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This chapter begins by discussing the importance of March 24, 1999 in the contemporary history of international law and international relations. It then explains that on that day, the Judicial Appeals Committee of the House of Lords handed down its judgment in the Pinochet Case, holding that General Augusto Pinochet had no immunity for acts of torture allegedly committed while he was head of state in Chile during the 1970s and 1980s. It notes that this book aims to explore existing debates at the interface between international law and politics, and to add new voices and ideas to an already lively discussion. It explains the scope of the special and general part of the criminal law. It provides a definition and classification for offences.

This chapter examines Muller's aftermath in legal history through the landmark case of Adkins v. Children's Hospital (1923). In Oregon, an employer (Children's Hospital) sought an injunction against the DC Minimum Wage Board to restrain it from imposing the minimum wage of $16.50 per week for women workers in hotels, hospitals, restaurants, clubs, and apartment houses. The District of Columbia Supreme Court upheld the law in June 1920, as did the DC Court of Appeals in June 1921. However, at the second hearing in November 1922, the DC Court of Appeals upset the law. In 1923, when Adkins v. Children's Hospital reached the Supreme Court, defenders of the minimum wage faced a less receptive roster of justices than they had in 1917; recent appointments made in wartime and soon after had produced a more conservative court. As such, the Supreme Court failed to sustain the District of Columbia minimum wage law by a 5–3 decision.

This introductory chapter sets out the book's focus, namely the deterioration of the U.S. Courts of Appeals. These courts decide over fifty thousand cases per year, out of which the Supreme Court usually chooses to review fewer than one hundred. Thus, from the litigant's point of view, the decisions of the Courts of Appeals are, for all practical purposes, final—the last stop in the judicial system. While any significant change in so important an institution would be noteworthy, the change that this book treats is remarkable for additional reasons. First, it happened so quickly—over a span of only thirty years, one legal generation. Second, the shift occurred entirely at the impetus of the courts themselves, with no executive and very little legislative input. In other words, the radical shift is entirely of the judges' making. The third reason flows from the second; when stripped of all rhetoric, the reason for the change in the circuit courts is that the judges prefer the new arrangement. The fourth reason is that the change in the courts of appeals represents a major reallocation of government benefits, draining them from the routine middle-class litigants and lavishing them on the wealthiest and most powerful litigants. Finally, the revolution has attracted little attention from the legal profession and even less from the public and, amazingly, even less from the judges themselves. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.

This chapter details Learned Hand's promotion to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. By the spring of 1917, after only eight years on the bench, Hand was the most senior judge of his district. He had grown more confident about his talents, and the increasing attention to his rulings by lawyers, fellow judges, and professional publications reinforced his self-esteem. Yet many of his daily chores as a district judge seemed ever more routine and dull. Increasingly, the Second Circuit summoned him to hear appeals, and he found that the appellate work gave him some of his most enjoyable and rewarding days. A permanent seat on the Circuit Court of Appeals, he knew, would assure him of regular work on legal problems of interest and significance. Hand entered the race for promotion in July 1924, and within a month, he learned that the nomination was his. His road to the Second Circuit was assured by the support he received from the judge whom he succeeded there, Julius Mayer. The Senate confirmed Hand, unanimously and without hesitation, on December 20. A few days later, Hand received his commission as circuit judge, and on December 29 he was sworn in by senior judge Charles M. Hough.

This chapter focuses on Learned Hand's years as Second Circuit Court of Appeals judge and his relationships with fellow judges. The distinctive role Hand played on the Second Circuit during his first decades there emerges clearly in the many hundreds of pre-conference memoranda he preserved. Their most notable characteristic is the sheer joyful thoroughness with which he tackled each case. The court confronted a very wide range of subjects in a seemingly endless flow of cases, many of them of little apparent interest to anyone other than the litigants' lawyers. Yet whatever the subject—patents and copyrights, maritime law, bankruptcy, corporate and commercial law, citizenship and aliens' deportation, criminal law, problems of evidence and jurisdiction—Hand unflaggingly sought to get to the bottom of the facts and the law.

