bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Image-Based Evidence in International Criminal Prosecutions
Authors: Hak Jonathan W.
Published: March 2024

Ranging from the Nuremberg trial to the ad hoc tribunals to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the use of image-based evidence has featured prominently in the search for the truth. Images can convey vital content more efficiently and effectively than words alone. They can be used as methods of substantive proof and didactic tools to teach scenes and events to the court. However, pictures do not speak for themselves. Digital images generally, and especially those found on social media and other open source sites, must be authenticated and interpreted to establish their reliability and meaning. Altered images, including deepfakes, are used to create disinformation and misinformation. This book addresses the need for visual literacy and offers practical and legal guidance and recommendations for the effective use of image-based evidence in international criminal prosecutions. It also examines the role of advanced visual representations such as virtual reality in the discovery of truth.
Introduction
Authors: Hak Jonathan W.
Published: March 2024

Prosecutions for atrocity crimes before international criminal tribunals and courts are among the most complex and high-profile criminal cases in the modern era. While viva voce and documentary evidence will always be part of prosecutions, a veritable treasure trove of valuable evidence resides in the image-based realm. Images often have technical and epistemic challenges associated with their authentication and interpretation. Image-based evidence plays an important role in virtually all international criminal prosecutions, yet there are few standards and guidelines governing its use and little uniformity in how it is presented and assessed by the court. This introduction sets out the importance of image-based evidence and the need to improve the visual literacy of counsel and the court. While the focus is on the International Criminal Court (ICC), these considerations apply to all tribunals and courts who rely upon image-based evidence.
Image-Based Evidence as a Didactic Tool
Authors: Hak Jonathan W.
Published: March 2024

This chapter explores the role that image-based evidence serves in achieving important goals of international criminal justice, the most important of which is truth discovery. International criminal prosecutions also rule upon evidence that forms part of the historical record of conflict. Visual evidence plays a significant role in ascertaining truth and documenting conflict because it provides a level of depth and detail that cannot necessarily be achieved solely through words. This chapter examines the use of image-based evidence as a didactic tool to aid the court in comprehending the probative value of tendered evidence. It discusses the use of timelines to provide a longitudinal chronology of a case; the use of terrestrial laser scanning to accurately measure crime scenes, areas of interest, and objects to create a 3D depiction; and computer generated visualizations in the form of animations and simulations for use as demonstrative evidence.
The Democratization of Image-Based Evidence
Authors: Hak Jonathan W.
Published: March 2024

This chapter examines the pressing need in atrocity crime investigations for investigators to consider images obtained from members of civil society and others as investigative leads or as methods of proof. The democratization of evidence gathering is inevitable because investigators cannot be at all conflicts at all relevant times due to delay, government interference, and security concerns. Civilians frequently contribute highly relevant videos and photographs which form part of a rich diverse pool of image-based evidence that may be used by various tribunals and the International Criminal Court (ICC). While some of this digital evidence is provided to the ICC Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) directly or through an intermediary, most of it is uploaded to social media and other open source sites. This chapter examines the challenges involved in the democratization process including photographer risk, image manipulation, authentication concerns associated with open source digital evidence, and fair trial concerns with what is often anonymous evidence.
Questioning the Reliability of Image-Based Evidence
Authors: Hak Jonathan W.
Published: March 2024

This chapter notes that there is reason to be worried about unreliable photographic and video images being tendered as evidence in international criminal prosecutions, whether created through deepfake technology or other image modification techniques. This is particularly problematic given that viewers who lack visual literacy tend to believe that they intuitively know a genuine image when they see it and that they possess the ability to distinguish fair from fraudulent. Software programs utilizing artificial intelligence and machine learning have created the facility for individuals to generate deepfake videos that appear genuine for the express purpose of creating a false narrative. This chapter posits that many images found on social media and other open source sites often lack reliability. It states that for all images, investigators and counsel must determine the presence of hallmarks of reliability using a spectrum approach before tendering images as evidence.
Conclusion
Authors: Achille Étienne , PanaÏtÉ Oana
Published: March 2024

This final chapter delineates the conceptual progression from the operative but transitional concept of the ‘White writer’ to the aesthetic practice of ‘White writing’ or ‘l’écrire-blanc’. An overview of the formal features, functions, and aesthetic dispositions through which race and colonialism are made manifest in White-authored literary works coalesces into a non-normative and replicable model of analysis based on seven aesthetic types that also account for the difference between artistic value and ethical worth. Seizing upon the significance of this political and artistic moment (Kairos) which sees highly visible White writers engaging with the postcolonial subject matter, Fictions of Race in Contemporary French Literature: French Writers, White Writing offers a kairetic reading that overcomes the divisions introduced in literary institutions by ideological assumptions and political hierarchies, marking an important step towards a common library of literature in French.
The Silver Empire
Authors: Volckart Oliver
Published: March 2024

