Law in Context

This fourth edition of Law in Context not only updates the text by reference to the latest thinking and developments in the broad area of law in context, but also introduces readers to the wider social, political and regulatory contexts of law. Bottomley and Bronitt, as in previous editions, expose readers to the multitude of contexts (some explicit, others implicit) that affect how law is made, broken and enforced by the state or individual citizens. The fundamental ideals of law such as the Rule of Law rest on cherished liberal values, though the authors constantly encourage readers not to accept uncritically the rhetoric of law, but to test these assumptions through empirical eyes.

Law’s Philosophical Foundations, Legal Formalism and Rule of Law, Gender, Race, Access to Justice, Litigation, Lawyers Clients and Ethics, Politics of Law-Making, Implementing Legal Rules, Law in an Economic Context, Law and Globalism.

Stephen Bottomley is Professor of Commercial Law in the ANU College of Law at The Australian National University. His research interest is corporate law, particularly governance and accountability in the private and public sectors. Stephen is the co-author of Corporations Law in Australia (2002, 2nd edn), Law in Context (2011, 4th edn), Directing the Top 500 - Corporate Governance and Accountability in Australian Companies (1993), and The Constitutional Corporation: Rethinking Corporate Governance (2007), which was awarded the 2008 Hart Socio-Legal Book Prize for the most outstanding piece of socio-legal scholarship. He is also co-editor of Commercial Law and Human Rights (2002). Simon Bronitt is Director of CEPS. Simon was previously a Professor of Law in the ANU College of Law and Associate Director of the Australian Centre for Military Law and Justice, ANU. Between 2006-2009 he served as the Director of the ANU Centre of European Studies in the Research School of Humanities. Drawing on comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives, Simon has published widely on criminal justice issues, including counter terrorism law and human rights, covert policing, telecommunications interception and international criminal law. His other publications include Principles of Criminal Law (3rd ed, Thomson Reuters 2010). He was the lead Chief Investigator of ARC-funded Discovery Project on counter-terrorism law (2005-2008), which culminated in the publication of Miriam Gani & Penelope Mathew (editors), Fresh Perspectives on the *War on Terror* (2008). For more details see http://epress.anu.edu.au/titles/index.html