New Books in Law

Professor Anna Spain Bradley "wrote this book to be accessible to anyone, because international law is for everyone." In this important book, Professor Anna Spain Bradley explores human choice in international law and political decision making. Human Choice in International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2021) investigates the neurobiological processes which shape human choice in the framework of international law and shows how human choice impacts decisions on peace and security. Professor Spain Bradley charts important decisions in the international human rights framework to show how human choice has affected decisions about genocide, international intervention into armed conflict and nuclear weapons, and human rights. This is an important book which has the potential to change the way we think about human choice in law, and the implications of human choice in the lives of all people, for whom decisions are made. Professor Spain Bradley calls for a rethink about how we understand human choice, especially in relation to what international law does and what it should do. Professor Anna Spain Bradley is Vice Chancellor of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is an award-winning international law scholar, educator and expert specializing in international dispute resolution, international human rights and combatting global racism. Jane Richards is a doctoral student at the University of Hong Kong. You can find her on twitter where she follows all things related to human rights and Hong Kong politics @JaneRichardsHK Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

In Political Science, we are very familiar with the work of scholars who try to unpack why the ERA failed to get the required states. But Gendered Citizenship: The Original Conflict over the Equal Rights Amendment, 1920-1963 published by the University of Nebraska in 2021 interrogates how earlier debates on the ERA transcended traditional political divides and ultimately redefined the concept of citizenship in the United States. By using a rich collection of public and private sources, Dr. Rebecca DeWolf shows that support for and opposition to the ERA was not tied to either conservatism or liberalism. Instead unusual allies coalesced around two competing views of citizenship – what DeWolf calls the emancipatory and the protectionist. Gendered Citizenship argues that the early conflict over the ERA changed the definition of rights -- and the catalyst for that change was the 19th amendment. Those opposing the ERA provided a modern justification for separate and distinct standards of rights for men and women citizens -- and that formulation still haunts 21st century politics.Dr. Rebecca DeWolf is a historian focused on gender and women’s history, politics, and United States' constitutional culture. She has received the Dirksen Center Congressional Research Grant as well as grants from American University to do her archival research on the ERA. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, History News Network, New America Weekly, and Frontiers.Susan Liebell is Dirk Warren '50 Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

Criminal Justice: An Examination is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Julian Roberts, Professor of Criminology at the University of Oxford. Julian Roberts is an international expert on sentencing throughout the common-law world and is strongly involved in connecting scholars with practitioners as well as promoting greater public understanding of sentencing. This thought-provoking conversation covers a wide range of topics related to criminal justice, including plea bargaining, the involvement of victims in criminal sentencing procedures, victim impact statements, parole, sentencing multiple and repeat crimes, community-based sentencing, alternate dispute resolution, rehabilitation, and more.Howard Burton is the founder of the Ideas Roadshow, Ideas on Film and host of the Ideas Roadshow Podcast. He can be reached at howard@ideasroadshow.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

When are borders justified? Who has a right to control them? Where should they be drawn?Today people think of borders as an island's shores. Just as beaches delimit a castaway's realm, so borders define the edges of a territory, occupied by a unified people, to whom the land legitimately belongs. Hence a territory is legitimate only if it belongs to a people unified by a civic identity. Sadly, this Desert Island Model of territorial politics forces us to choose. If we want territories, then we can either have democratic legitimacy, or inclusion of different civic identities—but not both. The resulting politics creates mass xenophobia, migrant-bashing, hoarding of natural resources, and border walls.To escape all this,  Paulina Ochoa Espejo's book On Borders: Territories, Legitimacy, and the Rights of Place (Oxford UP, 2020) presents an alternative model. Drawing on an intellectual tradition concerned with how land and climate shape institutions, it argues that we should not see territories as pieces of property owned by identity groups. Instead, we should see them as watersheds: as interconnected systems where institutions, people, the biota, and the land together create overlapping civic duties and relations, what the book calls place-specific duties.This Watershed Model argues that borders are justified when they allow us to fulfill those duties; that border-control rights spring from internationally-agreed conventions—not from internal legitimacy; that borders should be governed cooperatively by the neighboring states and the states system; and that border redrawing should be done with environmental conservation in mind. The book explores how this model undoes the exclusionary politics of desert islands.Tejas Parasher is Junior Research Fellow in Political Thought and Intellectual History at King’s College, University of Cambridge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

