Academic literature on the topic 'Law – england – textbooks'

There are two distinct forms of Newton’s second law of motion (1686) i.e. original or Principia’s form of (change in motion is proportional to impressed force, F = KdV) and textbook form (rate of change of momentum is proportional to impressed force, F =ma). Newton neither gave acceleration nor F =ma, it is mentioned by IOP England, publications of the American Institute of Physics, etc. Truesdell has inconsistently pointed out in 1960 that Euler had given F =ma in 1752, but the truth is that Euler had given F=2ma in the said paper. Euler had also given various equations such as F =ma/n, F =2ma, F =ma/2g, F =ma etc.; but these are ignored by Truesdell. The exceptionally useful equation F =ma was given by Euler in 1775, and then succeeding scientists inconsistently tried to show that F =ma follows from the original form of the law. Consequently, some arbitrary assumptions are made, original form, F =KdV; and the fact that Euler gave F =ma are not mentioned in the standard textbooks. For comparison, Newton’s first law and third law (Reaction =-Action) are the same in the Principia and textbooks. In the existing literature, F =ma is obtained from Principia’s definition of NSLM, by replacing ‘change in motion’ equal to ‘rate of change of momentum’, but motion is not ascribed to any units and dimensions. If the original definition of Newton’s law is changed in a postulatory way i.e. ‘change in motion’ is replaced by ‘rate of change in momentum’ and ‘proportionality’ by ‘equality’; then F=ma is obtained from a modified equation without any arbitrary assumption. In 1893, Rouse Ball randomly altered Newton’s second law as a change in momentum [per unit time] is always proportional to the impressed force.

The clamour of voices crying out for reform of the law relating to financial provision on divorce is regularly heard. The judiciary, the academic community, lawyers and prospective divorcees have all expressed concern about the problematic nature of the current law and the urgent need for change.1 Yet these same voices rarely draw attention to the major defects inherent in divorce law itself. The battle for divorce reform which dominated the family law debate during the latter part of the 20th century appears to have been abandoned, along with the decision in 2001 by Lord Irvine of Lairg, the then Lord Chancellor, not to bring into force the major reforms to divorce law contained in Part II of the Family Law Act 1996 (see below). There is now an uneasy and, for the most part, a silent acceptance that the majority of spouses who want to bring their relationship to a legal end will find a way of doing so. The fact that they might have to resort to a massaging of the law, which may at times border on outright dishonesty, to secure their freedom and the right to embark on a new legal relationship, is largely ignored. Indeed in many family law textbooks and family law courses, the topic of divorce is barely discussed. It is viewed as an administrative process with little legal content to it. The few cases which do come before the courts are given similar scant treatment, even when they draw attention to the fundamental problems in the current law, a law which is both outdated and confusing.

I am going to attack a particular type of undergraduate Criminal Law course. I do not have in mind any particular course currently taught. I do not assume that it is the textbooks which provide the model from which courses proceed. The sort ofcourse upon which I want to make an attack has many features, amongst which the following are to be found:(i) It is a ‘blackletter law’ subject. The course concentrates upon statutes and reported cases. Social scientists’ work is not used, nor is it relevant to the issues considered. This tends to encourage the view that the All England Reports are a mirror of life. The standard exam question is of the ‘problem’ type, in which the student is called upon to isolate the legal issues arising out of a set of hypothetical facts.

