This thesis aims to critique the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth and its underlying moral justification in order to provide a stronger and improved version of both. In Chapter 1 I explore what sort of moral justification is necessary to establish the Universal Declaration on firm grounds and explore its relation to environmental ethics and rights discourse. I argue that a non-anthropocentric perspective is necessary to justify the Universal Declaration’s rights. In Chapter 2 I explore the underlying justification of the Universal Declaration as discovered in the works of Cormac Cullinan and Father Thomas Berry. I argue that their ethical framework is indeterminate, has many ambiguities and uncertainties, and, among other problems, it does not provide a clear action-guiding framework. In Chapter 3 I develop an alternative justification for the Universal Declaration. I argue against many predominant moral theories, that in light of our best scientific and moral understanding we should expand the realm of moral concern to include all living beings, a moral theory I call Life’s Imperative. In Chapter 4 I illustrate that Life’s Imperative is a much stronger, more coherent justification for the Universal Declaration, one that coheres with both our best understanding of the natural world and our relation to it, and to an environmental ethic reflective of that relationship. Unfortunately many of the weaknesses in the current implicit justification of the Universal Declaration have also led to it enshrining rights that are themselves problematic. In order to address these issues, I revise its rights to accord with the stronger justification that I established in Chapter 3. The end result of doing so is a revised version of the Universal Declaration

The Law and Art - Symbolism, Aesthetics, Architecture Abstract The Law and Art can be considered as a field of legal science or as a part of the theory of law, which is beginning to enjoy the interest of lawyers and legal scientists and theoreticians. However, this is not an area of law dealing with the Art Law. The Art Law focuses more on intellectual property law and the application of law in the world of art and artists. This thesis analyzes the theoretical question of whether the law can be understood as a distinct artistic discipline. So called beautiful art. This question also is the main hypothesis of this thesis. The thesis consists of five backbone chapters, in which the author, with the help of partial hypotheses and submitting as much information as possible, seeks to defend or refute the main hypothesis. As a by-product of the research done, the author also introduces a new term "The Art of Law". The Art of Law is supposed to represent possible ways and (the) ways of the connections of particular beautiful and applied arts with the law as a field of human activity. The aim of the thesis is not only to provide comprehensive and definitive answers to the main hypothesis (but also to a comprehensive explanation of the concept of the Art of Law) likewise an effort to set up a stimulating environment...

This thesis inquires into the meaning of the right to security of person. This right is found in many international, regional and domestic human rights instruments. However, academic discourse reveals disagreement about the meaning of the right. The thesis first considers case law from the European Convention on Human Rights, the South African Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter. The analysis shows that courts too disagree about the meaning of the right to security of person. The thesis then takes a theoretical approach to understanding the meaning of the right. It is argued that the concept of ‘security’ establishes that the right imposes both positive and negative duties but that ‘security’ does not determine which interests are protected by the right. For this, we need consider the meaning of the ‘person’. The notion of personhood as understood in the ‘capabilities approach’ of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum is then introduced. It is suggested that this theory could be used to identify the interests protected by the right. Next, the theoretical developments are applied to the legal context in order to illustrate the variety of interests the right to security of person would protect and the type of duties it would impose. As a result, it is argued that the idea of ‘security of person’ is too broad to form the subject matter of an individual legal right. This raises a question over the relationship between security of person and human rights law. It is proposed that instead of recognising an individual legal right to security of person, human rights law as a whole could be seen as a mechanism to secure the person, the capabilities approach determining what it takes to fulfil a right and thereby secure the person.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the history behind and the use of militarized drones in modern day conflicts, and to conclude whether the use of these machines, with special attention to the United States, is legal, ethical, and morally defensible. In achieving the aforementioned goals, shortcomings of current policy surrounding drone warfare will be highlighted, acting as the catalyst for a proposal for changes to be made to better suit legal, ethical, and moral considerations. The proposal of a policy to help us work with armed drones is due to the fact that this thesis acknowledges that armed drones, like guns, nuclear weapons, or any type of military technology, is here to stay and that once we acknowledge that fact, the most important step is to make sure we have the right tools to judge the conduct of conflict carried out using armed drones or other weapons that raise similar issues and questions.

