Law and Society

This book examines law’s troubled relationship with racial justice. Both a lawyer’s guide to anti-racism and an anti-racist’s guide to legal action, it unites these perspectives to help both groups understand how to use the law to tackle racial injustices.

The word ‘refugee’ is both evocative and contested. In this essential guide for students, lawyers and non-specialists, Colin Yeo draws on his experience as an immigration barrister and key legal cases to explore international refugee law.

Successive governments have made progressive, but ad hoc reforms to marriage law in Britain. This book provides the first accessible guide to how contemporary marriage law interacts with religion. It reveals the need for the consolidation, modernisation and reform of marriage law and sets out proposals for transformation.

Irish law only currently allows for abortion where the life of the pregnant woman is at risk. A constitutional referendum will be held in 2018 to liberalise abortion law. This book offers practical proposals for policymakers and advocates, including model legislation, making it an essential campaigning tool leading up to the referendum.

Alison Young provides the first consolidated account of constitutional changes taking place which strengthen governmental powers and weaken political and legal checks, arguing that the democracy is being endangered.

Drawing on the histories of injustice, dispossession and violence in South Africa, this book examines the cultural, political and legal role and value of an apology.

Hindpal Singh Bhui argues that we need to look at who is sent to prison and why to disentangle reality from ideology and myth. Including the voices of prisoners, prison staff and victims, he asks whether prison is an institution for managing marginalized people, or if there is a better way to achieve the socially useful goals of prisons.