In 2015, the world witnessed an Irish social revolution. In a historic referendum vote, the Republic of Ireland voted to extend the constitutional right to marriage to same-sex couples. Thirty years before, sex between men was illegal. From the 1970s, LGBT rights activists advocated tirelessly for decriminalization, fair treatment laws, protection from discrimination, and, most recently, marriage equality. In one of the most Catholic countries in the world, it was never easy. In her book The History of Marriage Equality in Ireland: A Social Revolution Begins (Manchester UP, 2020), Sonja Tiernan charts the long road to the 2015 referendum in one of Ireland’s most recent civil rights movements. Join us as we chat about Constitutional Conventions, the power of social media, the so-called “Pantigate,” and that overwhelming moment on May 22, 2015 when the people of Ireland said “Yes” to marriage equality.Avrill Earls is the Executive Producer of Dig: A History Podcast (a narrative history podcast, rather than interview-based), and an Assistant Professor of History at Mercyhurst University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

In his new book International Courts and Mass atrocity: Narratives of War and Justice in Croatia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) Ivor Sokolić explores the effects of international and national transitional justice in Croatia, and in particular the consequences of the work of the United Nations’ International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the ICTY. Sokolić casts a critical analytical gaze on how and why universal human rights norms become distorted or undermined when they are filtered through national and local perceptions and narratives. Based on extensive research involving focus groups in Croatia, Sokolić’s book marks an innovative approach to exploring the limitations of transitional justice and reconciliation in a post-conflict environment. Ivor Sokolić is a lecturer in politics and international relations at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom.Christian Axboe Nielsen is associate professor of history and human security at Aarhus University in Denmark. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about: The field of reproductive health studies The data on contraceptive access and effectiveness [even when used correctly] Why we need to trust women What happens when a pregnant person seeking an abortion is turned away The long-term outcomes for people who have had abortions The consequences for people denied abortions A discussion of the book The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having or Being Denied an Abortion Today’s book is: The Turnaway Study, which asks what happens when a person seeking an abortion is turned away. Dr. Diane Greene Foster and a team of scientists, psychologists, epidemiologists, demographers, nurses, physicians, economists, sociologists, and public health researchers conducted a ten-year study on the outcomes of a thousand pregnant people across America, studying both those who received abortions, and those who were turned away. Dr. Foster analyzes impacts on mental and physical health, careers, and romantic relationships, offering the first data-driven examination of the negative consequences for pregnant people who are denied abortions.Our guest is: Dr. Diana Greene Foster, a professor and demographer who uses quantitative models and analyses to evaluate the effectiveness of family planning policies and the effect of unwanted pregnancy on women’s lives. She led the Turnaway Study in the US, and is collaborating with scientists on a Nepal Turnaway Study. Dr. Foster also worked on the evaluation of the California State family planning program, Family PACT, demonstrating the effectiveness of the program in reducing the incidence of unintended pregnancy and the effect of dispensing a one-year supply of contraception. Dr. Foster created a new methodology for estimating pregnancies averted based on a Markov model and a microsimulation to identify the cost-effectiveness of advance provision of emergency contraception.Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, co-producer of the Academic Life. She is a historian of women and gender.Listeners to this episode might be interested in: American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists advocacy webpage  The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having or Being Denied an Abortion, by Diana Greene Foster Advancing New Studies in Reproductive Health You’re Doing it Wrong: Mothering, Media, and Medical Expertise by Bethany L. Johnson and Margaret M. Quinlan A discussion of the book You’re Doing it Wrong,  You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island and neither are we. We reach across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring on an expert about something? DM us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