This thesis explores how society can and should compensate those who have been wrongfully convicted after they are exonerated and how we can prevent these mistakes from happening to others in the future. It begins by presenting research on the scope of the problem. Then it suggests possible reforms to the U.S. justice system that would minimize the rate of innocent convictions. Lastly, it takes both a philosophical and political look at what just compensation would entail as well as a variety of state compensation laws.

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One of the central questions in political theory deals with the nature of rights. What sorts of rights do people possess? How are these rights justified? How ought these rights be reflected and related when seen in political, economic, and social institutions? Following the publication of John Rawls' A Theory of Justice (1971) and Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), rights have once again returned to dominate much of contemporary political theory. However, natural law, which was the historical basis of the early Enlightenment theories of rights, is no longer the primary system appealed to when discussing rights. In fact, classical natural law has been all but discarded in most of political theory today. There has also been renewed debate over the nature of public neutrality, and what the relationship ought to be between the public and private sphere. The mainstream view of how our liberties relate to our rights, as well as what kinds of rights we have over our private affairs, has come under fire from a newly emerging political philosophy known as communitarianism. This thesis will present a robust theory of rights that provides a new understanding of the relationship between positive and negative rights through a defense of classical natural law as an ethical foundation for political theory. It will side with the communitarian critics of public neutrality, and offer a practical method of determining when the state is justified in limiting private liberties due to public interest.

Since the late 1980s, efforts made by the international community to deal with the complex and global problem of money laundering have stimulated the creation and definition of the so-called 'international crime of money laundering', which is included in various United Nations and Council of Europe international treaties, as well as European Union Directives. The Central purpose of this thesis is to investigate if the main goal of effectiveness in the adaptation of the international crime of money laundering at the domestic level, might undermine other values that international law is seeking to protect, namely the guarantee of due process and the adequate protection of human rights principles. Then, if the adoption of any element of the crime shows to be inconsistent with civil rights and guarantees, to propose how deficiencies could be remedied.

The present series of studies examine how jurors and public defenders evaluate different pieces of evidence and integrate them into a coherent conclusion within the context of a criminal case. Previous research has shown that in situations where both sides of the case are compelling, decision-makers nevertheless come to highly confident and polarized decisions, called coherence shifts (Simon, 2004). The present research sought to expand on coherence effects, improve upon the methodology of previous studies, and explore potential moderators of coherence. In Study 1, mock jurors (n = 306) read about a criminal case and evaluated multiple pieces of evidence at various points throughout the case. Results indicated that participants exhibited pronounced coherence shifts (i.e., their evaluations of the various pieces of evidence (a) became more consistent as the case progressed, and (b) were evaluated in line with their initial leanings) using an improved methodology that randomized evidence order and evidence valence. Furthermore, participants’ interim leanings of guilt or innocence biased their subsequent evaluations of ambiguous evidence. The direction and magnitude of participants’ coherence shifts were predicted by their pretrial dispositions towards prosecution and defense. Participants lacked awareness of how their perceptions of the evidence have shifted. Coherence shifts were not, however, moderated by asking mock jurors to justify their decisions, or by asking mock jurors to play devil’s advocate while considering each piece of evidence, underscoring the pervasiveness of this cognitive bias. Study 2 examined whether actual public defenders experience coherence shifts and how those shifts relate to the plea bargaining process; however, no coherence shifts were observed. Study 3 examined whether the timing of the defense’s presentation of their case could reduce coherence effects; results indicated that reading about the defense’s case immediately after the prosecution’s case (c.f. following a delay) marginally (p = .09) reduced coherence effects among jurors who acquitted the defendant, suggesting one potential strategy to mitigate this bias.