Peter Edge | Oxford Brookes University (original) (raw)
Papers by Peter Edge
... Anglican denominations of Christianity, including very small denominations, have been accepte... more ... Anglican denominations of Christianity, including very small denominations, have been accepted,10 as have Judaism.11 Persuasive authorities suggest that Islam,12 Hinduism,13 traditional Chinese religious practices such as Sin Chew14 and the keeping of joss houses,15 ...
The Cambridge Law Journal, 2002
Download a branded Cambridge Journals Online toolbar (for IE 7 only). What is this? ... Add Cambr... more Download a branded Cambridge Journals Online toolbar (for IE 7 only). What is this? ... Add Cambridge Journals Online as a search option in your browser toolbar. What is this? ... Freedom of Religion Under the European Convention on Human Rights. By CAROLYN EVANS. [ ...
Peter W Edge. "The very expression "law and" paradoxically signifies both law's welcoming of othe... more Peter W Edge. "The very expression "law and" paradoxically signifies both law's welcoming of other disciplines and its continued separation from them" (Balkin, 1996 at 950). Introduction. John Witte has recently surveyed the field of law and religion within the United States (Witte, 2012). His "interim report" makes essential reading for anyone interested in scholarship from this globally significant set of jurisdictions. My focus in this chapter is partly on contemporary European scholarship, albeit only that part available in English, but also more specifically on the contribution that legal scholarship can make to interdisciplinary work on the interaction of law and religion. I begin by discussing what sort of discipline law is, and how it can interact with other disciplines. I then attempt to consider the contours of legal scholarship as they may appear to an outsider, seeking to bring out the key characteristics which need to be considered when placing a piece of legal scholarship on law and religion in its disciplinary context. I conclude by a brief consideration on what to expect from a legal scholar during interdisciplinary dialogue on law and religion. What sort of discipline is law? Posner argued, in a provocatively titled article, for "[t]he decline of law as an autonomous discipline, 1962-1987" (Posner, 1987; see also Posner, 1988). Schlag expressed the same scepticism by a lively comparison of the discipline to law to that of phrenology (Schlag, 1997). One may be sceptical about the autonomy of legal scholarship without thereby invalidating the existence of a community of legal scholars (van Zandt, 2003), or necessarily concluding that there is nothing distinctive about the work of such scholars (Bix, 2003). Nonetheless, the standing of law as a distinctive discipline is not uncontested. That said, I follow Vick in seeing a core to the academic study of law which "broadly corresponds with a doctrinal approach involving the use of particular interpretative tools and critical techniques in order to systematise and evaluate legal rules and generate recommendations as to what legal rules should be" (Vick, 2004 at 165). Using the United States terminology, this will be termed Langdellian, after the influential Dean of Harvard Law School, although scholars within this tradition frequently do not identify themselves explicitly (Posner, 1988). Within this tradition, especially in the common law, Anglophone, world, the legal scholar begins with the study of authoritative (typically public domain) legal texts, and then moves from knowledge of those texts to apply "the power of logical discrimination and argumentation that came from close and critical study of them" (Posner, 1987 at 763). The latter is crucial to understanding even that Langdellian scholarship which focuses on authoritative texts very closely. Such scholars rarely simply aim to summarise the current state of play in the authoritative sources. Rather "the Langdellian scholar [aims] to discover
Derek O'Brien discusses his recent ISA grant succes
When democracy came to the Isle of Man: a critical celebration of 1867. The Isle of Man is situat... more When democracy came to the Isle of Man: a critical celebration of 1867. The Isle of Man is situated roughly equidistant between England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland and Wales. At one time the centre of a significant Norse Kingdom, by 1399 at the latest it had entered the dominions of the English Crown, and has remained a possession-today a Crown Dependency-ever since.1 It was not, however, absorbed into a neighbouring jurisdiction. Instead it retained a distinct legal identity, and its own national laws and organs of government. Initially this was as the possession of an English magnate, who ruled the Isle of Man as a feudatory monarch. But in 1765 the Crown purchased most of the rights of this monarch as the beginning of the process of Revestment-the taking of Crown powers into the hands of the Sovereign. Even this Revestment did not cause the assimilation of the Isle of Man with England-for instance "by joining the Isle of Man to Cumberlands black coast"2-although it was a close run thing.3 Instead, although government of the