voices in legal philosophy. The magnitude of the resulting project is extraordinary, presenting a diverse array of innovative and creative philosophical investigations of the practice of adhering to past decisions, in law and allied fields of practical reasoning. And by the same token, the contributions elucidate the reasons that courts and other decision-makers may have for departing from what has been done before. The phenomena under investigation include the law and practice of common law and civil jurisdictions around the world. In addition to its fundamental relevance to common law jurisdictions, this work will be of broad and significant interest to theoretically minded audiences in continental Europe, Latin America, and Asia because it involves an extensive study of practices of precedent in civil law systems as well as common law systems.

Readership: This book would be suitable for students, academics and scholars of law, philosophy, politics, international relations and economics

The supranational law of the European Union represents a uniquely powerful, far-reaching, and controversial instance of the growth of international legal governance, one that has forever altered the political and legal landscape of its Member States. The EU has attracted significant attention from political scientists, economists, and lawyers who have analysed its polity and constructed theoretical models of the integration process. Yet it has been almost entirely neglected by analytic philosophers, and the philosophical tools that have been developed to analyse and evaluate the Union are still in their infancy. This book brings together legal philosophers, political philosophers, and EU legal academics in the service of developing the philosophical analysis of EU law. In a series of original and complementary essays they bring their varied disciplinary expertise and theoretical perspectives to bear on central issues facing the Union and its law. Combining both abstract thought in legal and political philosophy and more tangible theoretical work on specific legal issues, the essays in this volume make a significant contribution to developing work on the philosophical foundations of EU law, and will engender further debate between philosophers, political philosophers, and EU legal academics. They will be of interest to all those engaged in understanding the nature and purpose of this unique legal entity.

The law of Equity, a latecomer to the field of private law theory, raises fundamental questions about the relationships between law and morality, the nature of rights, and the extent to which we are willing to compromise on the rule of law ideal to achieve social goals. In this volume, leading scholars come together to address these and other questions about underlying principles of Equity and its relationship to the common law: What relationships, if any, are there between the legal, philosophical, and moral senses of 'equity'? Does Equity form a second-order constraint on law? If so, is its operation at odds with the rule of law? Do the various theories of Equity require some kind of separation of law and equity-and, if they do, what kind of separation? The volume further sheds light on some of the most topical questions of jurisprudence that are embedded in the debate around 'fusion'. A noteworthy addition to the Philosophical Foundations series, this volume is an important contribution to an ongoing debate, and will be of value to students and scholars across the discipline.

This book analyzes the theoretical nuances and practical implications of how judges use precedent.

This fourth edition of Precedent in English Law presents a basic guide to the current doctrine of precedent in England, set in the wider context of the jurisprudential problems which any treatment of this topic involves. Such problems include the nature of _ratio_ _decidendi_ of a precedent and of its binding force, the significance of precedents alongside other sources of law, their role in legal reasoning, and the account which must be taken of them by any general theory of law. Considerable re-writing has been undertaken to update case-law and take account of the possible implications for the doctrine of precedent of the impact of European Community law, making it an indispensable work of reference for readers interested in the past history, present state, and future developments of English rules of precedent.

Marc Jacob analyses in depth the most important justificatory and decision-making tool of one of the world's most powerful courts.