William Lambarde (1536–1601) has been much celebrated, and cited, by historians of Tudor England. Besides compiling what is generally recognized as the earliest county history (A Perambulation of Kent, completed in 1570; first published in 1576) and a pioneering edition of Anglo-Saxon laws and customs (Archaionomia, 1568), Lambarde's famous manual on the duties, powers, and responsibilities of justices of the peace (Eirenarcha, 1581) “gives an account, which is both complete and systematic, of the organization of the local government … as it stood at the end of the sixteenth century.” Although his abilities and achievements received only a modest measure of contemporary recognition, toward the end of his life Lambarde successively acquired the posts of Deputy in the Alienations Office (1589), Master in Chancery Extraordinary (1592), Master in Chancery and Deputy Keeper of the Rolls (1597), and Keeper of Records in the Tower of London (1601). He had been associated to the bench of Lincoln's Inn in 1579 (having, as the Black Book citation put it, “deserved universallie well of his comon wealth and contrie”); these promotions induced the ruling Council to make him a full bencher, “being one of Her Majesties Masters of hir Court of Chancery and of great reading, learning and experience.”In depicting the conscientious Elizabethan J.P. as burdened by “stacks of statutes,” Lambarde coined a phrase which has indeed “burrowed its way into most historical textbooks.” Besides numerous articles, modern scholarly interest in the man and his works has generated two biographies (published in 1965 and 1973), while the point of departure for John Howes Gleason's institutional-cumprosopographical account of local government under Elizabeth I and the early Stuarts was Lambarde's own record of his activities as a Kentish justice in the 1580s.

In the medieval to early modern eras, legal manuals used visual cues to help teach the church laws of consanguinity and affinity as well as concepts of inheritance. Visual aids such as the trees of consanguinity or affinity helped the viewer such as a notary, law student or member of the clergy to do the ‘computation,’ or reckon how closely kin were related to each other by blood or by marriage and by lines of descent or collateral relations. Printed riddles in these early legal manuals were exercises to test how well the reader could calculate whether a marriage should be deemed incest. The riddles moved from legal textbooks into visual culture in the form of paintings and cheap broadside prints. This article examines a riddle painting ‘devoted’ to William Cecil when he was Elizabeth I’s principal secretary, before he became Lord Burghley and explores the painting’s links to the Dutch and Flemish kinship riddles circulating in the Low Countries in manuscript, print and painting. Cecil had a keen interest in genealogies and pedigrees as well as puzzles and ciphers. As a remarried widower with an eldest son from a first marriage and children from his longer second marriage, Cecil lived in a stepfamily typical of the sixteenth century in England and Europe. The visual kinship riddles in England and the Low Countries had a common root but branched into separate traditions. A shared element was the young woman at the centre of the images. To solve the riddle the viewer needed to determine how all the men in the painting were related to her as if she were the ego, or self, at the centre of a consanguinity tree. This article seeks to compare the elements that connect and diverge in the visual kinship riddle traditions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the Low Countries and England.

Development of the Law of Trusts in ScotlandSummaryThe earliest indisputable traces of trusts law in Scotland may be found in reports from the first half of the XVH‘h century. There are several examples of even earlier dispositions to which a fiduciary character might be ascribed, coming from the XV,h and XVTh centuries. Nevertheless, we are not able to state categorically that these represent examples of trusts, since there is nothing about priority of beneficiary's rights in respect to trust property, before trustee’s personal creditors, whereas it seems to be today differentiam specificam discerning trust from contractual relations.According to the aforementioned case law, the main subject of trust dispositions was land (immoveable property, called in Scotland “heritable”). The main issue giving rise to legal controversies was the question of the manner in which the existence of a trust in land was allowed to be proved. The rules of evidence adopted by the Court of Session differed substantially from those of Scottish land law which were usually applied when proving titles in land. According to Scottish institutional writers, it seems to be most probable that the reason for such a favourable standing of land being subject to trust was that the Court of Session proceeded on the ground of its’ nobile officium, extraordinary equitable jurisdiction performed by this court, most probably since the very early stages of it’s activity, on the basis of a statutory provision from 1540.During the XVIIth century the first statutory regulations concerning trusts appeared, but more substantial progress in this respect took place in the XIXth century. Most often, it was statutory implementation of earlier common law principles and, in relation to trustees’ competences, of standards relating to the professional drafting of trust deeds. XIXth century legislation was consolidated in 1921 as the Trusts (Scotland) Act 1921 which was subsequently amended in 1961 and, together with the British Trustee Investments Act 1961 (which is still in force in Scotland although will be repealed soon, as it was already done in England in 2001), is partial codification of Scottish trusts law. Nevertheless it should be emphasised that Scottish trust law is still principally based on case law.As regards the influence of English Equity on the development of the Scottish law of trusts, it seems to be negligible in the early stage of the latter’s development. A considerable influence of the Chancery Court’s cases upon Scots law in respect of trusts only began in the fourth decade of the XIXth century, with a book by Charles Forsyth ( The Principles and Practice o f the Law o f Trusts and Trustees in Scotland (1844)), who had used intensively English case law as an illustration, he claimed, of Scottish law principles. Since this publication, nevertheless, English case law, as exposed in English textbooks, though not necessarily in the Chancery Reports, became an important source of inspiration for Scottish lawyers writing books on this subject and, subsequently, it was also used in the Court of Session as an important source of authority. Notwithstanding the above, Scottish judges were always more critical and generally have applied English principles in a less willing manner than has been seen from Scottish advocates and solicitors. Generally speaking, the English influence, although considerable, has not changed the very construction of Scottish trusts law. A beneficiary’s claim in respect of trust property is still considered to be a personal right, as opposed to a sui generis right in real estate.Contemporary Scottish jurisprudence considers trust property as a trustee’s special patrimony, distinct from his general patrimony and, as such, not accessible by his personal creditors. In this way, the Scots have worked out a civil law approach to trust, which was long considered to be hardly possible. This is also a reason why Scottish trusts law, as well as the whole of Scottish law, attracts so much attention from lawyers from Continental Europe.