This chapter discusses the powers of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), covering its decision-making powers, enforcement powers, sentencing powers, and the Appeals Chamber's powers.

This chapter discusses the procedures of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), covering indictment, evidence, fairness, and procedural issues before the Appeals Chamber.

The 2003 Act makes provision for the manner in which various types of proceedings before the Tribunal are to be initiated and progressed. This chapter deals with the provisions relating to the procedure for applications, appeals, references and reviews, which are contained in, respectively, Pts II, III, IV and V of the Rules. Cases remitted to the Tribunal following a successful appeal to the sheriff principal or the Court of Session, for which provision is made in Pt VI, are covered in the chapter dealing with appeals from the Tribunal.1 At first sight, there is no obvious logic to the terms of art chosen by the drafters for some of the different means of proceeding as between applications and appeals. Where a patient is dissatisfied with a determination made by an RMO to extend his CTO, he may make an application for its revocation. Where he is unhappy with a decision of the Scottish Ministers to vary a condition of conditional discharge, however, his remedy is to appeal to the Tribunal.

Sections 320 and 322 of the 2003 Act make provision respectively for appeal to the sheriff principal and the Court of Session from decisions of the tribunal. Almost all of the decisions which can be appealed under s 320 are decisions on the merits of the application or other matter before the tribunal relating to the status of the patient in the sense of his liability to detention, or the conditions of his detention. Examples include a refusal to revoke an STDC,1 a decision to make or refuse to make a CTO,2 and a decision to revoke a compulsion order under s 193(3) and (4) of the 2003 Act.3 Appeals may also be made against decisions of the tribunal about the appointment of named persons.4 There is no provision for an immediate appeal against procedural decisions such as those to adjourn, or to make directions as to the way in which a future hearing is to proceed. The legislature must be taken to have intended that cases should proceed to a conclusion on the merits without interruption caused by appeals on procedural matters. It is, however, noteworthy that s 324(2)(b) makes it a ground of appeal against the ultimate decision in the proceedings that there has been a procedural impropriety in the conduct of any hearing by the tribunal on the application.

This chapter discusses some of the jurisprudence of the international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda on international and non-international armed conflicts. It begins by focusing on the seminal interlocutory decision of the ICTY Appeals Chamber in the Tadić case, which involved a challenge to the Tribunal's jurisdiction. It then discusses some of the important ways in which the Tadić decision, presided over by the visionary scholar and judge Antonio Cassese, has influenced the jurisprudence of the ad hoc Tribunals and the development of international humanitarian law more generally.

This chapter presents Theodor Meron's opinion on Prosecutor v Stanislav Gali ć. He agrees with the reasoning of the Appeals Chamber with regard to Galić's Appeal. He writes separately for two reasons: first, to add a brief thought on why acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are criminal violations of customary international law; and second, to dissent from the decision to grant the Prosecution's Appeal as to the sentence.

The previous chapters have exposed the deterioration of the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals over the last forty years. During that same forty-year period, the courts have been the subject of extensive study and investigation by various governmental and nongovernmental bodies. In fact, thirteen separate committees, commissions, study groups, reports, and plans have addressed the circuit courts' problems and have offered an array of solutions. This chapter is composed of two sections. The first section simply treats the studies in chronological order; the second abstracts from the studies certain recurrent diagnoses, recommendations, and proposals and discusses them thematically. It is argued that these studies typically either ignore the central question of the propriety of the appellate triage regime, or, if they address it, make recommendations for relatively minor alterations, which then are ignored by the policy makers.

The U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals have responded to the caseload flood with the system of Appellate Triage, a series of appellate process truncating devices. These devices, used to dispose of the less interesting portion of the circuit courts' caseloads, have helped the courts keep current with their dockets, but at a significant cost. This chapter discusses the judicial establishment's opposition to the single most obvious solution to the caseload glut—the creation of additional judgeships.

