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Introducing the concepts of equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), the chapter provides an overview of frameworks and approaches used to manage workforce diversity. First, the authors introduce the notion of the old deal based on the uneven relationship between human diversity, nature, and technological innovation. The chapter then explores the new deal between humans, nature, and technology. The authors are providing cases from the EU, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Iceland to show the emergence of the new deal in managing diversity.

This article¹ is offered up in the spirit of what the High Kings of Gondor might call a weregild.² That is, I hope, in this article, to clear a debt: a debt, long overdue, much like that owed by the Armies of the Dead to Isildur’s heir, Aragorn son of Arathorn. I reference The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Tolkien, 1994) because this article is, in the main, about Tolkien and his oeuvre as an astonishing instance of what might be called lex populi. But this article attempts more than just another cultural legal reading of a popular literary and cinematic phenomenon.³ What, in fact, it proposes is nothing less than a practical demonstration of what it means to read jurisprudentially. In so doing, I hope to repay some of the theoretical debt that jurisprudence (and law-and-literature) has incurred, and owes so clearly to literary criticism, cultural studies and Continental philosophy. For far too long jurisprudence has been content to absorb the lessons of these other disciplines’ versions of textual theory – of the play of the sign, the dissemination of meaning, the deconstruction of logos – without propounding its own topoi let alone interpretive paradigms. Such topoi, of course, jurisprudence has in abundance: in notions of a “higher justice”; in concepts of law’s connection with morality; and, especially, the law’s role in inaugurating “the social.”

Norberto Bobbio's Birth Centenary was celebrated in Turin in October 2009. This article acknowledges an important 20th century legal philosopher whose work is yet to be fully appreciated in the Anglo-American context. A short introduction is followed by an overview of his works in English, and intellectual profile. Relevant excerpts aim to convey some understanding of his legal scholarship. Three exemplars of his contribution to law: jurisprudence, legal sociology and the general theory of law are discussed. It is argued that a Bobbian lens can be usefully employed to consider some of the pressing 21st century legal-political and social issues.

A multidimensional understanding of human nature based on biology can provide a very useful framework of analysis and bring some understanding and coherence to the very fragmented perspectives within moral, political, and legal philosophy. A useful four-part framework of analysis can be based on the evolution of the brain as described by Paul MacLean (1973, 1990) and Sir John Eccles (1989). A similar pattern of development of our mental and moral capacities through experience in childhood was also described by Jean Piaget (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958) and Lawrence Kohlberg (1981). This multidimensional understanding of human nature considers the individual, social, rational, and metaphysical perspectives. Because this four-part multidimensional understanding of human nature is based on a naturalized epistemology related to the development of our mental capacities in both evolution and through experience, this pattern can be seen across a wide variety of disciplines. Medical ethics, US constitutional democracy, and legal philosophy will be used as examples of the usefulness of this multidimensional understanding of human nature.