Court decisions are typically seen as one-off interventions relating to an incident in a person’s life, but a legal decision can impact on the person as they were and the person they will become.This book is the first to explore the interactions of the law with the life course in order to understand the complex life journey as a whole.Jonathan Herring reveals how the law privileges ‘middle age’ to the detriment of the whole life story and explains why an understanding of th...

All is not well with the law on rape. It is rarely reported and even when it is, it is rarely prosecuted. Victims are deterred for a range of reasons, but these include a fear that it will never be possible to prove the rape has occurred and that the trial will be traumatic. Even when the case proceeds to trial, victims perceive that it is they, rather than the perpetrator, who is the one on trial. The past sexual behaviour of the victim,; the clothes she was wearing,; the people she socia...

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...

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...

The Oxford Handbook of Medical Ethics and Law is the definitive guide to the legal and ethical issues around medical and surgical practice. It is written with the busy clinician in mind who will not have time to read lengthy and complex legal or philosophical documents but requires the key information presented without technical jargon in a handy quick-reference style. The handbook also includes a substantial number of examples taken from a wide variety of specialties with the rel...

Criminal Law: The Basics is an insightful introduction to the legal aspects of criminal acts, ranging from battery to burglary and harassment to homicide.Starting with an in-depth exploration of the very concept of crime, the book considers key questions such as:• How should we decide what is criminal and what isn’t?• What is the difference between murder and manslaughter?• Could you ever be guilty of stealing your own property?• What defences are av...

‘Rough sex’ has been at the forefront of criminal law in recent years following several high-profile murders of women killed during alleged consensual sex ‘gone wrong’, leading to widespread calls for reform to prevent the use of what has been termed the ‘rough sex defence.’ Situated in a global context in which violence against women is one of the leading preventable contributors to death and illness for women aged 18–44 worldwide, this timely collection examines the rough sex defence and...

There has been a widespread resurgence of rights talk in social and legal discourses pertaining to the regulation of family life, as well as an increase in the use of rights in family law cases, in the UK, the US, Canada and Australia. Rights, Gender and Family Law addresses the implications of these developments – and, in particular, the impact of rights-based approaches upon the idea of welfare and its practical application. There are now many areas of family law in which rights...

This book examines the controversial and repercussive contention that an objective of the law should be to promote personal morality - to make people ethically better. It surveys a number of domains, including criminal law, tort law, contract law, family law, and medical law (particularly the realm of moral enhancement technologies) asking for each: (a) Does the existing law seek to promote personal morality? (b) If so, what is the account of morality promoted, and what is the substantive ...

This book explores the series of issues that emerge at the intersection of disability, care and family law.Disability studies is an area of increasing academic interest. In addition to a subject in its own right, there has been growing concern to ensure that mainstream subjects diversify and include marginalised voices, including those of disabled people. Family law in modern times is often based on an "able-bodied autonomous norm" but can fit less well with the complexities of liv...

This book examines the idea of a fundamental entitlement to health and healthcare from a human rights perspective.The volume is based on a particular conceptual reasoning that balances critical thinking and pragmatism in the context of a universal right to health. Thus, the primary focus of the book is the relationship or contrast between rights-based discourse/jurisprudential arguments and real-life healthcare contexts. The work sets out the constraints that are imposed on a unive...

This book promotes a relational understanding of the self. It explores how law can be transformed by focusing on the promotion and protection of caring relationships, rather than individual rights. This offers a radical and profound re-imagining of what law is about and what it should be trying to do. It moves from the theoretical into offering practical examples of how the law could be developed to enhance relationships, rather than undermine them.