The Athenian Amnesty and Reconstructing the Law

The Athenian Amnesty and Reconstructing the Law PDF Author: Edwin Carawan
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199672768
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume explores the amnesty which ended the civil war at Athens in 403 BC. It presents a new interpretation of the Athenian Amnesty in its original setting, and in view of the subsequent reconstruction of laws and democratic institutions in Athens, while also drawing on perspectives from parallels in modern history.

The Athenian Amnesty and Reconstructing the Law

The Athenian Amnesty and Reconstructing the Law PDF Author: Edwin Carawan
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199672768
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume explores the amnesty which ended the civil war at Athens in 403 BC. It presents a new interpretation of the Athenian Amnesty in its original setting, and in view of the subsequent reconstruction of laws and democratic institutions in Athens, while also drawing on perspectives from parallels in modern history.

Control of the Laws in the Ancient Democracy at Athens

Control of the Laws in the Ancient Democracy at Athens PDF Author: Edwin Carawan
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421439506
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 323

Get Book Here

Book Description
The definitive book on judicial review in Athens from the 5th through the 4th centuries BCE. The power of the court to overturn a law or decree—called judicial review—is a critical feature of modern democracies. Contemporary American judges, for example, determine what is consistent with the Constitution, though this practice is often criticized for giving unelected officials the power to strike down laws enacted by the people's representatives. This principle was actually developed more than two thousand years ago in the ancient democracy at Athens. In Control of the Laws in the Ancient Democracy at Athens, Edwin Carawan reassesses the accumulated evidence to construct a new model of how Athenians made law in the time of Plato and Aristotle, while examining how the courts controlled that process. Athenian juries, Carawan explains, were manned by many hundreds of ordinary citizens rather than a judicial elite. Nonetheless, in the 1890s, American apologists found vindication for judicial review in the ancient precedent. They believed that Athenian judges decided the fate of laws and decrees legalistically, focusing on fundamental text, because the speeches that survive from antiquity often involve close scrutiny of statutes attributed to lawgivers such as Solon, much as a modern appellate judge might resort to the wording of the Framers. Carawan argues that inscriptions, speeches, and fragments of lost histories make clear that text-based constitutionalism was not so compelling as the ethos of the community. Carawan explores how the judicial review process changed over time. From the restoration of democracy down to its last decades, the Athenians made significant reforms in their method of legislation, first to expedite a cumbersome process, then to revive the more rigorous safeguards. Jury selection adapted accordingly: the procedure was recast to better represent the polis, and packing the court was thwarted by a complicated lottery. But even as the system evolved, the debate remained much the same: laws and decrees were measured by a standard crafted in the image of the people. Offering a comprehensive account of the ancient origins of an important political institution through philological methods, rhetorical analysis of ancient arguments, and comparisons between models of judicial review in ancient Greece and the modern United States, Control of the Laws in the Ancient Democracy at Athens is an innovative study of ancient Greek law and democracy.

The Athenian Amnesty and Reconstructing the Law

The Athenian Amnesty and Reconstructing the Law PDF Author: Edwin Carawan
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 019165339X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume explores the amnesty which ended the civil war at Athens in 403 BC. Drawing upon ancient historians and speechwriters, together with the surviving inscriptions, it presents a new interpretation of the Athenian Amnesty in its original setting and in view of the subsequent reconstruction of laws and democratic institutions in Athens. Beginning with the evidence on the original agreement and the events that shaped it, the volume also discusses the major trials that challenged and reinterpreted key elements of the amnesty agreement, including the trial of Socrates. These studies reveal the Athenian Amnesty as a contractual settlement between the warring parties, a bargain for peace and reconciliation. The oath that came to symbolize the Amnesty was the closing to that contract, a pledge not to go back on the covenants that spelled out remedies and restrictions-not a promise to forgive and forget. The same contractual principle inspired major reforms of the restored democracy, barring litigation on settled claims and ensuring that new legislation did not conflict with the constitution. While this book deals largely with the ancient agreement, Carawan also draws perspectives from parallels in modern history, such as the post-apartheid settlement in South Africa, illustrating how the Athenian Amnesty is generally regarded as the model for political 'forgiveness' or 'pardon and oblivion' embraced in later conflict resolution.

