Institutional failures

Eco-pragmatism takes on the most critical controversies in environmental law today: how to weigh economic costs against environmental quality and human life, how to assess the long time horizons of environmental problems, and how to make appropriate decisions in the face of scientific uncertainty about the scope of environmental problems."A comprehensive well-argued effort to address many of the most difficult issues facing legislators concerned with environmental issues."—Stephen P. Adamian, Boston Book Review"A timely and well-argued contribution."—Calestous Juma, Nature

The Supreme Court's 1973 decision in "Roe v. Wade" legalized abortion-but the debate was far from over, continuing to be a political battleground to this day. In the decades since the case was decided, the American debate on abortion has moved away from the issues that the justices confronted more than three decades ago. Bringing to light key voices that illuminate the case and its cultural context, "Before Roe v. Wade" looks back and recaptures how the arguments for and against abortion took shape as claims about the meaning of the Constitution--and about how the nation could best honor it…

A recent study estimates that thousands of innocent people are wrongfully imprisoned each year in the United States. Some are exonerated through DNA evidence, but many more languish in prison because their convictions were based on faulty eyewitness accounts and no DNA is available. Prominent criminal lawyer and law professor Abbe Smith weaves together real life cases to show what it is like to champion the rights of the accused. Smith describes the moral and ethical dilemmas of representing the guilty and the weighty burden of fighting for the innocent, including the victorious story of ho…

The “Smiling Funnel Web” teaches you how to argue effectively! Much of life is spent in arguing, and most arguments are futile wastes of time. Neither the participants nor the audience learn anything. Between men in crowded bars arguments can even lead to physical fights, usually for no purpose. Yet intelligent argument is often the only sensible way to advance our many causes, to spread knowledge, and to achieve progress. It is one thing to sound impressive, to devastate the opposition, and to make a great impression. It is by no means the same thing to change people's minds, to convince t…

A landmark in legal publishing, The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court is a now classic text many of whose entries are regularly cited by scholars as the definitive statement on any particular subject. In the tradition of that work, editor in chief Kermit L. Hall offers up The Oxford Companion to American Law, a one-volume, A-Z encyclopedia that covers topics ranging from aging and the law, wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping, the Salem Witch Trials and Plessy vs. Ferguson.The Companion takes as its starting point the insight that law is embedded in society, and that to understand A…