New ebooks purchased this month: February - March 2025

A selection of  law ebook titles were purchased this month, in association with the ebooks@cambridge team. These are all available through iDiscover. Recent publications include:

China's Free Trade Agreement Strategies: Securing the Chinese Developmental State and Socialist Market Economy, by Francine Hug (Springer, 2024)

This book delves into the intriguing paradox of China's position in international trade law. Although China is an active member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) engaging in substantial trade, tensions with trading partners may also arise. In this context, the book explores the legal principles informing Chinese Free Trade Agreements (FTA) and aims to answer the pivotal question: What drives China's FTA strategies?

International Sanctions and Human Rights, edited by Pavel Šturma (Springer, 2024)

The word "sanctions" is currently used more than ever before not only in the media, political statements, but also in legal discourse. Apart from this very widely cited term, European Union documents tend to refer also to "restrictive measures" while international law parlance embraces the concept of "countermeasures" (being the modern equivalent of peaceful reprisals from the point of view of general customary international law), i.e. individual coercive measures, or "security measures", which is a term used in some treaties. Sanctions or measures, whatever they are called, are a necessary and legitimate response to Russian aggression in Ukraine in the current situation. However, this does not rule out certain legal problems. The nature of these measures must be assessed in the light of international law. From this point of view, finding answers to the following questions is essential. Is the content of these measures generally consistent or contrary to the rules of international law? Who is authorized to decide on the introduction and content of these measures? Can these measures produce extraterritorial effects? Do sanctions targeting individuals (natural and legal persons) violate their human rights (right to property, right to fair trial, etc.)? Which type of information can be used as a basis for imposing sanctions against these individuals? Are there sufficient procedural safeguards and remedies at national and international level? Can some restrictive measures be reviewed and possibly overturned by courts? Are individuals who have been wrongfully added on sanction lists entitled to any compensation?

Judicial Review in International Administrative Law, edited by Teresa Bravo, Kieran Bradley (Springer, 2024)

This book addresses the topic of judicial review in international administrative law, focusing in particular on the case law of the most established international administrative tribunals (e.g the United Nations Appeal and Dispute Tribunals, the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labor Organization, the one of the  Inter-American Development Bank Group, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Organization of American States) as well as, the major challenges faced by these jurisdictions at the present time, when dealing with grievances of international civil servants

Modern Criminal Law: Essays in Honour of GR Sullivan, edited by AP Simester (Hart Publishing, 2024)

This book brings together leading scholars from the next generation of UK criminal lawyers to celebrate the work of GR Sullivan, Emeritus Professor at University College London, in the year of his retirement from writing Simester and Sullivan's Criminal Law: Theory and Doctrine. The contributors examine many of the areas in which GR (Bob) Sullivan's own writing has been influential, ranging from general doctrines such as causation and culpability, across specific offences like theft and fraud, through defences including necessity and insanity; before turning, finally, to matters affecting the criminal process, notably challenges to the doctrine of precedent in criminal law.

Principles of the Digital Services Act, by Martin Husovec (Oxford University Press, 2024)

Numerous questions were at the heart of the parliamentary discussions over the provisions of the Digital Services Act (DSA), the EU’s new regulatory framework for digital services. How should liberal democracies prevent illegal and harmful online activities and protect fundamental rights? How should digital service providers assess the impact of their technology on others? And how should technology companies moderate user-generated content? Principles of the Digital Services Act analyses the DSA’s key provisions, dissecting its mechanisms and components, to understand the new law’s likely impact on digital services in Europe and beyond. The book puts the new legal framework into its political, economic, and social contexts by explaining its grounding within the frameworks of economic regulation and human rights. It examines the European legislature’s approach to the DSA, offering a detailed historical account of the legislative and pre-legislative process. The book argues that the envisaged regulatory system has the potential to boost trust in the digital environment. However, its mechanisms must be able to rely on the robust network of civil society organisations, and the regulators should follow a set of principles. In this way, the DSA’s goal can be achieved through means that are firmly aligned with respect for individual liberties, including the freedom of expression. Combining academic research with practical insights, Principles of the Digital Services Act offers a robust analysis of how to apply and further develop the most important tools of the DSA, to rebuild trust in the digital environment.

Queer Encounters with International Law: Lives, Communities, Subjectivities, edited by Tamsin Phillipa Paige and Claerwen O'Hara (Routledge, 2025)

Traversing a wide range of topics, from trans discrimination and conversion therapy to sadomasochism and abolitionism, this book asks questions about the (im)possibility of freedom and equality for queer communities in the world and the role that different areas of international law have to play in such a pursuit. It considers how queer lives and bodies are rendered legible or illegible to the law through how we define concepts such as ‘gender [identity]’ or ‘private life’. It also reflects on whether legal activism focused on LGBTIQA+ rights can ever reflect the insights of queer theory. 