Called the “quarterback of the new anti-drug movement,” Kevin Sabet received his Ph.D. in social policy from the University of Oxford and has worked in drug policy for over two decades. He’s served as an advisor for three presidential administrations, Pope Francis and the United Nations, and in 2013 he founded the group he still leads, Smart Approaches to Marijuana, better known as SAM, which opposes cannabis legalization and commercialization. His new book, Smokescreen: What the Marijuana Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know, was released by Forefront Books earlier this year. Emily Dufton is the author of Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America (Basic Books, 2017). A drug historian and writer, her second book, on the development of the opioid addiction medication industry, is under contract with the University of Chicago Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

As the foundational text of the Oral Torah in Judaism, the Mishnah is generally analyzed to understand Jewish law and the workings of the halakhic system. But Yakov Nagen, in looking at over two hundred mishnayot, identifies fascinating literary devices employed by the Sages to convey a deeper meaning, even the Mishnah's 'inner spirit.'Join us as we talk with Yakov Nagen about his work, The Soul of the Mishna.Yakov Nagen is a senior rabbi at the Otniel Yeshiva in Israel, where he teaches Talmud, halakha, Jewish thought, and Kabbala. He also serves as director of Ohr Torah Stone’s Beit Midrash for Judaism and Humanity. He received his rabbinical ordination from RIETS at Yeshiva University and holds a PhD in Jewish Philosophy from Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is also the author of Be, Become, Bless: Jewish Spirituality between East and West(Maggid, 2019).Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759 –1797) was one of the most important moral philosophers and political theorists ever. Her writings on liberty and equality have been embraced by thinkers both in her own day and since her early death. Lionized by feminists and demonized by others as dangerous and a loose woman to boot, Wollstonecraft produced a small but powerful, persuasive corpus.But a major aspect of Wollstonecraft’s thought is far less well known—perhaps because it not about what we all want and assume is our due. True, she was interested in rights. But in her 2021 book, The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision (Notre Dame UP, 2021), Erika Bachiochi shows that Wollstonecraft wrote extensively about duties and responsibilities.Further, unlike advocates of free love in later centuries or the champions of the Sexual Revolution, Wollstonecraft, living as she did in a period when rakes abounded and women died often in childbirth, wrote about chastity and the need for men to behave responsibly and become faithful husbands and loving fathers. Bachiochi expands our understanding of Wollstonecraft and makes her a far more complex thinker than the one-dimensional woman portrayed in feminist lore.Importantly, this book is not only about Wollstonecraft. It also traces how feminism lost touch with the needs of mothers as it became centered on providing as much access to abortion as possible and to equality in the workplace at the expense of a more holistic view of the needs of women of many stripes.Bachiochi makes a convincing case that the relentless focus of influential figures like Ruth Bader Ginsburg on abortion “rights” and advancing the interests of mostly professional women ended up privileging men (and, increasingly, corporations, who prefer workers unencumbered by families) in that abortion and contraception freed men of any need to refrain from irresponsible sexual conduct.Every feminist—every person, really, should read this book because it contrasts the neglected moral vision of Wollstonecraft with the morally compromising Ginsburgian position of predicating the equality of women upon unfettered access to abortion. Bachiochi shows that many women’s rights activists and theoreticians up until very recent decades opposed both contraception and abortion on the grounds that both ultimately ended up devaluing the role of women as mothers and caregivers generally and made becoming pregnant seem careless and not something to be celebrated.A major strength of Bachiochi’s book is her examination of the work of the legal scholar and human rights expert, Mary Ann Glendon. Glendon has magisterially documented how Ginsburg and her compatriots stripped feminism of its previous foci on the ethic of caregiving and the value to society of hearth and home. Glendon points out that much of modern feminism has left women with rights but little else in terms of practical or moral support if they happen to be poor or not, say, Supreme Court Justices.Bachiochi concludes her book with policy prescriptions for a feminism that is more humane and more representative of the needs of all women and not solely career-obsessed ones. Moreover, the book is not just about women but, in the vein of Wollstonecraft herself, about how men and women can work in whatever sphere to create a society where all can flourish and, another important consideration for Wollstonecraft, excel intellectually and morally.Give a listen.Hope J. Leman is a grants researcher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law