Amnesty and Reconciliation in Late Fifth-Century Athens

Amnesty and Reconciliation in Late Fifth-Century Athens PDF Author: Christopher J. Joyce
Publisher: New Approaches to Ancient Greek Institutional History
ISBN: 9781399506342
Category : Amnesty
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Re-evaluates the Athenian Reconciliation Agreement of 403 BCE, its historical causes and its legal legacy The Athenian Reconciliation of 403 BCE was the pinnacle of amnesty agreements in Greek antiquity. It guaranteed lasting peace in a political community torn apart by civil conflict, because it recognised that for society to cohere, vindictive action over crimes which predated the exchange of oaths was legally inadmissible. This study analyses the historical circumstances which led to the fall of democracy at Athens in 404, the civil conflict which followed under the Thirty Tyrants and the restoration of democracy and the rule of law in 403. It analyses afresh the Reconciliation Agreement in the light of New Institutionalist perspectives, showing that the resurrection of democracy was guaranteed by the rule of law and by the strict application of the agreement in the democratic law courts. It offers fresh readings of the clauses of the Agreement and the legal trials which followed in its wake and shows that the Athenian example was the paradigm not only for amnesties in the ancient world but for those since the seventeenth century. Christopher Joyce is Head of Classics at the Haberdashers' Boys' School. He holds a BA from Oxford University, an MA from the University of California, Berkeley and a PhD in Classics from Durham University. Since completing his doctorate on Philochorus of Athens, he has published widely in the field, including articles and a volume chapter on the Athenian Reconciliation Agreement.

Law and Order in Ancient Athens

Law and Order in Ancient Athens PDF Author: Adriaan Lanni
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316715116
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Get Book Here

Book Description
The classical Athenian 'state' had almost no formal coercive apparatus to ensure order or compliance with law: there was no professional police force or public prosecutor, and nearly every step in the legal process depended on private initiative. And yet Athens was a remarkably peaceful and well-ordered society by both ancient and contemporary standards. Why? Law and Order in Ancient Athens draws on contemporary legal scholarship to explore how order was maintained in Athens. Lanni argues that law and formal legal institutions played a greater role in maintaining order than is generally acknowledged. The legal system did encourage compliance with law, but not through the familiar deterrence mechanism of imposing sanctions for violating statutes. Lanni shows how formal institutions facilitated the operation of informal social control in a society that was too large and diverse to be characterized as a 'face-to-face community' or 'close-knit group'.

Historical Origins of International Criminal Law

Historical Origins of International Criminal Law PDF Author: Morten Bergsmo
Publisher: Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher
ISBN: 8283480146
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 845

Get Book Here

Book Description


Hate, Politics, Law

Hate, Politics, Law PDF Author: Thomas Brudholm
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190465557
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Get Book Here

Book Description
References to hate have become ubiquitous in the modern response to group defamation and violence in liberal democracies. Whether expressed in speech, acted out in criminal conduct, or seen as the fuel of terror and extremism, hate is persistently considered a vice, an evil, and a threat to the modern liberal democracy. But what exactly is at stake when societies oppose hate? In Hate, Politics, Law: Critical Perspectives on Combating Hate, Thomas Brudholm and Birgitte Schepelern Johansen have gathered a group of distinguished scholars who offer a critical exploration and assessment of the basic assumptions, ideals, and agendas behind the modern fight against hate. They explore these issues and provide a range of explanatory and normative perspectives on the awkward relationship between hate and liberal democracy, as expressed, for example, through anti-hate speech and anti-hate crime initiatives. The volume further examines the presuppositions and ideological roots of fighting hate, as well as its blind spots and limits. It also includes discussions on the definition and meaning of hate, the longer and broader history of the concept of hate, and when and why fighting hatred became politically salient. While most research on hate crime is written and published in order to prevent and combat hate, Hate, Politics, Law takes a much-needed theoretical, historical, and exploratory approach to hatred.