The book examines how the Holy Roman Empire created a common currency in the sixteenth century. It analyses the problems that gave rise to the widespread desire to introduce a common currency, showing that while trade was able to cope with the parallel circulation of many different types of coin, common people and political authorities were harmed. Authorities in particular suffered from the effects of Gresham’s Law. Debasing their own coinage was no solution: It triggered rounds of competitive debasements until all realized that a common currency was the only answer that addressed the core of the problem. The book examines the conditions that shaped the monetary policy-outlook of the members of the Empire. In following the negotiations that prepared the common currency, it shows which interest groups were formed, who pushed which agenda with which ulterior motives in mind, how alliances were forged, and how it was eventually possible to form a majority that agreed on a specific type of currency. The book analyses how this silver-based currency was introduced in 1559–66 and which rules the members of the Empire implemented to make sure that it became a success.
The age of silver
Authors: Volckart Oliver
Published: March 2024

The chapter examines the silver rush that gripped parts of the Empire from the late fifteenth to the mid-sixteenth century. The chapter analyses the emergence of the first stock markets and joint stock companies, which dominated mining in the Alps, the Ore Mountain range, and further north in Lower Saxony in the Harz. It traces the increase in the output of silver and examines how the arrival of silver from the New World from the mid-1540s onwards affected European mining. The central issue that the chapter examines is the question of how the uneven availability of silver—some princes controlled mines of their own, whereas the majority of them did not—influenced their stance in monetary policies. It also analyses why attempts to harmonize silver prices as a precondition of harmonizing the currency lost importance after c.1547: First, Emperor Charles V won a war against a coalition of Protestant princes, which gave him the chance to dominate the Empire militarily and to inject new vigour into the monetary policy-talks; second, new ideas about how monetary standards affected the price of silver developed. It was these ideas that came to dominate the discussions from 1549 onwards and that allowed the members of the Empire finally to agree on a range of common coins.
Institutions and the Future of Indian National Security
Authors: Vaishnav Milan
Published: March 2024

While many have gained public trust and forged a reputation for operational excellence, nearly all of India’s security institutions face governance challenges that—if left unaddressed—could undermine their long-term effectiveness. These challenges vary, but even a cursory glance at news headlines lays bare their importance in guaranteeing India’s ability to safeguard its territory at home and secure its foreign policy objectives abroad. This introductory chapter introduces the volume, its objectives, and analytical framework. This framework consists of four pillars: (1) raison d’état, or the institution’s core objectives and the environment in which it operates; (2) organizational structure; (3) personnel issues; and (4) performance and reform. The chapter highlights several common themes which characterize the functioning of institutions in the national security domain and highlight the urgency of administrative reform. These include endemic personnel shortcomings, fierce institutional rivalries, the impact of critical historic junctures, questions of legal and constitutional status, and the absence of civilian oversight.
The Indian Army
Authors: Ray Ayesha
Published: March 2024

This chapter probes the ability of the Indian Army to fulfil its core objectives as India’s premier land-based military service and reviews key themes such as civil–military relations, oversight, and reorganization of the Indian army. It begins with an overview of the army’s core objectives, which have evolved over time in line with with advances in military doctrine and developments on India’s periphery. The army’s objectives can be categorized into three domains: external security, internal security, and nuclear policy. The next section looks at innovations within the army over the past seven decades, particularly pertaining to its organizational structure. The chapter then evaluates the success of the continuous training and skill development on which the army prides itself. An important element of this army’s evolution has involved a debate about the role of women, an understudied subject that this chapter delves into. Finally, it closes with reflections on the human and financial resource challenges the army faces as it navigates the complex domestic and external environment in the twenty-first century.
The Indo-Tibetan Border Police and the Sashastra Seema Bal
Authors: Jacob Jabin T.
Published: March 2024

This chapter reviews the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), both of which came into being following the 1962 China-India War. This history subsequently shaped the role of both organizations in significant ways. More recently, while the ITBP has remained largely committed to the border with China, the SSB’s focus has shifted specifically to India’s borders with Nepal and Bhutan. This chapter examines the control and the structure of these two paramilitary organizations—including their origins, current roles, personnel recruitment, and working conditions—while also examining how and where they fit into India’s overall security policy-making calculus.
The Border Security Force
Authors: Deshpande Anirudh
Published: March 2024

