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The practices and arrangements within a family can create grounds for violence. Although we agree that family processes are important, we think that these explanations downplay the structure of families (nuclear, extended) and thereby the ways in which gender relations are organized. In this paper, domestic violence is explored as an intra-family dynamic that extends beyond the intimate partner relationship and which seeps into court rulings of cases of such violence.

Using archival data from 164 Supreme Court case decisions on domestic violence in India for the period 1995–2011, we examine both the patterns of conviction and the complexities of gender relations within the family by systematically coding the Court’s rulings.

Analysis of court rulings show that mothers-in-law were convicted in 14% cases and the husband was convicted in 41% cases. We call attention to the collective nature of the domestic violence crime in India where mothers-in-law were seldom convicted alone (3% of cases) but were more likely to be convicted along with other members of the family. Two dominant themes we discuss are the gendered nature of familial relations beyond the intimate partner relationship and the pervasiveness of such gendered relationships from the natal home to the marital family making victims of domestic violence isolated and “homeless.”

Future research may benefit from using data in addition to the judgments to consider caste and class differences in the rulings. An intersectionality perspective may add to the understanding of the interpretation of the laws by the courts.

Insights from this paper have important policy implications. As discussed in the paper, the unintended support for violence from the natal family is an indication of their powerlessness and therefore further victimization through the law will not help. It is critical that natal families re-frame their powerlessness which is often derived from their status as families with daughters. Considering that most women in India turn to their natal families first for support when they face violence in their marriages, policy must enable such families to act and utilize the law.

By examining court rulings on cases of domestic violence in India we focus on the power exerted by some women particularly within extended families which is central to understanding gender relations within institutions. These relations are legitimized by the courts in the ways they interpret the law and rule on cases.

After considering the material before me, I have formed the opinion that it shall be permitted for the petitioner to examine the file under scrutiny. Deliberation on the case did not take place behind closed doors and there is no lawful prohibition to the examination…in addition I accept the position of the respondent, according to which in spite of the fact that a large portion of the details of the affair were published in the judgment…the file contains material whose revelation can cause unnecessary harm to the central witness…the examination considered will be contingent on an undertaking in writing…according to which the petitioner will not publicize anything that will damage the privacy of the victims and their families beyond the damage that already occurred by the court judgment. (Decision of magistrate Yigaal Marzel, 2006 in the matter of C.A 125/50 Yaakobowitz v. Attorney General)

The International Criminal Court has institutionalized the concept of individual responsibility for human rights violations. The jurisprudence of international criminal law has developed along with the institution. Affirmative defenses in the mitigation of punishment or avoidance of responsibility are becoming increasingly important in international criminal procedure. We contend that diminished culpability based on advances in neuroscience provides the most challenging set of choices for the international legal community. Of the variety of affirmative defenses, emerging neuroscience-based defense provide the most challenging set of choices for the international legal community. The Esad Landzo case at the ICTY brings these challenges into focus. We discuss the difficult choices the International Criminal Court will have to make to balance the rights and needs of the victims and the due process rights of the accused.

Insurance in Malta has been very largely influenced by English practice and law. The influence of the English market insurance practice and law not only shaped the Maltese market but practically that of all common law jurisdictions in former members of the British empire. Since the London insurance market continues to be a very dominant force globally until today, the connection has undoubtedly served Malta well.

The origins of UK insurance principles of utmost good faith and insurable interest under contract law, date back to times which were very different from today and the need to revise the laws has now been felt in the UK as well as in other jurisdictions which were influenced by its law and practice. In Malta, minimal legislative intervention and the Maltese courts were and continue to be mostly guided by English case law, some of which has now been superseded by the updated statute law which was recently introduced in the UK by virtue of the Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and Representations) Act (2012) and Insurance Act (2015).

We herein lay out a case study of the development of utmost good faith and insurable interest in insurance contracts within the Maltese legal context, based on empirical literature findings and semi-structured interviews together with several legal experts who are specialized in the field and experienced insurance professionals.

Employment law recognised the value of whistleblowing with the enactment of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, protecting a ‘worker’ against dismissal and victimisation. Whistleblowers are particularly vulnerable in the gig economy as they may fall outside the statutory definition of ‘worker’ for the purposes of the whistleblowing legislation. This makes a study of whistleblowing in the gig economy pertinent. This chapter explores the statutory definition of ‘worker’ with regard to the current whistleblowing provisions and considers the barriers it presents for gig workers. Judicial interpretation of the definition is examined through an analysis of recent case law that shows much inconsistency and a conflict of judicial approach. The resulting blurred boundaries of the legal term leave a gig worker uncertain as to the level of their protection for blowing the whistle. The need for reform to protect individuals in a wide range of working relationships is clear. It is argued that the new EU Whistleblowing Directive, in protecting ‘work-related activity’, provides better protection for all whistleblowers. The role of human rights in extending the status of work is also advanced. Finally, the implications of developments in this area for key stakeholders in the gig economy are considered highlighting the importance of creative new approaches to give voice to all workers.

What does the Supreme Court talk about when it talks about itself? In addition to the debates over interpretive method and doctrine that fill their opinions, Supreme Court justices often discuss what it means to be “a Court” and how such an institution must function. Our chapter explores this specific form of judicial self-representation, examining the ways in which members of the Court define their own “Court-ness” in their decisions. We argue that the Court’s acts of autobiography simultaneously generate images of impartiality and partiality. The result is the public projection of a contradictory judicial persona.

This essay explores a radical shift in how the relationship between the power to punish and sovereignty has been conceived in modern American law; specifically focusing on the quiet death of comity as an operative principle in the exercise of criminal jurisdiction. While this essay attends to certain legal issues arising from historical intersections of federal, state and Indian sovereignty in the field of criminal law, this essay is not an attempt to directly evaluate the history of federal policies applied to Indian tribes or tribal lands. Nor is this essay in any strict sense a legal history of federal-tribal relations, or federal penal policy in relation to Indian tribes. Rather, I am concerned here with a series of liminal moments in the American legal tradition in which the power to punish came to be understood ever more one-sidedly, as an atomizing attribute of sovereignty rather than an identifying feature of community within a pluralistic legal framework.

In this paper I want to look at just one of the many contemporary legal narratives of homophobia – the phenomenon of the “Homosexual Advance Defence” (H.A.D.). While I agree with the analysis of one American commentator, who indicts the H.A.D. as a “judicial institutionalization of homophobia” (Mison, 1992, p. 136), I maintain that it is important to extend analyses which take as their main target the entrenchment of bigoted judicial views or which employ as their main critical tool a liberal framework of equality and discrimination (for example, see Potter, 2001). Just as Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick urges us not to view homophobia as simple ignorance or bigotry (see Howe, 2000, pp. 85–87), I argue that there is much more at stake with the H.A.D., and consequently much more required of us, than mere questions of ignorance, discrimination and (re-)education. While it is important to identify and condemn at every turn the various legal and social manifestations of homophobia, of which the H.A.D. is clearly one, it is just as important (if not more so) to interrogate the discursive and epistemological foundations, or legitimations, of these very beliefs.

Introducing the concept of intra-social movement backlash this chapter explores the “legacy phase” of legal action focusing on conflicts and debates within a social movement that has mobilized. Using a legal mobilization framework attuned to the recursive relationship between rights, rights-claiming activities, and collective identity, the chapter analyzes the mixed legacies of movement strategic litigation. Empirically, the chapter offers two illustrative case studies of intra-movement backlash in the women's and the disability rights movements in Canada. The findings suggest that while this form of backlash can have negative, disempowering effects, it also offers opportunities to challenge hegemonic structures within a social movement and re-imagine collective identities.