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The political landscape that has been unfolding since the attacks on the World Trade Centre in September 2001 has created an urgent imperative for a reappraisal of the place of individual force within philosophies of violence, particularly those that are directed to law. An extensive critique of the relation between law and violence has emerged around the works of philosophers, such as Walter Benjamin, Franz Fanon, Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben (1998, In: D.H. Roazen (Trans.), Homo sacer: Sovereign power and bare life. California: Stanford University Press), but it is questionable whether any of these provide us with the conceptual tools with which to address what is being presented (correctly or otherwise) as a particular problematic of the 21st century. Indeed, I would argue that a certain intellectual malaise surrounds discussion around individual force and that this state of affairs is in large measure due to the way in which critical theory and philosophy has addressed questions concerning the relation between individual violence and the juridical order. Without exception such accounts declare that individual violence undermines the authority of law itself. The following seeks to interrogate this contention and in doing so to begin to construct a more nuanced way of conceiving how the law preserves its authority.

The purpose of the research is to determine the essence and notion of economic violation of law and their varieties, and to determine the reasons that lie in the basis of this negative social phenomenon. The authors use the philosophical law of integrity and struggle of contradictions and rather-legal, historical and legal, and formal and legal methods of scientific cognition. Such laws of dialectics and transition of quantitative changes into qualitative changes, negation of negation, and others are used. Signs and types of economic violations of law are analyzed and their predetermination by the conflict character of economic relations is noted. Comparison of economic violations of law that are peculiar for administrative and market models of economy is performed. The universal character of economic relations as objects of legal protection is shown. Classification of economic violations of law, based on the level of their public danger and spheres of distribution, is provided. Special attention is paid to civil and legal violations of law as a variety of economic violations of law, based on not anti-social settings of the subject but conflict with the borrowed system of values, which is alien to most members of society. The notion “economic violation of law” is of the collective character and includes illegal actions regarding economic relations, and the latter are of the conflict character due to different interests of subjects, the existing competition, and striving for obtaining profit. Economic violation of law is an illegal form of solving the existing conflict, which leads to application of measures of legal responsibility. The causes of economic violations of law could be overcome by implementation of the values and ideals of justice in the legal norms. They should be based on historical, cultural, spiritual, and legal traditions. All that is imposed artificially is destined for rejection and creation of new conflicts, including economic violations of law.

The idea of spontaneous orders dating back to Mandeville and elaborated at length by the Austrian School of Economics (Menger, Hayek) is no doubt a major contribution to the understanding of society (Hamowy, 1987). It offers great insights into how human beings solve coordination problems by unintentionally creating mechanisms for social interaction such as the market, money, language, science and law (Hamowy, 1987; Petsoulas, 2000). Such a successful concept must have its limits somewhere, as a concept which explains everything covers nothing. I wish to explore this question by relating the evolution of European integration after the Second World War to the Hayek theory of a spontaneous order. Perhaps Hayek contributed most to the elaboration of Adam Smith's vision of a self-correcting social order that needs little direction and control (Boettke, 1998). Hayek underlined time and again the importance of spontaneous processes with the entailed claim that government must adopt an attitude of humility towards conventions that are not the result of intelligent design, the justification of which in the particular instant may not be recognizable, and that may appear unintelligible and irrational (Hayek, 1960, 1982).

Charles K. Rowley's thin chapter is titled “An Intellectual History of Law and Economics: 1739–2003.” I say thin in the sense that, by my calculation, for the dates it purports to describe, it covers about one decade of history per page. Perhaps “accelerated” might better capture its essence. Overall it is an adequate outline of the history of Chicago law and economics (with some notable exceptions). To his credit (unlike most of the other chapters in this book), perhaps because, as its co-editor and probably responsible for the title of the book, he (like Posner) does actually include a nice discussion of those who were part of the “origins of law and economics.” The chapter does have two major flaws. First, for some odd reason, he chooses to challenge the well-accepted moniker—legal realist movement—and invokes the “legal realist mood” and then tries (awkwardly) to maintain the “mood-spin” within his descriptive analysis—it just sounds silly. One wonders, who (other than he) even thinks to raise the question as whether the legal realists were a “movement” or a “mood.” Surely not Edmund Kitch, one of the mainstays of Chicago law and economics and a contributor to his volume. Kitch does not buy into Rowley's spin; like all other scholars who write on legal realism (both in and out of the field of law and economics), in the forward to his chapter, Kitch follows the legal scholarship and uses the widely accepted—legal realist “movement” (p. 54).

