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Books and e-books

You can search for books and e-books simultaneously through the Library catalogue, Explore, which is the principal tool for finding books, journals and other materials held in UCL libraries (whether in print or electronic format). 

The print collection is located in the Donaldson Reading Room on the 1st floor of the UCL Main Library and is arranged by subject in accordance with Garside, UCL's own classification scheme. Each book has a shelfmark on the spine which consists of the name of the collection, followed by a letter and number indicating the subject, and the first three letters of the author's surname.

For example, Great Debates in Contract Law by Jonathan Morgan has the shelfmark LAW J 20 MOR, which indicates that it's shelved in the Donaldson Reading Room (LAW) in the Contract law section (J 20).

E-books are catalogued individually and can be accessed directly through Explore. There's further information about finding, using, and citing e-books in our e-books guide.

Selected New Books

Blackstone's Guide to the Domestic Abuse Act 2021

The Blackstone's Guide series delivers concise and accessible books covering the latest legislative changes and amendments. They offer expert commentary on the scope, extent, and effects of the legislation accompanying a full copy of the Act itself. Domestic abuse and violence have been variously tackled within the criminal and civil process. For the last decade violence against women and girls has been the focus for front line professionals in the statutory and voluntary sector and for those campaigning for law reform, culiminating in the enactment of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. The Blackstone's Guide to the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 is divided into four Parts. Part One will examine the context and background to the Act, providing a quick and accessible overview of the Act. Part Two breaks the Act down in full, providing a definition, meaning, and interpretation, as well as applications, or predicted applications, of use to practitioners practicing within the courts. Part Three considers the ongoing campaign for reform and the very latest developments which may have a bearing on practice, while also acknowledging and critiquing the limitations and omissions in the Act. The full text of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 is reprinted in Part Four. This Blackstone's Guide will explore the Act's provisions in a structured, sequential manner, with full consideration of the Act's coverage and its limitations.

Disability Through the Lens of Justice

Disability through the Lens of Justice offers a contextual framework for considering the limitations that disability places on individuals. Specifically, those that prevent individuals from having control in certain domains of their life, by restricting the availability of acceptable options or the ability to choose between them. Begon argues that our theory of justice should be concerned with the lives individuals can lead, and not with whether their bodies and minds function typically. The problem that disability raises is not the mere fact of difference, but the ways in which that difference is accommodated (or not) and the limitations it may cause. In Disability Through the Lens of Justice, Begon offers a new framework to the disability and justice model. She argues that achieving justice does not require 'normalisation', or the elimination of difference, but through implementating a model which enables all individuals to control their lives as they choose.

Decolonizing the Criminal Question

Within the discipline of criminology and criminal justice, relatively little attention has been paid to the relationship between criminal law, punishment, and imperialism, or the contours and exercise of penal power in the Global South. Decolonizing the Criminal Question is the first work of its kind to comprehensively place colonialism and its legacies at the heart of criminological enquiry. By examining the reverberations of colonial history and logics in the operation of penal power, this volume explores the uneasy relationship between criminal justice and colonialism, bringing relevance of these legacies in criminological enquiries to the forefront of the discussion. It invites and pursues a better understanding of the links between imperialism and colonialism on the one hand, and nationalism and globalization on the other, by exposing the imprints of these links on processes of marginalization, racialization, and exclusion that are central to contemporary criminal justice practices. Covering a range of jurisdictions and themes, Decolonizing the Criminal Question details how colonial and imperial domination relied on the internalization of hierarchies and identities -- for example, racial, geographical, and geopolitical -- of both the colonized and the colonizer, and shaped their subjectivity through imageries, discourses, and technologies. Offering innovative, conceptual, and methodological approaches to the study of the criminal question, this work is an essential read for scholars not only focused on criminology and criminal justice, but also for scholars in law, anthropology, sociology, politics, history, and a range of other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. 

Heritage Destruction, Human Rights and International Law

This book brings together prominent scholars in the fields of international cultural heritage law and heritage studies to scrutinise the various branches of international law and governance dealing with heritage destruction from human rights perspectives, both in times of armed conflict as well as in peace. Importantly, it also examines cases of heritage destruction that may not be intentional, but rather the consequence of large-scale infrastructural development or resource extraction. Chapters deal with high profile cases from Europe, North Africa, The Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean, with a substantial afterword on heritage destruction in Ukraine.

Law: a Very Short Introduction

Law is at the heart of every society, protecting rights, imposing duties, and establishing a framework for the conduct of almost all social, political, and economic activity. Despite this, the law often seems a highly technical, perplexing mystery, with its antiquated and often impenetrable jargon, obsolete procedures, and endless stream of judgements and complex legislation. In this Very Short Introduction Raymond Wacks introduces the major branches of the law, describing what lawyers do, and how courts operate, and considers the philosophy of law and its pursuit of justice, freedom, and equality. Wacks locates the discipline in our contemporary world, considering the pressures of globalization and digitalisation, and the nature of the law in our culture of threatened security and surveillance. In this new edition, the author considers a number of social and political events that have had an impact on the law, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the growth of social media and surveillance, and the increasing threats to the rule of law.

