Cambridge Studies in Law and Society: Law and Nature

This interdisciplinary study explores the relationship between conceptions of nature and (largely American) legal thought and practice. It focuses on the politics and pragmatics of nature talk as expressed in both extra-legal disputes and their transformation and translation into forms of legal discourse (tort, property, contract, administrative law, criminal law and constitutional law). Delaney begins by considering the pragmatics of nature in connection with the very idea of law and the practice of American legal theorization. He then traces a set of specific political-legal disputes and arguments. The set consists of a series of contexts and cases organized around a conventional distinction between 'external' and 'internal nature': forces of nature, endangered species, animal experiments, bestiality, reproductive technologies, genetic screening, biological defenses in criminal cases, and involuntary medication of inmates. He demonstrates throughout that nearly any construal of 'nature' entails an interpretation of what it is to be (distinctively) human.

Acknowledgements; Part I. Situating Nature: 1. Introduction: the pragmatics of nature and the situation of law; 2. The nature of modern political discourse: doing things with nature; 3. The natures of scientific discourse; 4. The natures of legal discourse; 5. The natures of legal practice; Part II. Rendering Nature: 6. It's a slippery slope: law and the forces of nature; 7. Doctrinal wilderness and the path of interpretation: law and wilderness; 8. Wild justice and the endangerment of meaning: law and endangered species; 9. Puka's choice: law and animal experimentation; 10. Fear of falling: law and bestiality; 11. The births of nature and tradition: law and reproductive technologies; 12. Doctrinal mutations at the edge of meaning: law and genetic screening; 13. Return of the beast within: law and biological criminal defenses; 14. Controlling dreams: law and the involuntary medication of prisoners; Part III. Judging Nature: 15. Beyond 'nature': the material life of the legal; References; Index.