There is a long-standing myth that the history of modern India was foretold at the beginning of the nineteenth century by British liberals who predicted that the enlightened despotic rule of India's new conquerors would, by its beneficial effects, improve the native character and institutions sufficiently to prepare the people of that country one day to govern themselves. Lord William Bentinck, a disciple of Jeremy Bentham, while presenting as governor-general his case for the opening up of India to European settlers, speculated on the possibility of “a vast change to have occurred in the frame of society . . . which would imply that the time had arrived when it would be wise for England to leave India to govern itself”, but added that such change “can scarcely be looked for in centuries to come”. The doctrinal basis within liberal theory for justifying a democratic country like Britain exercising despotic power in colonies such as Ireland and India was securely laid out by mid-century liberals such as John Stuart Mill. The project of “improvement” was revived at the end of the nineteenth century by Gladstonian liberals who inducted elite Indians into new representative institutions based on a very narrow franchise in preparation for some form of self-government. When power was ultimately transferred to the rulers of a partitioned subcontinent in 1947, the history of liberal progress in India was complete. The storyline was laid out, for instance, in Thompson and Garratt's Rise and Fulfilment of British Rule in India or in Percival Spear's revised edition of the hugely successful textbook by Vincent Smith. Even nationalist Indian scholars adopted at least a part of this story, nowhere more so than in the histories of constitutional law which traced the foundations of the postcolonial Indian republic to the progressive expansion of liberal state institutions under British rule.

