This thesis explores the imagery of underworld justice, and its associated beliefs and practices, as they developed throughout Chinese imperial history. Certain elements of the Chinese imperial legal system, including judges and trials, and laws and codes, were borrowed by the Daoists and applied to their construct of the afterlife. Underworld justice beliefs and practices flourished throughout China's imperial past, and are still influential to some devotees in today's Hong Kong. Among the various questions that are explored, this thesis examines the place of underworld justice in the legal consciousness, or everyday law, of the devotees in contemporary Hong Kong. There are two dimensions to this thesis: historical and empirical. In the historical part, I trace the development of underworld justice beliefs and practices in imperial China. I analyse some of the characteristics and rituals of underworld justice, and relate them to the imperial laws and procedures upon which they were modelled. Such tracing allows us to discern the considerable overlap between the imperial legal system and underworld justice beliefs and practices. In the empirical part, I present data gathered at mainly three City God temples in Hong Kong. Such data involve conversations with Daoist and Buddhist priests, temple keepers and devotees. The data gathered not only shed light on the general state of City God veneration in contemporary Hong Kong, but also the influence of underworld justice on the devotees' understanding of law. The data reveal that the studied devotees regard underworld justice, which administers the law of karma, as superior to the state legal system. Hence, underworld justice is not considered as an informal dispute resolution process alternative to that of the state, but as a mechanism that can intervene in court cases, due to its being more authoritative.

Across the country, African American defendants are being discriminated against in the criminal courts and by juries, particularly in capital cases.[1] This assertion is supported by two lines of research. First, an analysis of Supreme Court decisions focusing on the racial impact on voir dire. Second, social-legal studies on juror decision making have demonstrated legal and socio-legal histories providing evidence that demonstrate there is a racial bias in our system. Based on these findings, this paper sets forth several legal and policy recommendations to improve the fair adjudication of African American defendants charged with capital crimes. [1] Jack Glaser, Karin D. Martin, Kimberly B. Kahn, Possibility of Death Sentence Has Divergent Effect on Verdicts for Black and White Defendants (2015).

The thesis answers the following research question: what is the extent of the influence of international law on the construction and application of corporate codes of conduct, what factors determine this influence and through which processes does it occur? The thesis uses a mix of methods: a content analysis study, used to measure the extent to which codes of conduct incorporate international labour standards and the degree to which they have changed over time in this respect; legal research on whether corporations can be liable for violating their codes and how this risk factors in the drafting of codes; and case studies of fifteen retailer corporations, which examine how their codes were created and how they are being applied. The study's findings show there is an influence of international law on the construction and, to a far smaller degree, on the application of codes. The creation and application of codes is a politicised and contested process and codes are based on international law principally due to the pressure exerted by trade unions and NGOs, but also due to reputational risk, commercial pressure and mimicry by corporations. This influence has been selective, with corporations applying provisions in their codes that protect the rights carrying the biggest reputational risks. These findings show the flaws in the current international framework for corporate accountability, which is based on self-regulation through codes and audits. They also raise issue of whether changes, such as a binding international treaty or the creation of more collaborative and inclusive programmes to oversee the application of codes, may be required in order to ensure wider respect for labour rights of workers.

In this project, I look at the work of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) and the role that brokers at the organization play in constructing, promoting, and institutionalizing a body of LGBT human rights. While a great deal is being written about the diffusion of LGBT politics and human rights discourses from the Global North, there are few ethnographic analyses of who is doing the exporting, how, and toward what ends. Based on a year of fieldwork in IGLHRC’s New York and Cape Town offices, I look at the history of IGLHRC, the interactions among brokers and how these shape their daily work, how brokers understand their mandate and the hybridity that it so often requires, and how partnership with groups in the Global South, the production, verification, and circulation of information, and the possibilities and constraints of the formal human rights arena all shape the work that brokers do. Ultimately, I conclude that human rights advocacy must be understood holistically if it is to be understood at all. Such advocacy always necessarily involves a degree of theoretical elaboration, promotion, and codification by human rights defenders and NGOs, and focusing exclusively on one or another of these aspects paints a skewed portrait of what it means to work within a human rights framework. Drawing from the anthropology of sexuality, queer theory, literature on brokerage, and interdisciplinary studies of transnational advocacy networks, this project aims to deepen understandings of how LGBT NGOs and the brokers that animate them regularly engage in the construction, promotion, and institutionalization of particular understandings of sexuality and the claims that can be made by sexual subjects globally.