The chapter opens with discussion of how Edward I's stance on appeals affected the constitutional position of Scotland at the opening of Balliol's reign. Examination of appeals brought from Scotland to English courts at the time shows that few Scots from mainland Scotland had recourse to English justice. John Balliol, called before the King's Bench to explain his failure to do justice in one case, appealed to the terms of the 1290 Treaty of Birgham but to no avail. The deterioration of the English position in Gascony lessened tension for the Scots, who established a council to take over government from Balliol, refused to provide troops for Edward in Gascony and made a treaty with Philip IV of France 1295.

Harry Blackmun avoided getting involved in certain political activities associated with what was prominent among federal judges as he worked as a lawyer in Minneapolis and was part of the Mayo Clinic's resident counsel. In contrast to Warren Burger, one of his boyhood friends, Harry Blackmun remained only nominally Republican, and was not able to participate in such activities attributed to party politics. Burger actively participated in politics as he played no small part in Harold Stassen's campaign and formed allies with Herbert Brownell. Burger then became part of the new Eisenhower administration and was appointed as the head of the Department of Justice's Civil Division. Blackmun and Burger exchanged correspondence during this time, mostly regarding Burger's work. This chapter demonstrates how Burger was appointed a seat for the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia, how Blackmun was to replace Sanborn upon his retirement, and how Blackmun was appointed to the Eighth Circuit.

This chapter illustrates the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) trying repeatedly to liberalise its guidelines relating to ‘R18’ videos, and being prevented from doing so by the then Home Secretary Jack Straw. The story of the ‘R18’ began in 1982. The differences between Section 2 and Section 3 proceedings under the Obscene Publications Act (OPA) are explained. Bernard Williams' unwillingness to recommend that sex shops should be licensed had by 1987 been amply justified. The combined efforts of Customs and the Home Secretary brought to an end the trial liberalisation period. The Makin' Whoopee! was passed by the Video Appeals Committee (VAC). It ‘may offend or disgust but it is unlikely to deprave or corrupt that proportion of the public who are likely to view it’. Straw ultimately failed to bend the BBFC to his will makes the existence of those powers no less disturbing.

‘The Appeals of the Orient’— in the February 1925 issue of the literary journal entitled Les Cahiers du Mois— summarized more than 100 responses to a questionnaire that was intended for various cultural and literary writers. The survey attempted to explore issues regarding the Occident and the Orient — values that supposedly make the Occident superior, the features of both that would make each veer away from the other, and the expanding influences brought about by those in the East. Two months after the article was published, a group of rebels from Morocco and France experienced what was then referred to as the ‘War of the Riff’. This came about because the rebels did not want European occupation to expand within their territory. The rebels, however, were soon defeated as Spain and France were able to establish formalized zone divisions. Because this war proved to be of great significance in French culture and politics, this chapter studies the public discourse about the war, specifically on issues about the relationships the French has set out in the colonized world through international legal order and other such measures.

This book provides a discrete analysis of Military Service Tribunals. The Appeals Tribunal files and supplementary material, now held at Northampton Record Office, constituted the principal primary sources for this book. The book explores the character, functions and developing policies of the county's Tribunals generally, and of the Appeals body in particular. It then investigates how the idiosyncrasies impacted upon the consideration of cases, and, in consequence, upon local Tribunals' relationships with the Appeals body, in whose hands laid responsibility for the correction of aberrant decisions. ‘Sovereignty’ is the unifying theme of this book. Its expression within the Tribunal process evaluates the interplay of government intention, the practical application of legislation and the Tribunals' appreciation of their relative responsibilities to nation and community.

This chapter describes the boot and shoe trade. The Northamptonshire Tribunals' treatment of the boot and shoe trade is difficult to place in a national perspective. The timing of conscription impacted greatly upon Northamptonshire's boot and shoe industry. Pressures were increasing upon both the industry and the Tribunals. Northamptonshire's Appeals Tribunal had not been troubled unduly by the boot and shoe trade. In Northamptonshire, National Service representatives were ordered to demand the removal of any conditional exemptions previously given to boot and shoe men. The most significant effect of the ‘clean-cut’ upon the boot and shoe industry was to make clear just how deeply manpower cuts had proceeded to date. The boot and shoe trade remained an attractive hunting ground for Eastern Command. The British and Allied armies suffered no ‘boot-crisis’ during the war.