Queer Engagements with International Law: Times, Spaces, Imaginings, edited by Claerwen O'Hara and Tamsin Phillipa Paige (Routledge, 2025)

For some time now, queer theorists and legal scholars who think with queer theory have asked, what happens when queer theory moves out of its home base of gender and sexuality? The chapters in this book begin to answer this question by applying insights from queer theory to a diverse array of international law topics, from travaux préparatoires and international judging to the environment, oceans and outer space. While some contributions maintain a focus on gender and sexual diversity, all are characterised by a shift away from questions about LGBTIQA+ people towards wider discussions about power, normality, difference and liberation in international law. Through these engagements, the book demonstrates how queer theory can provide insights into a range of international law issues by allowing us to ‘make strange’ the taken-for-granted and contributing to a broader practice of reading for difference rather than dominance. 

Religion, Human Rights, and the Workplace: Judicial Balancing in the United States Federal Courts and the European Court of Human Rights, by Gregory Mose (Routledge, 2024)

Religious freedom is a fundamental and relatively uncontested right in both the United States and Europe. But other values like equality, justice, and the right to a private life are just as precious. Managing such conflicts has become a highly contested and politicized area of law and nowhere are such conflicts more evident – or more challenging – than those arising in the workplace. By comparing United States Federal Courts’ approach to free exercise in the workplace with that of the European Court of Human Rights, this book explores two very different methodologies for adjudicating rights conflicts. In examining methods and results, case by case, issue by issue and addressing each step of the analytical processes taken by judges, it becomes apparent that the United States has lost its way in the quest for equality and justice. It is argued here that while the European approach has its own flaws, its proportionality approach may offer vital lessons for United States practice.

Research Handbook on Surrogacy and the Law, edited by Katarina Trimmings, Sharon Shakargy, and Claire Achmad (Edward Elgar, 2024)

This Research Handbook provides a multifaceted exploration of surrogacy and the law, examining a variety of critical yet under-researched perspectives including globalisation, power, gender, sexual orientation, genetics, human rights and family relations. It covers four distinct topics: surrogacy and rights, the interplay between surrogacy and different areas of the law, cross-border aspects, and regional perspectives.

The Olympic Games, Sports Law and Human Rights, by Alexandre Miguel Mestre (Routledge, 2025)

This book explores the relationship between sports law, the Olympic Movement and human rights. Examining the historical legal roots of contemporary "Olympic law", including the ancient history of the Olympic Games and the legacy of Pierre de Coubertin, this book shines new light on one of the most important issues in world sport today. Written by a practising lawyer with expertise in sports law, this book explains the core concepts underpinning Olympic law and offers in-depth analysis of the Olympic Charter, arguing that the Charter is a key legal instrument in the context of which the interplay between ethics, rights and the Olympics must be understood. The book also examines key contemporary issues at the nexus of sports law and human rights, including religious freedom and protests by athletes.

The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms, and Controversies, edited by Peter L. Biro (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024)

The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter examines the NWC from all angles and perspectives, considering who should have the last word on matters of rights and justice - the legislatures or the unelected judiciary - and what balance liberal democracy requires. In the case of Quebec, the use of the clause has been justified as necessary to preserve the province’s culture and promote its identity as a nation. Yet Quebec’s pre-emptive and sweeping invocation of the clause also challenges the scope of judicial review and citizens’ recourse to it, and it tests the assumption that a dialogue between the judiciary and the legislature is always preferable in instances in which the legislative branch decides to suspend the operation of certain Charter rights and freedoms. By virtue of its contested purposes, interpretations, operation, and applications, the NWC represents and, to an extent, defines both the character and the very real vulnerabilities of liberal constitutionalism in Canada.

Understanding Private Law: Essays in Honour of Stephen A. Smith, edited by Evan Fox-Decent, John C. Goldberg and Lionel Smith (Hart Publishing, 2025)

This book engages with some of Stephen A Smith's most significant arguments, illustrating that he was a towering figure in the field of private law, with little of the field not impacted by his scholarship. The contributors explore Professor Smith's most controversial thinking on private law. Interrogating questions of contract law, remedies, unjust enrichment, comparative law, and the legal theory underlying these fields, this is an important publication in the field.

All of these ebooks are available to current University of Cambridge staff and students with a Raven password. A full list of ebook platforms can be viewed via the ebooks@cambridge LibGuide.