The book comprises a selection of papers delivered at the 24th IVR World Congress, divided into four sections. The first, Human Rights and Justice in a Global Perspective, centres on the problems of the foundation of Human Rights and the legitimacy of Political Power. The second deals with Public Policy, Economics and Social Rights. In the section called Law, Language and Literature the focus is on the multiple ways in which Law can relate to language, discourses and literature. The fourth and final section analyses some of the recent Transformations in Legal Dogmatics and in Private Law. These topics are all of capital importance in contemporary societies, which reflect the complexity of pluralism and the increasing expansion and transformation of the law, which no longer seems to be comprehensible by a merely positivistic model of the "sources of law". In order to understand the nature of law and the requirements to interpret it as well as to adjust it to the needs of contemporary states and communities, a theorist or analyst needs to embark on an interdisciplinary approach, which can be found in all of the essays in this volume.

Thomas da Rosa Bustamante is a Bachelor of Laws (Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora), Master of Philosophy of Law (Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro) and Doctor of Philosophy of Law (Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro). He is also a professor at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais Law School.

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