GENERATIONS OF REASON: A Family's Search for Meaning in Post-Newtonian England by Joan L. Richards. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2021. 456 pages, with 21 b/w illustrations, 1,218 endnotes, and a 35-page index. Hardcover; $45.00. ISBN: 9780300255492. *The title gives no clue who this book is about. Nor does the publisher's description on its website, the abbreviated blurb inside the book jacket, the four endorsements posted on the jacket's back ("beautifully written," "epic masterpiece," "magnificent study," "compelling and wide-ranging"), or even the chapter titles. The reader first learns whom the book is about and how it came into focus in the author's Acknowledgments. In studying the divergent interests of Augustus De Morgan and his wife, Sophia, the importance of De Morgan's father-in-law William Frend's thinking became apparent. This is turn led Richards to delve into the lives and beliefs of two ancestors from the previous generation, Francis Blackburne and Theophilus Lindsey, who felt compelled by their commitment to "reasoned conclusions about matters of faith" (p. x) to move away from orthodox Anglicanism and establish the first Unitarian church in England. Thus the book eventually evolved into chronicling the lives of three generations over a century and a half during (roughly) the Enlightenment era. *A central motif running through the experiences, beliefs, and work of these families was their steadfast commitment to a form of enlightened rationality that provided coherence and foundational meaning for their lives. Reason informed their ecclesiastical commit-ment to Unitarianism, their views of science and mathematics, and their public activity favoring social and educational reforms. But also, paradoxically, their search for reason led to the beliefs and practices (of some family members) that today would be considered pseu-do-scientific--mesmerism, phrenology, and spiritism, among others. *As Richards notes in the book's opening sentence, for her, Generations of Reason is "the culmination of a life devoted to understanding the place of mathematics in modern European cultural and intellectual history." The mathematics and logic of early- to mid-nineteenth-century Britain has been an ongoing research interest for Richards during her forty-year tenure as a historian of mathematics at Brown Universi-ty. It is this that largely drew me to the book and which I will focus on here: it climaxes in a substantive treatment of the progressive mathematics of De Morgan, whose work contributed to transforming British algebra and logic. This is in stark contrast with the radical ideas of Frend, who refused to admit negative numbers into mathematics. *A central figure behind the developments under investigation is John Locke, whose Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) and The Reasonableness of Christianity, as Delivered in the Scriptures (1695) exercised a tremendous influence over and challenge for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British thinkers. Locke's ideas defined and emphasized rationality in relation to knowledge generally and to scientific and religious knowledge in particular, providing dissenters with a rationale for combatting traditional theology and conformist science and philosophy. For Locke, however, a literal reading of scripture was still authoritative for religious beliefs. This was true for Frend and De Morgan also, even though they held tolerant attitudes toward a wide latitude of thinkers. *Locke's view of Reason also affected period reflections on mathematics. Like others in the early modern and Enlightenment eras, Locke had held up mathematics as a model of absolutely certain knowledge because of the clarity of its ideas and the supposed self-evidence of its axiomatic truths. Of course, this characterization applied more to Euclidean geometry than to the burgeoning domains of analytic mathematics, such as calculus, which, as Berkeley charged, still lacked a sound theoretical basis. As for logic, Locke had an acute antipathy toward traditional argument forms and proposed that one should reason with ideas rather than words, assessing their agreement or disagreement in less convoluted ways than in a syllogism. In expressing such relations with language, though, one should use meaningful and unambiguous terms. This was somewhat problematic in algebra and calculus, where symbolic expressions were manipulated to produce useful and important results, even when their meaning was less than clear. *Around the turn of the nineteenth century, Frend campaigned to bring algebra in line with Lockean reasoning: algebra was conceptualized at that time as universal arithmetic, containing such laws as the transposition rule if a + b = c then a = c - b. Thus, no expression should be employed if its meaning was unintelligible. In the above equations, one must assume the condition b < c to rule out negative values, since numbers, which represent quantities of discrete things, cannot be less than 0. Excising negative quantities from mathematics was extreme but necessary in order to adhere to a literalistic view of rationality. *British mathematicians largely resisted following Frend down this path of purity, though they were unsure how to rationally justify their use of negative and imaginary quantities without going outside mathematics and appealing to things like debts. Robert Woodhouse, in an 1803 