Novelty is a widespread notion that has not been given commensurate critical attention. This research is an ethnographically-inclined exploration of practices surrounding the accomplishment of novelty in an institution for which novelty is a central notion: the patent system of the United Kingdom. The research is based on interviews with patent examiners at the UK patent office, interviews with patent attorneys at various legal firms, and documentary analysis of legislation and numerous legal judgments. The thesis brings to bear themes from Science and Technology Studies and ethnomethodology to assess the extent to which they can account for the practices surrounding novelty in the UK patent system. As a fundamental legal requirement for the patentability of inventions, novelty is a central part of the practices of patent composition, assessment and contestation. Rather than being a straightforward technical criterion, however, novelty is shown to be a complex and heterogeneous phenomenon emerging from interwoven legal, bureaucratic and individual practices. The local resolution of whether or not a given invention is new, and the cross-institutional coherence of novelty as a practicable notion, raise questions concerning ontology, accountability, scale and inconcludability, and provide an opportunity for empirically grounded engagement with these longstanding analytical concerns.

The dissertation solves the empirical puzzle why similar regimes such as Morocco and Jordan vary in their engagement in family law reform between 1999 and 2013. Differences with respect to family law reform in the two monarchies are threefold: the way the reform processes were carried out, the content of the new family codes that were issued in Morocco in 2004 and in Jordan in 2010, and the way the laws were applied. Using Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice as a theoretical framework the dissertation establishes the links between the designs of the legal systems, how reform processes are carried out, the family laws countries end up with, and the way the laws are applied. French and British colonialism had shaped the legal systems of Morocco and Jordan to different degrees, producing a legal system that was unified after independence in Morocco whereas the Jordanian one continued to be divided into regular and religious courts. As a result, Moroccan family courts are less autonomous and more subjected to political decisions than Jordanian sharia courts. The institutional design of both judicial systems affected how family law reform was carried out because those systems contain biases towards different actors who are seen as competent of reforming family law and thus came to influence the reform process. The different access criteria to the juridical fields promote different types of cultural capital, so that actors participating in the process have different preferences regarding the development of the content of family law. In Jordan, the absence of the Jordanian king allowed the sharia court administration to exploit the structural bias in its favour and come to dominate both the process and content of family law reform. For this reason the 2010 Jordanian family law reflects to a lesser extent the demands of women's groups. The absence of the Jordanian king from the reform process demonstrates that change in authoritarian states is not necessarily imposed from above nor is it predetermined from the beginning. The Jordanian reform process saw little engagement from the top-level of the regime and could be classified as a mid-level process. It was led by a government body, the sharia court administration, which however enjoyed relative autonomy from the upper echelon of the regime. By contrast, the Moroccan family law reform was a textbook example of authoritarian politics, the reform being imposed from above and the king playing a leading role during the process. In contrast to the process and content of reform, the application of the reformed law in Morocco challenges the notion of the omnipotent authoritarian regime. While the monarch could impose legislative change, the state is at best partially able to enforce this very law or to impose a consensus over its interpretation. The designs of the legal systems again had an impact here. International law occupies different places in the Moroccan and Jordanian constitutions: Jordanian sharia courts enjoy greater autonomy, reject international law, and thus were able to resist its intrusion.

Unlike in the Ottoman world, the exercise of judicial power in nineteenth century Qajar Iran was not contingent upon formal appointment by the political authority. In accordance with the dominant Ṣūlī theory, it derived from the perceived intellectual ability of a cleric to infer the ruling of God (Ḥukmullāh) from the sources of Twelver Shī'ī law through deductive effort (ijtihād). Like the Ottoman qāḍī, the Qajar Uṣūlī jurist or mujtahid known as Ḥākim-i shar' in a judicial context had both notarial and adjudicative powers. The Qajar jurist could thus authenticate, register, annul legal documents and act as an arbiter in lawsuits. The Qajar jurist could also, however, issue a legal opinion. This was the role of the muftī – a separate judicial office in other parts of the Islamic world. Qajar jurists exercised their extensive judicial powers through a network of informal sharī'a courts, which they came to operate in most Iranian towns and cities largely independent of direct state control. While the notarial aspects of the Qajar sharī'a court have received some scholarly attention, this study aims to investigate the role of the jurist and his ruling (Ḥukm-i shar') in sharī'a litigation (murāfa'a pl. –āt).

This thesis examines data and theory about how the system of law (SL) operates and evolves: it contrasts data from social workers and attorneys working in the juvenile dependency court with theories about how individuals and social systems evolve. The analysis is based on research conducted in San Diego and revolves around a theory about human development, or the "individual as a system" (HD), and a theory about social systems, such as the autopoietic theory of law and its self-reproducing system (LA). It is suggested that together, the theories of HD+LA help to examine how professionals and law operate and evolve in the legal system. Overall, the thesis rejects the autopoietic systems theory that law reproduces itself, by itself. Instead, analysis in this study supports the finding that law is defined and operates through a dialectic of the individual and the social (or the organic and the mechanistic respectively) such that each gives rise to the other. On the basis of this system connection, aspects from systems theory about legal autopoiesis are integrated into concepts from constructive-developmental theory (HDLA), thus providing a new framework through which to examine how law and its system functions. The new framework is built around an equation that emerged some time after data analysis and theoretical development: SL=HDLA+DSA . The equation states that: The evolution of the system of law involves processes of human development and to some but a much lesser degree, the autopoietic nature of law. The extent of this evolution is best determined by analyzing data from a court setting. The dialectical relationship between individual and social influences in the evolution of law is facilitated by the accumulation of social action � such as activity from media and advocacy groups � and the individual meaning that professionals make about this action, which in turn has an influence on the formal and informal operations that they perform when operating law. The nature of these interacting dynamics will be shown through two interconnected tools of analysis: one is a typology of individual, professional and system self-concepts; the typology helps to show how a cycle of system change (human development giving rise to legal change and vice versa) occurs in the court; the other is the operative structure (or culture) of systems for law and social work in child abuse cases � which unite in court operations. These two interconnected tools help to show how the court operates and how social action (SA) for change contributes to professional and system change in the evolution of law.