Island was by, and predominantly for the benefit of, London, this was done through existing Manx mechanisms. Central to these structures was the Manx Tynwald-a legislature consisting of the House of Keys and the Council (the latter consisting of officials of the Manx government appointed by the Crown), and led by the Lieutenant-Governor. Ranking with 1765 in importance, the major constitutional reforms of 1866-1867, culminating in the first Manx democratic elections, seem more obviously something to celebrate.4 In particular, two elements of this phase of Manx constitutional history immediately attract attention: the increase of practical power exercised by insular authorities, as opposed to Imperial ones; and the change of the House of Keys from a self-sustained elite to a democratically elected chamber. In this note I will briefly suggest some important qualifications to these two elements, make a case for the importance of a neglected reform of 1866-1867, and suggest a complementary way of looking at the constitutional reform. In doing so I take a particular perspective-one which sees the Imperial authorities in London as important partners in the reforms, with their own way of looking at things. In particular, as the centre of a global empire, London had its own frame for understanding the Manx situation. As Belchem puts it, "driven by administrative convenience and ideological imperative, successive British governments displayed decreasing tolerance for anomalies, deviations and 'inconsistencies' from fiscal, constitutional, and other norms".5 The increase of practical power exercised in the Isle of Man.
Amicus Curiae
The Isle of Man, a self-governing Crown Dependency, developed its own response to the global pand... more The Isle of Man, a self-governing Crown Dependency, developed its own response to the global pandemic, including strict border controls and periods of lockdown. In 2020, this was given legal effect through the declaration of a formal State of Emergency, while, in 2021, similar measures were implemented under public health legislation without a State of Emergency. Framing the 2021 lockdowns as a public health crisis led to a more tightly focused response than the 2020 framing as a national emergency. Within this narrower range, however, the structure of the public health legislation as implemented provided less democratic accountability than the emergency powers legislation and reduced the emphasis given to the rules as laws, leading to a decrease in formality in relation to both creation and publication of these legal rules, and exacerbating a blurring between law and advice. These disadvantages were not, however, intrinsic to the public health legislation itself, and if corrected t...
The work of a religious representative in a democratic
Journal of Church and State, 2013
The Isle of Man, a self-governing Crown Dependency, developed its own response to the global pand... more The Isle of Man, a self-governing Crown Dependency, developed its own response to the global pandemic, including strict border controls and periods of lockdown. In 2020, this was given legal effect through the declaration of a formal state of emergency, while in 2021 similar measures were implemented under public health legislation without a state of emergency. Framing the 2021 lockdowns as a public health crisis led to a more tightly focussed response than the 2020 framing as a national emergency. Within this narrower range, however, the structure of the public health legislation as implemented provided less democratic accountability than the emergency powers legislation, and reduced the emphasis given to the rules as laws, leading to a decrease in formality in relation to both creation and publication of these legal rules, and exacerbating a blurring between law and advice. These disadvantages were not, however, intrinsic to the public health legislation itself, and if corrected t...
Law has an extremely complicated relationship with history. In particular, claims to legal legiti... more Law has an extremely complicated relationship with history. In particular, claims to legal legitimacy often base themselves on an argument that a particular legal position can be found in earlier sources, in a sense sanctified by the passing of time. This is particularly the case in areas of legal uncertainty, or areas lacking a statutory basis, where the occasionally Delphic utterances of judges are particularly important. Where an act of the legislature explicitly repeals an earlier act on a topic, and replaces it with new legal rules, the fact of the change is pretty clear. Where a range of judges over – at times – a number of centuries have contributed to a body of law, it is much less easy to establish whether a particular moment is one of change, clarification, or reassertion of the law.
Religion and Law, 2017
Contents: Thinking about law thinking about religion Religious interests in international and dom... more Contents: Thinking about law thinking about religion Religious interests in international and domestic laws The state and the individual The state and the religious organisation Conclusions Further reading Bibliography Index.