The purpose of the research is to study – on the basis of public relations and law of various countries – the characteristics of violation of law as a variety of social conflict, and to determine соrrelations of material notion “public danger” to notions “conflict” and “legal conflict.” The authors use the philosophical law of integrity and struggle of the oppositions, rather-legal, historical and legal, and formal and legal methods. The authors analyze characteristics of violation of law as a variety of social conflict with the existing values. Absence of similarity of the notions “social value,” “value that is set by the law,” and “value set by the state” is determined, and the possibility of state’s violating the law is considered. Characteristics of crimes, envisages in criminal codes of various countries, are compared, and the feature of public danger, which should ideally reflect the true system of values for a certain organized society, is analyzed. Commonness of the objects of crimes, envisaged by criminal codes of various countries, is shown. Similarity of a lot of objects of crimes, envisages in criminal codes of various countries, is predetermined by the existing values, which are equal for all countries with democracy. Public danger as a criterion of social conflict, due to its evaluation character, which is conducted by authorized subjects, does not influence the acknowledgment of crime – even if criminal law envisages relations that are not values and are alien to this society. From the social aspect, violation of law is a variety of social conflict – with real and formal value, which may not coincide with true public values.

Purpose – This chapter aims to show how media law strongly contributed to shape in Hungary what has been pictured as a U-turn. This illiberal trend was subsequently strengthened during the Covid-19 pandemic. Methodology/Approach – It considers that law also constitutes and not only orders political and social relationships. Law, including media law, has been in Hungary one of the main factors of change or rather of political-social construction. This chapter therefore moves from the study of positive law and analyzes Hungarian media laws within the theoretical framework of illiberal democracy, drawing from contributions to political science and socio-legal studies. Findings – This chapter demonstrated that media laws have outlined in Hungary a centralized regulatory system with broad powers, which lacks political independence, therefore encouraging self-censorship and limiting freedom of expression and pluralism. These laws contributed to shape the illiberal U-turn occurred in the country before the pandemic, but the coronavirus offered the occasion to reinforce government powers, giving the leeway to rule with no or minimum scrutiny for an indefinite period and further limiting dissent. The analysis enabled to argue that neither the media regulation established during the past decade nor the laws adopted during the Covid-19 pandemic are compatible with a modern democracy. Originality/Value – Based on existing literature, little research has been conducted on the appearance and endurance of non-democratic regimes, and supposedly even less within the context of the coronavirus pandemic which started only a few months ago, compared to the contributions available on democratization processes and democratic consolidation.

E-commerce is gaining popularity across the globe and Mauritian businesses are also increasingly making use of online platforms to engage in cross-border electronic transactions. However, there are several implications arising from online trading which need to be addressed, among which one is the validity of e-contracts. This research will therefore emphasise on two main components of e-contracts: choice of law and the applicable jurisdiction. While Mauritian laws were amended to give effect to digital signatures and e-agreements, there is no extensive or substantive domestic legal provision on choice of law and jurisdiction. Hence, the purpose of this study is to advocate for a greater clarity on the legal framework governing the applicable law and jurisdiction governing a conflict situation in e-contracts, with the view of increasing trust in international e-commerce and to bring in consistency with international commercial relations. This study will be carried out in the Mauritian context by adopting the black letter approach which will analyse the relevant rules and regulations concerning e-contract formation and validity. Additionally, a comparative analysis will be conducted on the legal framework relating to the applicable law and jurisdiction in e-contracts for selected countries: the European Union and the United States. These countries have been chosen for the comparison due to their high involvement in e-commerce and their advanced as well as comprehensive rules on e-commerce.

Guided by Ericson’s counter-law analytic, the focus of this paper is how peace bonds erode traditional criminal law principles to govern uncertainty and provide applicants with a “freedom from fear” (Ericson, 2007a). Peace bonds permit the courts to impose a recognizance on anyone likely to cause harm or “personal injury” to a complainant. This paper conducts a critical discourse analysis to answer the question: how and to what extent are peace bonds a form of counter-law? Facilitated by the erosion of traditional criminal law principles and rationalized under a precautionary logic, proving that a complainant is fearful through a peace bond can result in the expansion of the state’s capacity to criminalize and conduct surveillance.