This chapter provides an assessment of the Border Security Force (BSF), dating back to its founding after the 1962 China–India conflict. Drawing on materials previously collected for the official history of the BSF, this chapter sets out to do four things: provide a historical discussion of the BSF’s founding and its relationship to both internal and external borders; describe the structure, funding, and personnel of the BSF; critically analyse key capacity gaps that pertain to the BSF; and discuss the ways in which the BSF intersects, interacts, and overlaps with other police and paramilitary forces. The chapter concludes that, although some aspects of the BSF are in need of reform, it has more than lived up to the vision of its founders. Looking to the future, the force must grapple with multiple challenges as it seeks to align its operational philosophy, organization, and training with a security environment that has significantly changed since its inception.
Immigration and Discrimination
Authors: Akhtar Sahar
Published: March 2024

Prompted by both past policies and recent developments about immigration around the world that center on race, ethnicity, religion, and other identities, this book explores what states are morally permitted to base their admission decisions and policies on, and why. Many scholars appeal to the terminology and ideas of wrongful discrimination when discussing identity-based immigration decisions, but there has been little to no effort to examine whether the idea of wrongful discrimination—traditionally applied to interactions among people within the same state—is applicable at the global level or to interactions among people in different states. Employing economic and empirical research where available, this book tries to fill this gap by demonstrating why the idea of wrongful discrimination can be applied to states’ admission decisions, and what this means in terms of states’ rights concerning immigration. Rather than rejecting any connection between immigration decisions and identity, it argues that it is often morally permissible to exclude people based on their identity, especially, but not only, when it is done by disadvantaged groups. Despite this finding, however, a major implication of the arguments and analysis of the book is a rejection of the “right to exclude.” Thus, this book concludes by demonstrating why states are not unilaterally entitled to make decisions about whom to admit into their borders.
Race, Ethnicity, and Religion under States’ Choice
Authors: Akhtar Sahar
Published: March 2024

This chapter critically examines the conventional position that states have extensive moral rights to make admission decisions as they choose or even to close their borders altogether (“states’ choice”). The central justifications for states’ choice are generally based in the value of preserving either a state’s culture or its members’ collective freedom to decide the terms of their political association. This chapter will demonstrate that neither type of general rationale, nor the particular views under each type, can adequately explain why central cases involving racial and ethnic criteria are wrong while others may be permissible. Moreover, though the particular states’-choice views explored have much in their favor, their shortcomings—some of which are revealed by recent economic analysis—will illustrate the need for something like the global antidiscrimination approach. This chapter will also discuss why and how this approach will be used in this book rather than closely related ideas, such as views that broadly stress concerns about subordination or domination but that do not invoke antidiscrimination principles.
Core Elements of Antidiscrimination
Authors: Akhtar Sahar
Published: March 2024

This chapter describes the fundamental ideas and principles of normative discrimination theory. The goal is not to specify a reason why discrimination might be wrong or to say specifically when it is wrong. Instead, the goal is to motivate a major approach to understanding when and why discrimination is wrong—the antidiscrimination approach—for application to the ethics of immigration criteria. This chapter will then provide several reasons in favor of the antidiscrimination approach while highlighting some of the shortcomings of the major alternative approach—anticlassification—in order to establish groundwork for applying antidiscrimination principles to states’ admission decisions. These principles stress that the social status of a group, or its comparative (dis)advantages in material, political, way-of-life, and/or self-respect terms, matters for determining when and why discrimination is wrong. Broadly speaking, antidiscrimination is concerned with not contributing to a vulnerable group’s disadvantages in order to avoid creating, sustaining, or perpetuating a group’s subordinate status. A second aim of this chapter is to demonstrate that this approach is rooted in general concerns associated with relational equality—the idea that people should relate to and interact with one another as equals in social, political, and economic life.
Rejecting the Right to Exclude
Authors: Akhtar Sahar
Published: March 2024

This chapter examines the implications of the book’s analysis for the idea that states have a claim-right to exclude. This right is distinct from the idea of states’ choice examined in previous chapters and amounts to the position that states have a right against interference to make even wrongful immigration decisions. Focusing on criteria such as race, ethnicity, and religion, and, relatedly, the exclusion of people with urgent admission needs, including refugees and asylum seekers, it argues that this position is implausible. Mainly, this is because the defense for the right turns on states having poor character—a morally absurd result. A major implication of this last chapter is that states are not unilaterally entitled to make their immigration decisions. This result is significant not only for the use of identity criteria but also, more importantly, for addressing the admission needs of people around the world experiencing significant and urgent threats to their basic human rights. As an alternative to unilateral control by each individual state, this chapter suggests that the morally appropriate way for states’ membership decisions to be made is similar to the way in which membership decisions are made for a variety of domestic associations, including businesses and large social clubs—namely, through the collective establishment of rules governing admission, with violations subject to economic or political penalties and sanctions.
Maṭhs, Quotidian Conflicts, and Urban Property: Perspectives from Colonial Legal Archives in Banaras
Authors: Kasturi Malavika
Published: March 2024