Commonwealth Law Bulletin, 1995
Commonwealth Law Bulletin, 1995
Publication of this new text was only possible with a grant to the Isle of Man Law Society from H... more Publication of this new text was only possible with a grant to the Isle of Man Law Society from Her Majesty's Attorney General of the Isle of Man. This grant represents only part of the extensive commitment of the Attorney General to providing material support to the Manx legal system and those working within it. The overwhelming majority of this work was undertaken during the preparation of a doctoral thesis under the aegis of Wolfson College, Cambridge. A considerable number of people were generous with their time and expertise whilst I was in Cambridge, without which this work would not have been possible.
Law and Religion in the Liberal State, 2020
Conflicts over the ownership, control, and use of sacred sites claimed by multiple religious comm... more Conflicts over the ownership, control, and use of sacred sites claimed by multiple religious communities can pose a serious challenge to the state. The ongoing conflict over the Babri Masjid and Ram Temple in Ayodhya, India, has had a strong legal dimension since 1885. A detailed study of the litigation over the site demonstrates a range of state failures: a judicial failure to provide speedy resolution to land-use and ownership claims; an executive failure to enforce such court orders as were made; and a federal failure to exercise control over the state government directly involved in the dispute. These failures led to an ongoing failure to protect the rights of a significant religious minority in India, and the secularism embedded in the Indian Constitution. A consideration of the dispute in Ayodhya indicates, if not necessarily successful strategies to dealing with conflicts over shared sacred sites, at least some of the dangers which need to be avoided. 8 In Hindu cosmology, cosmos passes through cycles within cycles for eternity. The basic cycle is the Kalpa, formed by a thousand Mahayugas. Each Mahayuga is divided into four yugas or ages called Krta, Treta, Dvapara and Kali. Their lengths are respectively 4,800, 3,600, 2,400 and 1,200 'years of the Gods', and each year equals 360 human years. According to Hindu mythology, Rama spent his youth in Ayodhya and was king during the Treta-yuga, thousands of years before our present age, the Kali-yuga.
Transformation of Church and State Relations in Great Britain and Germany, 2013
... Anglican denominations of Christianity, including very small denominations, have been accepte... more ... Anglican denominations of Christianity, including very small denominations, have been accepted,10 as have Judaism.11 Persuasive authorities suggest that Islam,12 Hinduism,13 traditional Chinese religious practices such as Sin Chew14 and the keeping of joss houses,15 ...
The Cambridge Law Journal, 2002
Download a branded Cambridge Journals Online toolbar (for IE 7 only). What is this? ... Add Cambr... more Download a branded Cambridge Journals Online toolbar (for IE 7 only). What is this? ... Add Cambridge Journals Online as a search option in your browser toolbar. What is this? ... Freedom of Religion Under the European Convention on Human Rights. By CAROLYN EVANS. [ ...
Peter W Edge. "The very expression "law and" paradoxically signifies both law's welcoming of othe... more Peter W Edge. "The very expression "law and" paradoxically signifies both law's welcoming of other disciplines and its continued separation from them" (Balkin, 1996 at 950). Introduction. John Witte has recently surveyed the field of law and religion within the United States (Witte, 2012). His "interim report" makes essential reading for anyone interested in scholarship from this globally significant set of jurisdictions. My focus in this chapter is partly on contemporary European scholarship, albeit only that part available in English, but also more specifically on the contribution that legal scholarship can make to interdisciplinary work on the interaction of law and religion. I begin by discussing what sort of discipline law is, and how it can interact with other disciplines. I then attempt to consider the contours of legal scholarship as they may appear to an outsider, seeking to bring out the key characteristics which need to be considered when placing a piece of legal scholarship on law and religion in its disciplinary context. I conclude by a brief consideration on what to expect from a legal scholar during interdisciplinary dialogue on law and religion. What sort of discipline is law? Posner argued, in a provocatively titled article, for "[t]he decline of law as an autonomous discipline, 1962-1987" (Posner, 1987; see also Posner, 1988). Schlag expressed the same scepticism by a lively comparison of the discipline to law to that of phrenology (Schlag, 1997). One may be sceptical about the autonomy of legal scholarship without thereby invalidating the existence of a community of legal scholars (van Zandt, 2003), or necessarily concluding that there is nothing distinctive about the work of such scholars (Bix, 2003). Nonetheless, the standing of law as a distinctive discipline