Abstract

This paper examines how natural law theory was invoked and interpreted by the judges of the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal in the absence of a comprehensive system of international criminal law. While legal positivism dominated much of twentieth-century jurisprudence, the Tribunal’s majority and dissenting opinions often relied on universal moral principles to justify the prosecution of crimes against peace. Judges such as Henri Bernard, William Webb, Radhabinod Pal, and B. V. A. Röling offered contrasting approaches to legal responsibility, ranging from explicit endorsement of natural law to firm positivist rejection. The study argues that, beyond the formal legal framework, these moral-philosophical underpinnings significantly influenced the legitimacy, reasoning, and outcome of the Tokyo proceedings. The Tribunal became a unique historical forum where the boundaries between law and morality, and between Western and non-Western legal cultures, were openly negotiated.

Keywords: Tokyo Tribunal, Judicial reasoning, Natural Law, International criminal justice

Abstract

The potential of artificial intelligence raises countless new challenges and questions, and the world of law is no exception. This study explores the applicability of AI in the field of justice, with a particular focus on the translatability and graspability of the idea of justice to technology.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, justice, judicial decision-making, justice system, modernisation

Abstract

The legal history of the Spanish Empire is not taught at the Legal History Departments of the Hungarian Universities, only its general history at the Early Modern History Departments. The investigation on the Spanish rule in America is mostly from the aspects of the economy and society, but never the legal status of the Americas within the Spanish Empire. This study tries to focus on the most relevant legal questions, and to give answers on the basis of the most relevant legal sources.

Keywords: Habsburg, Spanish Empire, Catholicism, America, Indies

Abstract

In this study I focused on a currently relevant topic, the state of special legal order. The research was not a traditional presentation of this legal institution, but instead an attempt to create a blend of law and literature (and also law in literature). My goal was to show how law can appear in a literary work and to demonstrate how legal thinking can influence fictional worlds, and to thereby draw certain conclusions about the aforementioned legal institution. The analysis covers the special legal order, the sources of law, and the examination of the different analogies legal systems and fictional narratives.

            My research is partially made up of a historical and theoretical section, in which I attempted to deduce the origin of the special legal order as it is known today. Following this, I analysed the general characteristics of the legal institution, including its relationship to fundamental rights and control mechanisms.

            After this general introduction, I examined the legal phenomena appearing in George Lucas’s Star Wars universe. By this I mean the special legal order (as a state of emergency and as a state of war), the legal system and government of this fictional state, and the various sources of law (e.g. constitution, decree, orders).

            In my opinion, my thesis is valuable not only for military law, but also for literary studies, contributing to the strengthening of the interdisciplinary dialogue between the two disciplines, and reflects on current practical concerns regarding special legal systems.

The issue of special legal order has not yet been researched within law and literature, which is what makes my study truly unique. With my research I aimed to popularize this way of thinking by showing the legal aspects of a literary work that have been little explored not only in Hungarian, but foreign legal literature as well.

Keywords: sources of law; emergency decree; special legal order; hibernation of democracy; law in literature; Star Wars

Abstract

Although the subject of my thesis – the early appearances of the law of war – at first sight may seem remote and of purely theoretical, I believe that an understanding of the deepest and most elementary motivations for the regulation of war and the context in which they evolved is an inevitable condition for the resolution of present wars and for the more successful prevention of future armed conflicts, and that is the intention that guided my research.

Because of the relative uncharted territory of the subject, I first sought to examine the moral relationship to war on a broad philosophical scale, so in the second half of my thesis I could draw meaningful conclusions about war in antiquity by analysing specific historical situations and laws, and then, on the basis of theoretical and historical findings, draw a distinction between legally regulated, institutional war and primitive human combat.

As a result of my research, I have been able to create an overview which, in an unusual way, does not focus on the law of war in force and its development over the previous few centuries, but rather on the earliest possible manifestations of war law and their ideological and historical significance. I have managed to come one step closer to an otherwise impossible definition of war by distinguishing it from the violent conflict situations that existed before its inception, and during that, I have been able to point out the particularly difficult evolution of the regulation of warfare and the essential aspect of how, despite all its cruelty and destruction, mankind has always, in its soul, always wished to avoid war.

Keywords: War; law of war; antiquity; East; international law

2024. május 29-én Fogyasztóvédelmi aktualitások címmel került megrendezésre a Budapesti Gazdasági Egyetem Fogyasztóvédelmi Kutatócsoportjának negyedik konferenciája, amelynek különlegessége, hogy a 2022. szeptember 19-én létrejött Kutatócsoport készülő könyvének fejezetei kerültek bemutatásra, és ily módon lehetőség nyílt előzetes szakmai reflexiókra, párbeszédre.

A Konferencia előtt a Kutatócsoport zártkörű tudományos ülést tartott, amelyen Hámori Antal kutatócsoportvezető bemutatta a Kutatócsoport tevékenységéről tudósító honlap tartalmát, majd kiemelte, hogy az ülés fókuszában a Kutatócsoport gondozásában készülő kötet áll, amelynek célkitűzése kettős: egyrészt az egyetemi hallgatósághoz eljuttatni a megfelelő fogyasztóvédelmi ismereteket, másrészt a szakmai-tudományos közösség számára is alapot kíván szolgáltatni a további diskurzushoz.