work, was one of the first Cambridge mathemati-cians to propose a more formalistic algebraic approach in calculus. This agenda was furthered a decade later by members of Cambridge's Analytical Society, one of whom was George Peacock. His and others' attempts to convert Cambridge analysis from Newtonian to Leibnizian calculus were waged through translating a French textbook and making notational changes in Cambridge's mathematical examinations. *In 1830 Peacock's Treatise on Algebra introduced a more formalistic approach in algebra. Richards argues, drawing upon some fairly recent research, that Peacock's position was grounded in a progressivist view of history: arithmetic developed naturally out of fluency with counting, and algebra out of familiarity with arithmetic. Arithmetic suggests equivalent forms (equations, or symbolic assertions like the above rule) that can also be accepted as equiva-lent/valid in algebra without being constrained by restrictions appropriate to arithmetic. Such transitions, he thought, constitute genuine historical progress. Algebra thus splits into two parts for Peacock, arithmetical algebra and symbolical algebra, the latter based upon his principle of the permanence of equivalent forms, as found in his 1830 A Treatise on Algebra. *Peacock's approach to algebra set the stage for later British mathematicians such as De Morgan (Peacock's student), Boole, and others. Initially inclined to follow his future father-in-law's restrictive approach in algebra, De Morgan was soon won over to Peacock's point of view, even going beyond it in his own work. In a series of articles around 1840, De Morgan identified the basic rules governing ordinary calculations, but he also began entertaining the notion of a symbolical algebra less tightly tied to arithmetical algebra. By more completely separating the interpretation of algebra's operations and symbols from its axioms, symbolical algebra gained further independence from arithmetic. This gave algebra more flexibility, making room for subsequent developments such as the quaternion algebra of William Rowan Hamilton (1843) and Boole's algebra of logic (1847). *After exploring the foundations of algebra, De Morgan turned his attention to analyzing forms of reasoning, a topic made popular by the resurgence of syllogistic logic instigated at Oxford around 1825 by Richard Whately. Traditional Aristotelian logic parsed valid arguments into syllogisms containing categorical statements such as every X is Y. De Morgan treated such sentences exten-sionally, using parentheses to indicate total or partial inclusion between classes X and Y. Thus, every X is Y was symbolized by X)Y since the parenthesis opens toward X; to be more precise, one should indicate whether X and Y are coextensive or X is only a part of Y. By thus quantifying the predicate, as it was called, De Morgan allowed for these two possibilities to be symbolized respectively by X)(Y and X))Y, in compact symbolic form as ')(' and '))'. Combining the two premises of a syllogistic argument using this notation, one could then apply an erasure rule to draw its conclusion. De Morgan enthusiastically elaborated his symbolic logic by adopting an abstract version of algebra that paved the way for operating with formal symbols in logic. De Morgan's symbolism is not as inaccessible as Frege's later two-dimensional concept-writing (though the full version of De Morgan's notation is more complex than indicated here), but it is still rather forbid-ding and failed to find adherents. *In addition to expanding Aristotelian forms by quantifying the predicate, yielding eight basic categorical forms instead of the standard four, by 1860 De Morgan was generalizing the copula "is" in such sentences to other relations, such as "is a brother of" or "is greater than." He began to systematically investigate the formal properties of such relations and the ways in which relations might be compounded. Though intended as a way to generalize categorical statements and expand syllogistic logic, his treatment of relations was later recognized as an important contribution that could be incorporated into predicate logic. Richards's treatment gives the reader a fair sense of what De Morgan's logic was like, and while a detailed comparison is not developed, the reader can begin to see how De Morgan's system compares to Aristotelian logic, Boole's algebra of logic, and contemporary mathematical logic. *However, as indicated at the outset, exploring De Morgan's algebraic and logical work is only a subplot of Richards's story. Her book is principally a brief for how Reason grounded the work and lives of several significant thinkers in an extended family over three generations. As she ties various threads together, the reader occasionally senses that the presentation may be too tidy, drawing parallels between vastly different developments to make them seem of a piece, all motivated by the same driving force of Reason. Nevertheless, Richards's account forces the reader to continually keep the bigger picture in mind and to connect various facets of the actors' lives and work to their deeper commitment to Reason. Her book thus offers a commendable case study for how technical trends in mathematics might be tied to broader cultural and philosophical concerns. *Reviewed by Calvin Jongsma, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, Dordt University, Sioux Center, IA 51250.