Maths (monastic institutions) and their members and networks were and remain important nodes of religiosity and finance. Through a case study of land and legal records pertaining to British Banaras, this chapter foregrounds the significance of maths as financiers who invested in real estate and shaped colonial markets and cities. It investigates the myriad quotidian conflicts occurring over rights and access to property in which Daśānāmī monastic institutions were involved, focusing specifically on land transactions such as sale, mortgage, credit, acquisition, and ‘encroachment’. By placing the tense and competitive relationship between maṭhs, property, and finance at the centre of its narrative, the chapter underlines the fissures shaping the urban pasts of Banaras, largely represented as a unique pilgrimage city embodying a homogenous ‘Hindu’ identity. Equally, its cache of civil cases dominated by monastic protagonists questions the assumed disconnection of religion from economic life and reinforces the ‘everyday’ materiality of religion.
Abhimanyus in Exile: Entanglements and Bonds among Migrant Workers in Delhi
Authors: Ramaswami Shankar
Published: March 2024

This chapter explores the life of religion—in epic imageries and Hindu–Muslim relations—among migrant workers in Delhi. Varmaji, a migrant from eastern Uttar Pradesh, invokes the image of the cakravyuh (circular maze), a military formation in the Mahabharata, to describe his experiences of tensions, duties, and attachments in the sphere of the family, but with modifications. Unlike in the epic, migrants are not alone in the cakravyuh and are not seeking escape. They find allies in one another, in their struggles within the city, amid domestic discord and the insularities and divisiveness of caste and religious identities. In empathetic dealings with his wife and relations of fellowship with his Muslim neighbours, one sees the weaving of integrative filaments in the social fabric, in which migrants forge fragile dwellings during their prolonged exile in the city.
Bovine Sifters: Cows, Indigeneity, and Environmentalism among an Urban Middle-Class Guru Following
Authors: Verma Benu
Published: March 2024

This chapter argues that the cultural expressions of a popular guru’s middle-class devotees manifest via popular tropes of Indigeneity (organic food and lifestyle), Hindu science, and nostalgic nationalism. These expressions are interpellated through their caste-class and religious habitus; they resonate—and are often conflated with—the cultural expressions of Hindutva political ideology, which is also expressed in the language and trope of seva towards the guru. The identification between the devotees and the politics of Hindutva is materialized in the discursive space of the everyday through seva activities, which make the devotees and the mission dissonant members of the Hindu right-wing’s proselytizing politics. Seemingly secular seva such as activities for environment protection—a religo-cultural concern—is one example of such dissonant belonging. A state-orchestrated political agency and their caste-class habitus that echoes with the mission’s ethos make devotees’ secular seva efforts for environment conservation micro-political interventions for the propagation and proliferation of religious, spatial, and social divisions, systematically glossing over the diversity and heterogeneity of human and extra-human relationships.
Everyday Religiosity among the Hindu Sindhis of India: Sindhi Identity and the Religious Market in the Era of Social Networks
Authors: Boivin Michel , Lalchandani Trisha
Published: March 2024

This chapter focuses on a minority that migrated from Sindh, in present-day Pakistan, after the 1947 Partition: the Hindu Sindhis. About one million Hindu Sindhis settled in India, especially in the western part of the country. They had to face hardship when most of them were settled in refugee camps built for the British army. Year after year, they were able to contribute to the economic development of India, thanks to their skills in different areas, especially in civil service and trade. While the Hindu Sindhis’ religion is usually depicted as syncretic and heterodox, the chapter explores the impact resulting from the use of smartphones on the everyday Sindhi religiosity as well as their relationship with their Sindhi identity. Following Stig Hjarvard’s mediatization theory arguing that religion is increasingly being subsumed under the logic of the media, the chapter indicates that the omnipresence of the smartphone is giving rise to a new phase in the development of digital religiosities that began with the use of the Internet on more traditional media such as computers.
Religion and Employment in India
Authors: Bahal Girish , Chandra Ujaan , Iyer Sriya , Shrivastava Anand
Published: March 2024

Over the last couple of decades, the Indian economy has experienced substantial growth rates, and India aims to be an economic superpower of the future. However, the translation of this growth into improved employment and incomes for Indians has been highly uneven across various social categories of gender, caste, and religion. While there has been considerable work on inequalities on gender and caste lines, in keeping with broader interest in the economics of religion, the study of differences in outcomes across religious groups seems to be comparatively less developed. Specifically, this chapter aims to redress that gap by understanding how religious identities affect the labour market outcomes of individuals in India today, a topic which garnered attention in the Sachar Committee Report in 2007. The data indicate that overall, India’s Hindus have better employment prospects than India’s Muslims. Although Muslim men are more likely to be employed than Hindu men, the order is the reverse for women. The resulting picture that the chapter paints is of concern to those interested in the economic well-being of Indian communities as well as those who are interested in the economics of social inclusion.
The Sounds of Everyday Christianity: Listening to the Protestant Mission in Nineteenth-Century Madras
Authors: Balachandran Aparna
Published: March 2024

