This textbook is an introduction to more advanced writings on criminal law, primarily designed to allow students to think critically and analyse specific topics. Each chapter is structured around key questions and debates that provoke deeper thought. It asks questions such as: Why do we have the laws that we have? Could the criminal law look differently? How should the law be applied to novel situations? Does the law in fact reflect prejudices?The aim of the book is not to present ...

This book argues that suicidal people have the right to receive treatment and for reasonable steps to be taken that they are protected from killing themselves. Those suffering threats to life from mental health issues deserve the same protection as those who face threats to life from ill health or violence from others. The book explores the ethical and legal case for giving those beset with suicidal thoughts the treatment they need and for reasonable steps to be taken to prevent them attem...

'Caring and the Law' considers the law's response to caring. It explores how care is valued and recognised, how it is regulated and restricted and how the values of caring are reflected in the law. It does this by examining the law's interaction with caring in a wide range of fields including family, medical, welfare, criminal and tort law. At the heart of the book is the claim that the law has failed to recognise the importance of caring in many areas and in doing so has led to the costs ...

This textbook is an ambitious and engaging introduction to the more advanced writings on family law, primarily designed to allow students to 'get under the skin' of the topic and begin to build their critical thinking and analysis skills. Each chapter is structured around key questions and debates that provoke deeper thought and, ultimately, a clearer understanding.The aim of the book is therefore not to present a complete overview of theoretical issues in family law, but rather to...

This textbook is an ambitious and engaging introduction to the more advanced writings on medical law and ethics, primarily designed to allow students to 'get under the skin' of the topic and begin to build their critical thinking and analysis skills. Each chapter is structured around key questions and debates that provoke deeper thought and, ultimately, a clearer understanding. The aim of the book is not to present a complete overview of theoretical issues in medical law and ethics, but ra...

This book examines the potential impact of human rights in the way the law interacts with families. Traditionally family law has been dominated by consequentialist/utilitarian themes. The most notable example of this occurs in the law relating to children and the employment of the "welfare principle". This requires the court to focus on the welfare of the child as the paramount consideration. Hitherto the courts and, to a certain extent, family law academics, have firmly rejected the use o...

This is the first book to unpack the legal and ethical issues surrounding unauthorised intimate examinations during labour. The book uses feminist, socio-legal and philosophical tools to explore the issues of power, vulnerability and autonomy. The collection challenges the perception that the law adequately addresses different manifestations of unauthorised medical touch through the lens of women's experiences of unauthorised vaginal examinations during labour. The book unearths several br...

In the wake of the Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans cases, a wide-ranging international conversation was started regarding alternative thresholds for intervention and the different balances that can be made in weighing up the rights and interests of the child, the parent's rights and responsibilities and the role of medical professionals and the courts. This collection provides a comparative perspective on these issues by bringing together analysis from a range of jurisdictions across Europe, ...

Intoxicants, substances that alter a person's mental and physiological state, are a continuing obsession. In their effect on the mind and body, intoxicants go to the heart of what it means to be human. In the tensions between 'free' and uninhibited consumption on the one hand, and the pressures of social regulation and personal responsibility on the other, they also illuminate the daily paradoxes, and sheer complexity, of living in modern Western societies. Yet this complexity, and the ric...

This timely collection brings together philosophical, legal and sociological perspectives on the crucial question of who should make decisions about the fate of a child suffering from a serious illness. In particular, the collection looks at whether the current 'best interests' threshold is the appropriate boundary for legal intervention, or whether it would be more appropriate to adopt the 'risk of significant harm' approach proposed in Gard. It explores the roles of parents, doc...

Dementia is a topic of enormous human, medical, economic, legal and ethical importance. Its importance grows as more of us live longer. The legal and ethical problems it raises are complex, intertwined and under-discussed. This book brings together contributions from clinicians, lawyers and ethicists – all of them world leaders in the field of dementia – and is a comprehensive, scholarly yet accessible library of all the main (and many of the fringe) perspectives. It begins with the medica...

The debate over whether human bodies and their parts should be governed by the laws of property has accelerated with the pace of technological change. Having long held that a corpse could not be property, the common law first recognised that there could be a property interest in human tissue in some circumstances in the early 1900s, but it was not until a string of judicial decisions and statutory regulation in the 1990s and early 2000s that the place of this 'exception' was cemented. The ...