is not uncontested. That said, I follow Vick in seeing a core to the academic study of law which "broadly corresponds with a doctrinal approach involving the use of particular interpretative tools and critical techniques in order to systematise and evaluate legal rules and generate recommendations as to what legal rules should be" (Vick, 2004 at 165). Using the United States terminology, this will be termed Langdellian, after the influential Dean of Harvard Law School, although scholars within this tradition frequently do not identify themselves explicitly (Posner, 1988). Within this tradition, especially in the common law, Anglophone, world, the legal scholar begins with the study of authoritative (typically public domain) legal texts, and then moves from knowledge of those texts to apply "the power of logical discrimination and argumentation that came from close and critical study of them" (Posner, 1987 at 763). The latter is crucial to understanding even that Langdellian scholarship which focuses on authoritative texts very closely. Such scholars rarely simply aim to summarise the current state of play in the authoritative sources. Rather "the Langdellian scholar [aims] to discover
Derek O'Brien discusses his recent ISA grant succes
When democracy came to the Isle of Man: a critical celebration of 1867. The Isle of Man is situat... more When democracy came to the Isle of Man: a critical celebration of 1867. The Isle of Man is situated roughly equidistant between England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland and Wales. At one time the centre of a significant Norse Kingdom, by 1399 at the latest it had entered the dominions of the English Crown, and has remained a possession-today a Crown Dependency-ever since.1 It was not, however, absorbed into a neighbouring jurisdiction. Instead it retained a distinct legal identity, and its own national laws and organs of government. Initially this was as the possession of an English magnate, who ruled the Isle of Man as a feudatory monarch. But in 1765 the Crown purchased most of the rights of this monarch as the beginning of the process of Revestment-the taking of Crown powers into the hands of the Sovereign. Even this Revestment did not cause the assimilation of the Isle of Man with England-for instance "by joining the Isle of Man to Cumberlands black coast"2-although it was a close run thing.3 Instead, although government of the Island was by, and predominantly for the benefit of, London, this was done through existing Manx mechanisms. Central to these structures was the Manx Tynwald-a legislature consisting of the House of Keys and the Council (the latter consisting of officials of the Manx government appointed by the Crown), and led by the Lieutenant-Governor. Ranking with 1765 in importance, the major constitutional reforms of 1866-1867, culminating in the first Manx democratic elections, seem more obviously something to celebrate.4 In particular, two elements of this phase of Manx constitutional history immediately attract attention: the increase of practical power exercised by insular authorities, as opposed to Imperial ones; and the change of the House of Keys from a self-sustained elite to a democratically elected chamber. In this note I will briefly suggest some important qualifications to these two elements, make a case for the importance of a neglected reform of 1866-1867, and suggest a complementary way of looking at the constitutional reform. In doing so I take a particular perspective-one which sees the Imperial authorities in London as important partners in the reforms, with their own way of looking at things. In particular, as the centre of a global empire, London had its own frame for understanding the Manx situation. As Belchem puts it, "driven by administrative convenience and ideological imperative, successive British governments displayed decreasing tolerance for anomalies, deviations and 'inconsistencies' from fiscal, constitutional, and other norms".5 The increase of practical power exercised in the Isle of Man.
Amicus Curiae
The Isle of Man, a self-governing Crown Dependency, developed its own response to the global pand... more The Isle of Man, a self-governing Crown Dependency, developed its own response to the global pandemic, including strict border controls and periods of lockdown. In 2020, this was given legal effect through the declaration of a formal State of Emergency, while, in 2021, similar measures were implemented under public health legislation without a State of Emergency. Framing the 2021 lockdowns as a public health crisis led to a more tightly focused response than the 2020 framing as a national emergency. Within this narrower range, however, the structure of the public health legislation as implemented provided less democratic accountability than the emergency powers legislation and reduced the emphasis given to the rules as laws, leading to a decrease in formality in relation to both creation and publication of these legal rules, and exacerbating a blurring between law and advice. These disadvantages were not, however, intrinsic to the public health legislation itself, and if corrected t...