This chapter discusses the soundscape of the Protestant missionary enterprise in the Tamil region of South India in the first half of the nineteenth century. It examines descriptions of ‘heathen’ religious practices in the missionary archive in the colonial city of Madras in the early nineteenth century, which contain tropes and themes that underline the centrality of sound and the missionary’s listening ear to the Protestant enterprise. While these narratives are often couched in sentiments of bewilderment and shock, they clearly involved quotidian encounters that were not unfamiliar to the authors of the texts. It is argued that the rhetorical act of distancing from native sound was key to fashioning oneself as a Christian in a fraught political context marked by multiple claims to religious truth, and political power. The creation of a Christian aural environment was thus a necessary condition for the salvation of the native convert. The presence of Roman Catholic churches and worshippers in Madras complicated this issue, and the realm of the aural became the key site to assert Protestantism as the only true Christian faith.
Sources of English Legal History
Authors: Baker John
Published: March 2024

This is a companion to Baker & Milsom, Sources of English Legal History: Private Law to 1750. Like that volume it is a collection of illustrative original materials, many of which have not been printed before. Unlike private law, however, the history of public law has until recently been neglected by legal historians. There has consequently been no previous collection of this kind. Whereas older books of constitutional documents focused on statutes and formal records, the present book concentrates more on forensic arguments and judicial decisions which illuminate the establishment of the rule of law and the emergence of legal principles in the field of public law. Public law is here taken in a broad sense to include not only the respective powers of the crown and parliament but also jurisdictional disputes, the protection of personal liberty, judicial review of administrative action, and criminal law. Texts in French or Latin have been translated or retranslated from the original sources. All the texts have new apparatus, including (for reported cases) references to the record.
The monarchy
Authors: Baker John
Published: March 2024

This chapter is concerned with the nature of monarchical government and constitutional monarchy in England, beginning with commentaries by ‘Bracton’, Sir John Fortescue, James Morice, and William Fleetwood. To these are added the coronation oaths of 1308 and 1689, and a judicial exposition in 1562 of the notion of ‘the king’s two bodies’. The chapter ends with discussions by Sir Edward Coke and others of the difference between the king’s absolute prerogatives, which could not be examined in any court, and the ordinary prerogatives. These discussions include enumerations of the absolute prerogatives, and an argument by Heneage Finch that even these were not ‘mysteries of faith’ but were subject to definition and limitation by the law. Several of these themes are returned to in later chapters.
Devolution of the crown
Authors: Baker John
Published: March 2024

This chapter is concerned with the devolution of the English crown. The regular demise of the crown by inheritance was automatic, because the king in his politic capacity was immortal, though it put an end to patents of office and unreturned writs. Most of the chapter focuses on interruptions in the course of descent. The depositions of Edward II and Richard II were presented as abdications. The dynastic conflicts between the houses of Lancaster and York raised legal issues upon the accessions of Edward IV and Richard III, and the accession of Henry VII raised the question whether the king (having been attainted by parliament) could lawfully summon a parliament. Parliamentary legislation empowered Henry VIII to alter the succession by will, but there was a debate over whether his will complied with the statute. There are extracts from the reported proceedings against Charles I, and a legal account by Thomas Siderfin of the Restoration of Charles II. The accession of William III and Mary II, following the abdication of James II, was followed by the Act of Settlement 1701.
Charters and confirmations of liberties
Authors: Baker John
Published: March 2024

This chapter begins with the texts of charters of liberties, from Æthelred to the fourteenth-century statutes of due process, followed by the Petition of Right 1628 and the Bill of Rights 1689. Most of the chapter is concerned with chapter 29 of Magna Carta 1225 (‘No free person shall be taken …’), and its interpretation over four centuries. The commentaries on chapter 29 include the ‘ordinary gloss’ of c. 1420, which probably originated in readings (lectures) in the fourteenth-century inns of court, later readings, including those of Robert Snagge (1581) and Francis Ashley (1616), and Sir Edward Coke’s manuscript treatise (1604) which linked it with habeas corpus.
The king and the rule of law
Authors: Baker John
Published: March 2024