Influence Operations in Cyberspace and the Applicability of International Law

This enlightening book examines the use of online influence operations by foreign actors, and the extent to which these violate international law. It looks at key recent examples such as the 2016 UK EU Referendum, the 2016 American Presidential Election, and the 2017 French Presidential Election. Applying existing international law to the new cyberspace domain fuels the discourse on how states interpret international law, which increases legal ambiguity. This book contributes to this discourse by analysing the core elements of interventions and sovereignty, including territorial integrity and political independence, and the extent to which these elements were violated in the three central case studies. It concludes by reflecting on the future of influence operations in cyberspace and providing instruments and tools to better define when and how international law has been violated. Providing insights into the use of coercion and manipulation in influence operations, this book will be crucial reading for students and scholars in information and media law, internet and technology law, and public international law. It will also be beneficial for cyberspace experts and policymakers in international law and governance.

Research Handbook on Global Capital Markets Law

This Research Handbook is a one-stop resource on global capital markets and the laws that regulate them. Focussing primarily on 'mainstream' capital markets, and framing them as an ecosystem in which the market players and regulators must co-exist, the chapters paint a canvas on which key cross-cutting themes are depicted, dissected and discussed. Featuring contributions from leading global experts, the Research Handbook delves into a range of issues including investment products such as equity finance; sustainable finance; fintech; impact investing; and private equity. It also provides analysis on institutional and procedural issues such as large and small companies' capital formation, the roles of institutional shareholders and information providers, and the practices and regulation of financial trading markets. International in scope, this Research Handbook will be of great value to scholars and practitioners in the field of financial law. It will also be a go-to source of information for policy makers in the financial markets sphere.

The International Governance of Artificial Intelligence

This timely book investigates emerging efforts to govern artificial intelligence (AI) at an international level. It emphasizes the complex interactions involved when creating international norms related to potential and current developments in AI regulation. Organized into four parts, The International Governance of Artificial Intelligencedemonstrates how formal and informal standards for AI are emerging from stakeholder interactions. With the objective of describing a nascent transnational law on AI use, chapters survey the various global realities that affect AI governance, concluding that AI law should ultimately be evaluated against the measure of international human rights. Students of law and governance will benefit from this book, particularly when studying emerging technologies, international economic law and general international law. Those researching policy creation and regulation will additionally find it to be an enlightening read.

The Ethics and Conduct of Lawyers in England and Wales

The fourth edition of this respected textbook examines the regulation and conduct of lawyers in England and Wales and addresses new developments in the field, including those in international practice, sexual misconduct, and the environment. Focusing on the practice of, and interrelationship between, solicitors and barristers, the book provides background to current arrangements while exploring contemporary rules of conduct, systems of regulation, and controversies. The four main parts cover client duties, wider obligations, key contexts, and regulation. Parts one to three provide an academic introduction to the subject of lawyers' ethics. They are suitable as a core text for a semester course at undergraduate level, providing grounding for vocational training, such as the Solicitors' Qualifying Examination. Comparisons are made with conduct rules applying in other leading common law jurisdictions where relevant. These parts also explore links between the subject of ethics and the development of lawyers' practical skills. Part four applies the general principles to three elements of regulation: practice, admission, and discipline. The approach throughout is socio-legal. While the essential law is described, relevant social science research informs consideration of issues and debates.

Dictionaries, encyclopedias and general reference works

Dictionaries of legal terminology, such as Jowitt's Dictionary of English Law, Stroud's Judicial Dictionary and Words and Phrases Legally Defined are shelved at the beginning of the classified sequence at A2 : M10.  You can also search Jowitt and Stroud simultaneously, together with Osborn's Concise Law Dictionary, by using the Index of Legal Terms in Westlaw UK. 

LexisNexis also produce a Legal Glossary which is freely available online.

Dictionaries of legal abbreviations such as Raistrick's Index to Legal Citations and Abbreviations and Prince's Bieber Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations are located at A2 : A4.

Major reference works such as Halsbury's Laws of England, Current Law, and The Digest are shelved in a separate section in the first bay on the right as you enter the Donaldson.

Other collections

Materials relevant to the study of Law can also be found in the following Library collections:

Materials relevant to the study of Law can also be found in the following Library collections:

Materials relevant to the study of Law can also be found in the following Library collections:

How can you tell if a book is available online?

On UCL Explore, you can look at the results of your search to quickly discover if a book is available in print or/and online: View Online means that the book is available electronically, while Available means that the book is available in print. In some cases a book is available both in print and online. 

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