Laws, Vol. 13, Pages 28: The Challenge of Defining the Secular Laws doi: 10.3390/laws13030028 Authors: Georgina Clarke Renae Barker Judges have long wrestled with the gigantean task of defining religion, with some describing the task as being ‘called upon to ponder the imponderable’, an impossible task, and even misguided. Despite these sentiments, and comments in almost every legal definition expressing the impossibility of the task, judges have, in fact, been able to come up with numerous legal definitions for religion. These have been applied in myriad circumstan ..read more

Laws, Vol. 13, Pages 27: The Danger of the Interpretation of Facts: Legal Uncertainty in the Spanish Saga Cases Laws doi: 10.3390/laws13030027 Authors: Nataša Rajković Enhancing legal certainty is one of the main values that are sought in the investor–state dispute settlement system. The importance of legal certainty is strengthened in the case of renewable energy investments, which are in the global public interest, long-term and capital-intensive up-front. The first part of the paper presents the importance of legal certainty in investment arbitration in general, its limits and ..read more

Laws, Vol. 13, Pages 26: The Judicialisation of Parliamentary Privilege in Canada: A Cautionary Tale Laws doi: 10.3390/laws13030026 Authors: Lorne Neudorf Over the past few decades, Canadian courts have exerted strong influence over the meaning and operation of parliamentary privileges. Starting with a television producer’s Charter rights claim to access a provincial legislature’s public gallery and followed by an employment law claim made by the chauffeur to the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Supreme Court of Canada has articulated an approach under which jud ..read more

Laws, Vol. 13, Pages 25: Human and Divine Law at the Secular University: The Divide between Classical Liberalism and Post-Classical Liberalism Laws doi: 10.3390/laws13030025 Authors: Owen Anderson The American university has been guided by classical liberalism in its defense of the freedom of speech and academic freedom. The idea is that a university is a place where all ideas and perspectives can be debated. However, this idea is increasingly being challenged by those who want the secular university to be a place that advances a social philosophy that promises to transform society by dismantl ..read more

Laws, Vol. 13, Pages 23: Influence of the Cultural Defence on Conduct and Culpability in South African Criminal Law Laws doi: 10.3390/laws13020023 Authors: Jacques Matthee South African criminal law has no separate, distinct, or novel cultural defence. Such a defence could negate or mitigate an accused’s criminal liability for a culturally motivated crime. Whether South Africa’s criminal law could adopt such a defence requires understanding its influence on the requirements for criminal liability. This article evaluates the influence of the cultural defence on the e ..read more

Laws, Vol. 13, Pages 22: The Invocation of the Precautionary Principle within the Investor–State Dispute Settlement Mechanism: Not Seizing the Occasion Laws doi: 10.3390/laws13020022 Authors: Naimeh Masumy Sara Hourani The principal purpose of this article is to demonstrate how the precautionary principle can be included in the investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) deliberative process by providing a legal solution that would permit the invocation and implementation of this concept within the ISDS operational framework. The precautionary principle has been widely app ..read more

Laws, Vol. 13, Pages 21: Trashing the Tables: The Critical Legal Studies Symposium of the Stanford Law Review, Then and Now Laws doi: 10.3390/laws13020021 Authors: Paul Baumgardner When the critical legal studies (CLS) movement emerged in the United States, many in the legal community were shocked by the movement’s radical calls to remake legal education. But the movement also presented bold criticisms of quantitative legal scholarship and calculation in law that have proven remarkably prophetic. This article resuscitates the CLS movement’s concerns over &ld ..read more

Laws, Vol. 13, Pages 19: Civic Thought and Leadership: A Higher Civics to Sustain American Constitutional Democracy Laws doi: 10.3390/laws13020019 Authors: Paul O. Carrese Multiple civic crises facing American constitutional democracy—deepening political polarization and dysfunction, loss of confidence in major institutions and professions, and collapse of confidence in higher education—can be simultaneously redressed by restoring traditional civic education in universities and colleges. A nascent national reform in public universities, establishing departments of c ..read more

Laws, Vol. 13, Pages 20: Implications of Law’s Response to Mitochondrial Donation Laws doi: 10.3390/laws13020020 Authors: Karinne Ludlow Changes to Australian law in 2022 made Australia the second country to expressly permit the clinical use of mitochondrial donation (MD), a technology that makes heritable changes to the human genome. This paper considers these changes in the context of Australia’s broader controls on human embryo use to provide insights into future regulatory responses to other emerging genetic technologies, which could be used in reproduction ..read more

Laws, Vol. 13, Pages 18: New Trends of Digital Justice: The Online Mediation—Between a Challenge and a Reality (The Portuguese Legal Framework) Laws doi: 10.3390/laws13020018 Authors: Cátia Marques Cebola Susana Sardinha Monteiro The Directive 2008/52/EU of the European Parliament and Council of 21 May 2008, regarding certain aspects of mediation in civil and commercial matters, does not seem to have been designed for online mediation since it does not expressly include rules in this regard, though it does not prohibit it either. The Portuguese legislator, through Law 29/2013, of 19 ..read more