This chapter concentrates on five aspects of the royal prerogative which potentially enabled kings to interfere with the ordinary rule of law. Writs of protection allowed those on royal service to avoid civil legal proceedings against them for a year; attempts to extend their scope were resisted by the judges. The extent to which the king was bound by legislation which did not expressly refer to him was a matter for the common law to decide, but it was sometimes controversial. The king also claimed a prerogative power to dispense with penal statutes by patents non obstante, though the common law restricted this to ‘mala prohibita’; the extent of the power occasioned major debates under Charles II and James II. The prerogative power to stay civil proceedings by the writ non procedendo rege inconsulto was deployed by Francis Bacon as attorney-general in two notorious cases in 1615–16 which brought Sir Edward Coke into conflict with James I. Finally, martial law allowed civilian as well as military troublemakers to be sentenced to death without jury trial; though sometimes proclaimed in peace-time emergencies, it was finally held to be contrary to Magna Carta.
The High Court of Parliament
Authors: Baker John
Published: March 2024

The texts in this chapter relate to the institution of parliament as both a legislature and a court. Parliaments themselves enacted that sessions should be frequent, though this did not in practice restrain the king’s prerogative until the end of the seventeenth century. The notion that a parliament represented the whole realm meant that the assent of the commons was necessary for legislation, and also that everyone was deemed aware of legislation even if it was not published. The extent to which the courts could pronounce on proceedings in parliament was debatable, though the King’s Bench entered into a detailed investigation of parliamentary procedure in 1455. The Lords had an ordinary jurisdiction to review King’s Bench judgments by writ of error, but their claim to hear cases at first instance, and to hear appeals from the Chancery, resulted in a prolonged dispute with the Commons in 1667–75. The jurisdiction to try the right to a peerage was also disputed in 1694. A claim by the Commons to imprison without trial for sedition was challenged in the 1650s. Several heated disputes concerning elections came before the courts, including Ashby v White (1703) in which damages were awarded for refusing to record a vote.
The Church and its jurisdiction
Authors: Baker John
Published: March 2024

It was always accepted that the Church had spiritual jurisdiction in England, but because of the ultimate de facto authority of the Roman Curia it was regarded as partly foreign and a potential threat to the king’s temporal power. The jurisdictional boundary was clarified by a royal measure of 1285 and guarded by the king’s judges, who issued writs of prohibition to keep Church courts within the agreed limits. Although it was settled in 1164 that disputes about advowsons were for the king’s courts, this was not accepted by the Roman Curia. Complaints about papal encroachments in this context led to strong legislation in the fourteenth century, including ‘praemunire’, with the ultimate threat of expulsion from the king’s protection, imprisonment, and forfeiture of property. Importing papal bulls which interfered with royal jurisdiction was made a crime, and the courts also declined to accept excommunications by the pope. In 1529 Cardinal Wolsey was convicted of exercising jurisdiction as a papal legate contrary to the medieval legislation, and there followed the statutory measures of 1533–34 which abolished all papal authority in England and reformed the heresy jurisdiction. The last execution for heresy was in 1612. A new bone of contention, occasioned by the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s, concerned tithe jurisdiction. This led to a torrent of prohibitions, a protest by Archbishop Bancroft in the Privy Council, and a dramatic confrontation between James I and Chief Justice Coke in 1608.
Local authority and jurisdiction
Authors: Baker John
Published: March 2024

This chapter concerns the review of local authority and jurisdiction during a period when local government was largely managed by courts. The first series of texts indicates the scope of franchisal jurisdiction and how it was controlled by quo warranto. The next series relates to cities and boroughs. Their powers of imprisonment were challenged in the sixteenth century by habeas corpus, sometimes relying on Magna Carta. Shortly after 1600 mandamus was developed as a ‘writ of restitution’ for deprived aldermen and officials, and during the century it enjoyed increasing popularity for various purposes, some of them unconnected with municipal government. County administration was in the hands of the justices of the peace, and during the seventeenth century their orders came to be reviewable by certiorari. Commissioners of sewers also had wide powers affecting landowners, including powers of taxation and the making of bye-laws. From the 1640s their orders likewise became subject to certiorari. The chapter ends with three university cases. One laid down the principle that a private jurisdiction is bound to apply the common law and not Roman law. The others confirmed two basic principles of natural justice: that a judge should not act in his own cause, and that a party was entitled to an opportunity to be heard.
Taxation and purveyance
Authors: Baker John
Published: March 2024

The principal forms of non-feudal revenue which the common law sanctioned were customs, impositions, and purveyance. Although those were circumscribed by medieval legislation, the extent to which the government could lawfully impose new forms of taxation without parliamentary consent became a major issue. Since the sanction for non-payment was imprisonment, the development of habeas corpus provided a mechanism for challenge in the case of purveyance. In the case of impositions and ship-money, payment could be enforced by an information in the Exchequer, and there the challenges were unsuccessful. The decision by a bare majority of judges in the ship-money case to allow a non-statutory species of tax, notwithstanding the abolition of prerogative taxation by the Petition of Right 1628, was overturned by parliament in 1641. The question whether the king could grant exemptions from parliamentary taxation, on the footing that he was only waiving in advance what was payable to him, was discussed at length in 1441 without a reported conclusion; but such patents were frequently granted to religious houses and accepted by the Exchequer.
Treason
Authors: Baker John
Published: March 2024

