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Legal Research (legal + research)
Selected AbstractsLifting the Veil: The Use of Focus Groups and Trial Simulations in Legal ResearchJOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY, Issue 2008Emily Finch First page of article [source] Visions of Fact; Languages of Evidence: History, Memory, and the Trauma of Legal ResearchLAW & SOCIAL INQUIRY, Issue 4 2001Bill Maurer First page of article [source] Litigation and alcohol policy: lessons from the US Tobacco WarsADDICTION, Issue 2009James F. Mosher ABSTRACT Aims This paper explores the role of litigation in preventing alcohol-related harms, identifying lessons from the use of litigation in tobacco control policy in the United States. It analyzes the key components of litigation in an international context, provides a case study of its potential use in addressing the marketing of alcopops to youth and offers recommendations for pursuing litigation strategies in future alcohol policy efforts. Methods The paper's analyses are based on both original and secondary legal research. State and federal case law and secondary sources are reviewed in assessing lessons learned from tobacco litigation in the United States and the potential role of litigation in alcohol policy, both in the United States and internationally. Assessment of alcohol litigation cases and state and federal laws and regulations provides the foundation for the alcopops case study. Findings The tobacco litigation experience demonstrates that litigation is a powerful tool in addressing aggressive marketing by purveyors of addictive products such as alcohol. Conclusions To be effective at both national and international levels, litigation should encompass a broad array of legal tactics designed to identify and restrict unfair, deceptive and misleading alcohol marketing tactics and should be utilized in conjunction with complementary prevention strategies. Research conducted on the impact of alcohol marketing on youth alcohol consumption and problems is needed to support potential litigation claims. Developing litigation expertise within the alcohol policy field and building collaboration with litigation specialists in tobacco control should also be considered a high priority. [source] Defamation Cases against HistoriansHISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 3 2002Antoon De Baets Defamation is the act of damaging another's reputation. According to recent legal research, defamation laws may be improperly used in many ways. Some of these uses profoundly affect the historian's work: first, when defamation laws protect reputations of states or nations as such; second, when they prevent legitimate criticism of officials; and, third, when they protect the reputations of deceased persons. The present essay offers two tests of these three abuses in legal cases where historians were defendants. The first test, a short worldwide survey, confirms the occurrence of all three abuses; the second test (an empirical analysis of twenty,one cases (1965,2000) from nine western European countries) the occurrence of the third abuse. Both tests touch on problems central to the historical profession: living versus deceased persons; facts versus opinions; legal versus historical truth; the relationship between human dignity, reputation, and privacy; the role of politicians, veterans, and Holocaust deniers as complainants; the problem of amnestied crimes. The second test,the results of which are based on verdicts, commentaries, and press articles, and presented in a synoptic table,looks closely into the complainants' and defendants' profiles, the allegedly defamatory statements themselves, and the verdicts. All statements deemed defamatory were about such contemporary events as World War II (particularly war crimes, collaboration, and resistance) and colonial wars. Both tests amount to two conclusions. The first one is about historians' professional rights and obligations: historians should make true, but privacy,sensitive or potentially offending, statements only when the public interest is served; otherwise, they should have a right to silence. The second conclusion concerns defamation itself: defamation cases and threats to sue in defamation have a chilling effect on the historical debate; they are often but barely veiled attempts at censorship. [source] Testing Alternative Legal Paradigms: An Experiment in Designing Tax LegislationLAW & SOCIAL INQUIRY, Issue 1 2009Graeme S. Cooper This article reports on empirical research undertaken to test the claim made in a law reform project that citizens could be made more certain of their legal obligations by changing the legal paradigm used to express their rights and obligations. Our research tested a number of hypotheses involving different formulations of the claim being made. We find that the alternative paradigm being presented was inferior to current practice and offer some reasons that would explain our results and the significance of this work for other areas of legal research. [source] The nature of law as an interpretive practice and its associated modes of inquiryLEGAL STUDIES, Issue 4 2009Nathan Gibbs The paper provides a critical survey of certain methodological debates in the field of legal philosophy in order to assess their implications for legal research in general. Underpinning this survey is a concern to establish the independence and integrity of both legal practice and legal research in the light of the risks posed by preponderant forms of instrumental rationality. Thus, Brian Leiter's recent call for a ,naturalised' jurisprudence is criticised for the instrumentalist basis upon which he claims to privilege forms of legal research apparently ,continuous with' the natural and empirical social sciences. As against Leiter, it is argued that there are in fact a range of distinct but interrelated modes of legal research. In this respect, the work of HLA Hart is interpreted as an example of a distinctively theoretical mode of inquiry into law. In addition, an account of the nature of a distinctively practical mode of legal inquiry is developed from a critique of Ronald Dworkin's excessively ,theoretical' reading of the interpretive character of legal practice. A constitutive practical feature of both modes of inquiry is their capacity to take up a certain distance from any exclusive concern with instrumental or pragmatic action. [source] A Framework for Understanding State Balanced Budget Requirement Systems: Reexamining Distinctive Features and an Operational DefinitionPUBLIC BUDGETING AND FINANCE, Issue 3 2006YILIN HOU Studies of state fiscal and budgetary policies often use balanced budget requirements (BBRs) as explanatory variables. While current measures laid the crucial groundwork for a basic understanding of state BBRs, their lack of comprehensiveness threatens the validity of empirical work. Based on comprehensive legal research, this article offers a framework for analyzing state requirements: each state's BBRs form a coherent system for achieving budget balance through budget cycles; a fully developed BBR system offers a three-line construct against imbalance; and the more complete, developed, and explicit a BBR system is, the more stringent it will be in achieving budgetary balance. [source] | ||||||||||