The work of a religious representative in a democratic
Journal of Church and State, 2013
The Isle of Man, a self-governing Crown Dependency, developed its own response to the global pand... more The Isle of Man, a self-governing Crown Dependency, developed its own response to the global pandemic, including strict border controls and periods of lockdown. In 2020, this was given legal effect through the declaration of a formal state of emergency, while in 2021 similar measures were implemented under public health legislation without a state of emergency. Framing the 2021 lockdowns as a public health crisis led to a more tightly focussed response than the 2020 framing as a national emergency. Within this narrower range, however, the structure of the public health legislation as implemented provided less democratic accountability than the emergency powers legislation, and reduced the emphasis given to the rules as laws, leading to a decrease in formality in relation to both creation and publication of these legal rules, and exacerbating a blurring between law and advice. These disadvantages were not, however, intrinsic to the public health legislation itself, and if corrected t...
Law has an extremely complicated relationship with history. In particular, claims to legal legiti... more Law has an extremely complicated relationship with history. In particular, claims to legal legitimacy often base themselves on an argument that a particular legal position can be found in earlier sources, in a sense sanctified by the passing of time. This is particularly the case in areas of legal uncertainty, or areas lacking a statutory basis, where the occasionally Delphic utterances of judges are particularly important. Where an act of the legislature explicitly repeals an earlier act on a topic, and replaces it with new legal rules, the fact of the change is pretty clear. Where a range of judges over – at times – a number of centuries have contributed to a body of law, it is much less easy to establish whether a particular moment is one of change, clarification, or reassertion of the law.
Religion and Law, 2017
Contents: Thinking about law thinking about religion Religious interests in international and dom... more Contents: Thinking about law thinking about religion Religious interests in international and domestic laws The state and the individual The state and the religious organisation Conclusions Further reading Bibliography Index.
Commonwealth Law Bulletin, 1995
Commonwealth Law Bulletin, 1995
Publication of this new text was only possible with a grant to the Isle of Man Law Society from H... more Publication of this new text was only possible with a grant to the Isle of Man Law Society from Her Majesty's Attorney General of the Isle of Man. This grant represents only part of the extensive commitment of the Attorney General to providing material support to the Manx legal system and those working within it. The overwhelming majority of this work was undertaken during the preparation of a doctoral thesis under the aegis of Wolfson College, Cambridge. A considerable number of people were generous with their time and expertise whilst I was in Cambridge, without which this work would not have been possible.
Law and Religion in the Liberal State, 2020
Conflicts over the ownership, control, and use of sacred sites claimed by multiple religious comm... more Conflicts over the ownership, control, and use of sacred sites claimed by multiple religious communities can pose a serious challenge to the state. The ongoing conflict over the Babri Masjid and Ram Temple in Ayodhya, India, has had a strong legal dimension since 1885. A detailed study of the litigation over the site demonstrates a range of state failures: a judicial failure to provide speedy resolution to land-use and ownership claims; an executive failure to enforce such court orders as were made; and a federal failure to exercise control over the state government directly involved in the dispute. These failures led to an ongoing failure to protect the rights of a significant religious minority in India, and the secularism embedded in the Indian Constitution. A consideration of the dispute in Ayodhya indicates, if not necessarily successful strategies to dealing with conflicts over shared sacred sites, at least some of the dangers which need to be avoided. 8 In Hindu cosmology, cosmos passes through cycles within cycles for eternity. The basic cycle is the Kalpa, formed by a thousand Mahayugas. Each Mahayuga is divided into four yugas or ages called Krta, Treta, Dvapara and Kali. Their lengths are respectively 4,800, 3,600, 2,400 and 1,200 'years of the Gods', and each year equals 360 human years. According to Hindu mythology, Rama spent his youth in Ayodhya and was king during the Treta-yuga, thousands of years before our present age, the Kali-yuga.
Transformation of Church and State Relations in Great Britain and Germany, 2013