Decrees of Fourth-Century Athens (403/2-322/1 BC): Volume 1, The Literary Evidence

Decrees of Fourth-Century Athens (403/2-322/1 BC): Volume 1, The Literary Evidence PDF Author:
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316952681
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1010

Get Book Here

Book Description
Decree-making is a defining aspect of ancient Greek political activity: it was the means by which city-state communities went about deciding to get things done. This two-volume work provides a new view of the decree as an institution within the framework of fourth-century Athenian democratic political activity. Volume 1 consists of a comprehensive account of the literary evidence for decrees of the fourth-century Athenian assembly. Volume 2 analyses how decrees and decree-making, by offering both an authoritative source for the narrative of the history of the Athenian demos and a legitimate route for political self-promotion, came to play an important role in shaping Athenian democratic politics. Peter Liddel assesses ideas about, and the reality of, the dissemination of knowledge of decrees among both Athenians and non-Athenians and explains how they became significant to the wider image and legacy of the Athenians.

Routledge Handbook of the Rule of Law

Routledge Handbook of the Rule of Law PDF Author: Michael Sevel
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1351237160
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Get Book Here

Book Description
This Handbook provides a state-of-the-art survey of the study of the rule of law across law, the humanities, and social sciences, as well as insights into the practice of building the rule of law within and among states. Its 28 chapters are by many of the world’s leading scholars of the rule of law, as well as distinguished junior scholars, from a dozen countries and representing a number of academic disciplines. The chapters are ordered to progress, first, from theory to the practice of the rule of law and, second, from the rule of law within, to beyond, the state. They divide into three parts. The first part examines the concept, history, and value of the rule of law. This section considers the importance of political and intellectual history in shaping the concept over the centuries and takes novel philosophical approaches to the connection between the rule of law and other important ideals such as justice, equality, and civil disobedience. The second part transitions from theoretical studies to accounts of practical exercises in building the rule of law. The chapters consider the challenges of rule of law reform, including the use of local intermediaries facilitating interactions between international legal aid organizations and state governments, the challenges of legal translation across vastly different societies, the pathways of knowledge among the powerless about the protective potential of the rule of law, as well as the possible future for artificial intelligence systems in helping to reinforce rule-of-law principles. The third part examines the rule of law from a number of perspectives within particular supranational and national states, such as the European Union, China, Singapore, and South Africa, among others, and concludes by considering the prospects of the rule of law beyond the state, both within and among international institutions such as the United Nations, as well as non-territorial spaces like the world’s oceans. This Handbook is aimed at rule of law scholars across law, the humanities, and the social sciences, law and development practitioners, policymakers, and advanced students and researchers who seek a state-of-the-art overview of the history, theory, and practice of the rule of law.

Creating a Constitution

Creating a Constitution PDF Author: Federica Carugati
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691198713
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
A comprehensive account of how the Athenian constitution was created—with lessons for contemporary constitution-building We live in an era of constitution-making. More than half of the world's constitutions have been drafted in the past half-century. Yet, one question still eludes theorists and practitioners alike: how do stable, growth-enhancing constitutional structures emerge and endure? In Creating a Constitution, Federica Carugati argues that ancient Athens offers a unique laboratory for exploring this question. Because the city-state was reasonably well-documented, smaller than most modern nations, and simpler in its institutional makeup, the case of Athens reveals key factors of successful constitution-making that are hard to flesh out in more complex settings. Carugati demonstrates that the institutional changes Athens undertook in the late fifth century BCE, after a period of war and internal strife, amounted to a de facto constitution. The constitution restored stability and allowed the democracy to flourish anew. The analysis of Athens's case reveals the importance of three factors for creating a successful constitution: first, a consensus on a set of shared values capable of commanding long-term support; second, a self-enforcing institutional structure that reflects those values; and, third, regulatory mechanisms for policymaking that enable tradeoffs of inclusion to foster growth without jeopardizing stability. Uniquely combining institutional analysis, political economy, and history, Creating a Constitution is a compelling account of how political and economic goals that we normally associate with Western developed countries were once achieved through different institutional arrangements.