Treason was a common-law offence, but clarity was introduced by a statutory definition of 1351 which is still in force. A point not addressed by the statute was whether, and in what circumstances, an alien could commit treason; this was discussed in a number of cases, and the answer rested on the concept of temporary or local allegiance. Despite the statute of 1351, which forbade the invention of new treasons, a series of judicial decisions extended treason to include constructive compassings of the king’s death, for instance by prognosticating the length of his life or planning to depose him, and constructive levyings of war, for instance by local insurrections to redress grievances by usurping powers of government. Treason by levying war required an ‘overt act’. According to Coke’s unpublished report of Lord Cobham’s case (1604), the judges at first thought that a confession could itself be an overt act to prove compassing, but the report was later altered to invert this opinion; it is not clear whether the change was in the judges’ opinion itself or in Coke’s knowledge of it. The question of when, or to what extent, spoken or written words could constitute an overt act remained controversial.
Homicide
Authors: Baker John
Published: March 2024

Apart from petit treason (killing a husband or master) and the regulation of punishments, homicide was governed by the common law. This chapter begins with expositions of the medieval law of homicide in Bracton and in inns of court readings. Subsequent case law touched on problems of causation and the artificial concept of malice aforethought, including implied malice and transferred malice. Manslaughter was usually characterised as a sudden killing, as in a fight with no previous malice, but it could also include causing death by dangerous activities; here there was a difficult borderline to draw between manslaughter and misadventure (which was not capital). What might otherwise be considered murder might be reduced to manslaughter if there was sudden provocation, but this did not include mere words or trivial affronts. There are also cases concerning the plea of self-defence, including defence of the home.
The boundaries of English law
Authors: Baker John
Published: March 2024

This chapter is concerned with the boundaries of English law and the application of English law outside the realm. The Admiralty had exclusive jurisdiction over matters arising on the high seas, but not on land overseas. Wales was annexed to the English crown in the thirteenth century and under Henry VIII brought within the same legal system, but with separate courts. Ireland was subject to the common law from the thirteenth century, but it had its own parliament and in 1541 was declared a separate kingdom, ‘united and knit to the imperial crown’ of England. The kingdoms of England and Scotland were united under one sovereign (James I and VI) in 1603, though not for juridical purposes. It was held by all the judges in 1607 that Scots born after the union (the post-nati) were not aliens in English law and could therefore own land in England. The Act of Union with Scotland in 1707 created the United Kingdom of Great Britain, with a single parliament, but preserved the separate jurisdictions. It was confirmed in seventeenth-century decisions that English law could be imposed on colonies and plantations acquired by conquest, though some places were allowed to establish their own law. In some special cases the English courts exercised jurisdiction over matters arising outside the dominions of the crown.
Special relativity
Authors: Choquet-Bruhat Yvonne
Published: March 2024

The isometry group of the Euclidean model of space permits the existence of solid bodies remaining isometric to themselves under motions. In Galileo–Newton spacetime, lengths can be measured by comparison with a standard metre, a piece of metal deposited in Sèvres. For distances that are too large to be compared directly with a copy of the standard metre, one can use properties of Euclidean geometry, such as triangulation. The existence of clocks measuring absolute time is predicted by the periodic phenomena resulting from Newtonian dynamics.
General Relativity
Authors: Choquet-Bruhat Yvonne
Published: March 2024

Besides his desire to reconcile Special Relativity, valid when gravitational effects are negligible, and Newton’s law of gravitation, Einstein was led to his theory by physical facts and new ideas. We will not try in this book to follow Einstein’s long path (1907–1915) of discovery of General Relativity and the Einstein equations. Their mathematics rely on Lorentzian differential geometry, now a well-understood subject
The Einstein equations
Authors: Choquet-Bruhat Yvonne
Published: March 2024

There are spacetime frames where at a given point, or even along a given spacetime curve, they cancel each other. This statement is in agreement with the weak Einstein equivalence principle, which concerns the motion of one test particle. However, in contrast to inertial forces in Newtonian theory, which disappear in inertial frames (without canceling gravitation), there are no reference frames defined on an open set of a spacetime of General Relativity where all the connection coefficients vanish, except if the metric is flat, i.e. free of gravitation. In Einstein gravity, the existence of a non-zero gravitational field manifests itself by the curvature of the spacetime metric.
The Adaptive Markets Hypothesis
Authors: Lo Andrew W. , Zhang Ruixun
Published: March 2024