The second volume of the textbook is devoted to the transformation of the leading legal traditions in the conditions of modernization, the transformation of agrarian societies into industrial ones, the emergence of nations and national states. It examines the formation and development of the most influential national legal traditions of England (Great Britain), the USA, France and Germany, which determined the models and legal style of Western law. The legal modernization of Japan, China, India, and the Middle East countries is presented as a result of reception and adaptation of elements of Romano-German, Anglo-American, and Soviet law in the context of Eastern traditions. The textbook meets the requirements of the Federal State Educational Standard of Higher Education and the educational standards of MGIMO of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia in the field of "Jurisprudence". For undergraduate, graduate, postgraduate students and teachers of law schools and faculties of Russia and CIS countries.

The textbook presents an up-to-date view of the history of the law of foreign countries through the prism of identity, equivalence and diversity of legal traditions of the peoples of the East and West. The subject of study is the content of the leading legal traditions that give an idea of the range of historical types of law, the trends and conditions of their development from archaic forms to more complex ones, the possibilities of their renewal and reception when changing social patterns. Each legal tradition is considered according to a common analytical model: 1) historical context and bearers of tradition, 2) forms of law, the basis of its understanding, interpretation, application, 3) characteristic institutions in the most important areas of legal regulation. The first volume of the textbook explains the theoretical foundations of the historical and legal narrative, as well as the legal traditions of agrarian societies of Eurasia from the perspective of three ideal types: "the law of judges" (a means of resolving disputes in Mesopotamia, republican Rome, medieval England), "the law of scientists" (the path of righteous life in India, Islamic countries of the Middle East, medieval Western Europe), "the right of the ruler" (a means of managing society in imperial China). The textbook meets the requirements of the Federal State Educational Standard of Higher Education and the educational standards of MGIMO of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia in the field of "Jurisprudence". For undergraduate students, postgraduates and teachers of law schools and faculties of Russia and CIS countries.

Essential Cases: Contract Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in Butler Machine Tool Co. Ltd v Ex-Cell-O Corporation (England) Ltd [1979] 1 WLR 401. The document also includes supporting commentary from author Nicola Jackson.

Essential Cases: Contract Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in Butler Machine Tool Co. Ltd v Ex-Cell-O Corporation (England) Ltd [1979] 1 WLR 401. The document also includes supporting commentary from author Nicola Jackson.

Essential Cases: Contract Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in Butler Machine Tool Co. Ltd v Ex-Cell-O Corporation (England) Ltd [1979] 1 WLR 401. The document also includes supporting commentary from author Nicola Jackson.

Essential Cases: Contract Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in Butler Machine Tool Co. Ltd v Ex-Cell-O Corporation (England) Ltd [1979] 1 WLR 401. The document also includes supporting commentary from author Nicola Jackson.

Essential Cases: Contract Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in Butler Machine Tool Co. Ltd v Ex-Cell-O Corporation (England) Ltd [1979] 1 WLR 401. The document also includes supporting commentary from author Nicola Jackson.

Abstract ALTHOUGH THE STORY of the Cuban ship La Amistad was long ignored in American history textbooks and standard works on slavery and antislavery, it received enormous publicity in 1997 as a result of Steven Spielberg’s some-what inaccurate but powerful film, Amistad. I have chosen to begin with this historical narrative because it presents a concrete test of American law and justice and also dramatically illustrates the multinational character of the Atlantic Slave System. Indeed, if the American courts had reached a different decision, one can well imagine England imposing a naval blockade on Cuba and even a war exploding between Britain and the United States and perhaps Spain. The Amistad case involved American politics, the judiciary, and foreign relations at the highest levels. It also epitomized slavery’s deepest contradictions, both legal and philosophical.

This chapter provides a scheme for assisting in the analysis of two areas of law that provide some of the general principles which operate in relation to offenders with mental disorder. These two areas are (a) the law concerning decision-making and other action taking to which the concept of competence is crucial; and (b) the law of responsibility in relation to liability for criminal offences and the tort of negligence. Whilst the focus of the chapter is on the law of England and Wales, it is clear that there are similarities in other common law jurisdictions, and in other jurisdictions that have borrowed ideas from common law jurisdiction, such as Japan, in relation to the concept of informed consent.