This thesis examines data and theory about how the system of law (SL) operates and evolves: it contrasts data from social workers and attorneys working in the juvenile dependency court with theories about how individuals and social systems evolve. The analysis is based on research conducted in San Diego and revolves around a theory about human development, or the "individual as a system" (HD), and a theory about social systems, such as the autopoietic theory of law and its self-reproducing system (LA). It is suggested that together, the theories of HD+LA help to examine how professionals and law operate and evolve in the legal system. Overall, the thesis rejects the autopoietic systems theory that law reproduces itself, by itself. Instead, analysis in this study supports the finding that law is defined and operates through a dialectic of the individual and the social (or the organic and the mechanistic respectively) such that each gives rise to the other. On the basis of this system connection, aspects from systems theory about legal autopoiesis are integrated into concepts from constructive-developmental theory (HDLA), thus providing a new framework through which to examine how law and its system functions. The new framework is built around an equation that emerged some time after data analysis and theoretical development: SL=HDLA+DSA . The equation states that: The evolution of the system of law involves processes of human development and to some but a much lesser degree, the autopoietic nature of law. The extent of this evolution is best determined by analyzing data from a court setting. The dialectical relationship between individual and social influences in the evolution of law is facilitated by the accumulation of social action � such as activity from media and advocacy groups � and the individual meaning that professionals make about this action, which in turn has an influence on the formal and informal operations that they perform when operating law. The nature of these interacting dynamics will be shown through two interconnected tools of analysis: one is a typology of individual, professional and system self-concepts; the typology helps to show how a cycle of system change (human development giving rise to legal change and vice versa) occurs in the court; the other is the operative structure (or culture) of systems for law and social work in child abuse cases � which unite in court operations. These two interconnected tools help to show how the court operates and how social action (SA) for change contributes to professional and system change in the evolution of law.

A basic tenet and challenge of copyright law is the need to balance the interests of a range of stakeholders, from authors and performers to publishers, producers, broadcasters, intermediaries, service providers and the general public. To ensure that this balancing act takes place, policymakers involve organisations representing these stakeholders in the development of policy and the drafting of legislation in several ways, including through meetings, public consultations, and stakeholder dialogues. However, the process by which stakeholders steer the course and substance of copyright law and policy, their behaviour, as well as the varying extent to which they impact and characterise the copyright policy framework, have rarely been the specific focus of empirical research in IP. The present thesis examines creators’ organisations (COs) as participants and shapers of copyright policy. Through a socio-legal study into the workings of The Society of Authors, the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society, the Musicians’ Union, and the Performing Right Society on several contemporary policy issues, the thesis observes how two types of organisations: trade unions and collective management organisations, across the music and publishing industries, engage in policy work. Through in-depth analysis of primary data obtained from interviews with CO representatives as well as documentary data (public consultation responses, policy briefings, press releases, reports, academic studies, and more), the thesis captures and discusses differences in the behaviour of these actors and argues that these differences are not fully understood by policymakers. It illustrates how factors such as an organisation’s mandate, resources, membership composition, political power, and self-concept, influence an organisation’s policy proactivity. Some actors may be more concerned with influencing the copyright policy agenda itself, while others primarily seek to shape its outcomes. The thesis also identifies power dynamics and imbalances between the COs and argues that some actors are in a better position to effectively participate in policy compared to others. Furthermore, it discusses the effects of the plurality of actors with varying interests and priorities, as well as the competition of policy issues that this provokes. In this context, the thesis illustrates the complex structure of the copyright policy environment and, in particular, the role of umbrella organisations and ad-hoc coalitions in the furtherance of a particular policy issue or position. It concludes that as a result of complex stakeholder dynamics, power imbalances, and policymakers’ insufficient understanding of these phenomena, certain creators’ issues will not surface onto copyright policy agendas and will thus remain unaddressed by copyright law. The thesis further concludes that complex stakeholder dynamics challenge the objective of developing evidence-based policy and render the copyright policy process unclear and its outcomes unpredictable. Given the disparity of views and positions on many copyright law issues, policymakers often attempt to shape law and policy outcomes as a compromise between different stakeholder interests. However, this does not always produce sound or appropriate results for copyright law.