The Adaptive Markets Hypothesis (AMH) presents a new narrative that reconciles rational behaviour with periods of temporary financial insanity, and provides a formal and systematic exposition of the theory of the AMH and its many applications. In this narrative, intelligent but fallible investors learn from and adapt to changing environments. Financial markets may not always be efficient, but they are usually competitive and adaptive, varying in their degree of efficiency as investor populations and the financial environment change over time. This book describes how the AMH can make sense of market turmoil during crises, regardless of whether they have been induced by technological, financial, or public health factors, as well as the emergence and popularity of the efficient markets hypothesis (EMH) in the decades prior to these crises. The AMH is not an alternative to the EMH, but rather a broader framework that includes the EMH as a subset. Under stable, stationary, and predictable economic conditions, markets generally work well, and the EMH serves as a reasonably good approximation to reality. Under more dynamic and stochastic environments, the EMH becomes less plausible and behavioural anomalies emerge. The AMH provides an integrated and logically consistent framework for reconciling these disparate perspectives. For practitioners, the AMH offers practical insights with respect to investing in an economic climate of uncertainty and market turmoil. This book provides several applications including the analysis of hedge funds—the ‘Galápagos Islands’ of the financial industry—the ‘Quant Meltdown’ of August 2007, and the adaptation of financial institutions in the face of technological advances and changes in the financial industry’s competitive landscape.
Group Selection
Authors: Lo Andrew W. , Zhang Ruixun
Published: March 2024

In Chapter 4 we use the workhorse binary choice model of Chapter 2 to show that what appears to be group selection may, in fact, simply be the consequence of natural selection occurring in stochastic environments with reproductive risks that are correlated across individuals. Those individuals with highly correlated risks will appear to form ‘groups’, even if their actions are, in fact, totally autonomous, mindless, and, prior to natural selection, uniformly randomly distributed in the population. This framework implies that a separate theory of group selection is not strictly necessary to explain observed phenomena such as altruism and cooperation. At the same time, it shows that the concept of group selection does captures a unique aspect of evolution—selection with correlated reproductive risk—that may be sufficiently widespread and interesting to warrant the use of a separate term for the phenomenon.
Fear, Greed, and Financial Crises
Authors: Lo Andrew W. , Zhang Ruixun
Published: March 2024

Chapter 11 describes recent research from the neurosciences literature on fear and reward learning, mirror neurons, theory of mind, and the link between emotion and rational behaviour. Historical accounts of financial crises suggest that fear and greed are the common denominators of these disruptive events. Periods of unchecked greed eventually lead to excessive leverage and unsustainable asset-price levels, and the inevitable collapse results in unbridled fear, which must subside before any recovery is possible. The cognitive neurosciences may provide some new insights into this boom–bust pattern through a deeper understanding of the dynamics of emotion and human behaviour. By exploring the neuroscientific basis of cognition and behaviour, we may be able to identify more fundamental drivers of financial crises, and improve our models and methods for dealing with them.
Maximizing Relative versus Absolute Wealth
Authors: Lo Andrew W. , Zhang Ruixun
Published: March 2024

In Chapter 15 we propose an evolutionary framework for optimal portfolio growth theory in which investors subject to environmental pressures allocate their wealth between two assets. Different investor behaviours survive in different environments when considering both absolute wealth and relative wealth between investors. When investors maximize their relative wealth, the Kelly criterion is optimal only under certain conditions, which are identified. The initial relative wealth plays a critical role in determining the deviation of optimal behaviour from the Kelly criterion, regardless of whether the investor is myopic across a single time period or maximizing wealth over an infinite horizon. These results are related to population genetics, and their testable implications using experimental evolution methods are discussed.
What Happened to the Quants in August 2007?
Authors: Lo Andrew W. , Zhang Ruixun
Published: March 2024

In Chapter 17, we use the simulated returns of a specific set of long/short equity portfolios to understand what happened to quantitative hedge funds during the month of August 2007, when they all experienced large losses at the same time. Using five valuation factors to construct simulated returns, we find evidence that the ‘Quant Meltdown’ of August 2007 began in July and continued until the end of 2007. The simulation of a high-frequency market-making strategy exhibited significant losses during the week of 6 August 2007, but was profitable before and after, suggesting that the financial dislocation was due to market-wide deleveraging among an entire subsector of hedge funds, as well as a sudden withdrawal of market-making risk capital that started on 8 August. Two unwinds are identified—one on 1 August, starting at 10:45am ET and ending at 11:30am ET, and a second at the open on 6 August, ending at 1:00pm ET—that began with stocks in the financial sector long book-to-market and short earnings momentum.