This chapter, which determines whether or not commercial law is a distinct legal topic, begins with a much quoted passage from Professor Sir Roy Goode stating that the answer to the question may, in fact, be no. According to Goode, if commercial law is used to refer to ‘a relatively self-contained, integrated body of principles and rules peculiar to commercial transactions, then we are constrained to say that this is not to be found in England’. Without such unifying principles, it merely amounts to a ‘label which is useful for gathering together diverse material with no obvious home of its own, so as to aid exposition on a lecture course or in a textbook, or for the better organisation of the business of the High Court of Justice … but no more’. The chapter also charts the evolution of commercial law, from the creation of the lex mercatoria through to the development of transnational commercial law. Finally, the chapter discusses the various sources of commercial law.

This chapter, which determines whether or not commercial law is a distinct legal topic, begins with a much quoted passage from Professor Sir Roy Goode stating that the answer to the question may, in fact, be no. According to Goode, if commercial law is used to refer to ‘a relatively self-contained, integrated body of principles and rules peculiar to commercial transactions, then we are constrained to say that this is not to be found in England’. Without such unifying principles, it merely amounts to a ‘label which is useful for gathering together diverse material with no obvious home of its own, so as to aid exposition on a lecture course or in a textbook, or for the better organisation of the business of the High Court of Justice … but no more’. The chapter also charts the evolution of commercial law, from the creation of the lex mercatoria through to the development of transnational commercial law. Finally, the chapter discusses the various sources of commercial law.

Abstract Chapter 11 is concerned with expert evidence, a topic traditionally conceptualized as an exceptional category of ‘opinion evidence’ and frequently marginalized in Evidence textbooks. Our approach emphasizes institutional context and epistemological foundations, and centrally features forensic science evidence—which is increasingly influential in modern criminal litigation (and sometimes associated with miscarriages of justice). The supposed dichotomy between ‘facts’ and ‘opinions’ is conceptually dubious but rarely significant in practice. It is more illuminating to think about expert evidence in terms of the epistemic warrant it supplies for criminal verdicts. Building on Ron Allen’s perceptive distinction between fact-finder ‘education’ and ‘deference’, a model of rational reliance on forensic expertise is proposed and tested against doctrinal precedents and principles. Expert witnesses must be competent and objective. However, these elementary qualifications are complicated in practice by the adversarial structure of criminal litigation. Traditional mechanisms of evidence-testing, including cross-examination, are not well-suited to exposing the deficiencies of expert evidence. If radical solutions, such as court-appointed experts, flatter to deceive, more modest procedural reform may increase institutional resilience, viewed in the broader context of criminal proceedings as a whole. Regulatory structures, codes of practice, professional ethics, and pre-trial safeguards might better enhance the quality of forensic science evidence than trial-centric measures. As a doctrinal matter, admissibility of expert evidence essentially boils down to competence (Davie), relevance and ‘helpfulness’ (Turner). Other evidentiary rules are either obsolete (ultimate issues) or fact-specific applications of the general Turner standard. More recently, there is (equivocal) doctrinal flirtation with a supplementary ‘reliability’ criterion, especially in relation to novel forensic science or new technological applications. Further insight is derived from comparative experiences, especially US Daubert jurisprudence and major reports (NRC, PCAST) criticizing the methodological underpinnings of forensic science. In England and Wales, legislative policies animating the Law Commission’s unimplemented Expert Evidence Bill have been partly incorporated into Part 19 of the Criminal Procedure Rules and Practice Directions.

Transgenders are those whose sex assigned to them at birth i.e., male or female, does not conform with their current perceived gender. Since transgenders are considered by the traditional binary male or female society as deviating from the established gender norms, they often face humiliation, discrimination or social exclusion. This paper examined the approaches made by the authorities of Malaysia and England when dealing with transgender issues. The authors employed a doctrinal research method for this paper. The authors collected data from relevant legislation, case law, textbooks, journal articles, statistical reports, press reports, and reliable websites. In addition, this paper highlighted the current laws that are in place to deal with transgender rights in both jurisdictions. This paper serves as a good source of reference to legislators, lawyers, academics, students, and the public at large and it creates an awareness pertaining transgender rights in the jurisdictions of Malaysia and England.