Bloomberg Law News
In all three traditions, a canon was initially a rule adopted by a church council; these canons formed the foundation of canon law. Bentham’s utilitarian theories remained dominant in law till the 20th century.Definitions of law often raise the question of the extent to which law incorporates morality. John Austin’s utilitarian answer was that law is “commands, backed by threat of sanctions, from a sovereign, to whom people have a habit of obedience”. Natural lawyers, however, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, argue that law reflects essentially moral and unchangeable legal guidelines of nature. The concept of “natural law” emerged in historical Greek philosophy concurrently and in connection with the notion of justice, and re-entered the mainstream of Western tradition through the writings of Thomas Aquinas, notably his Treatise on Law. Human Rights Watch analysis in several nations has proven that criminalizing abortion impedes rights protected beneath international law, …