Law students routinely forget that the legal tradition has been concerned with fact finding for centuries. The entire body of evidence law has evolved for two important purposes: ensuring that the evidence presented to a court is legally admissible; and ensuring that the evidence presented to the court is reliable so that the tribunal of fact is able to draw conclusions about whether or not an alleged fact existed in circumstances where the tribunal of fact has not witnessed the event for itself. Legal reasoning is empirically grounded and draws upon centuries of human experience in the examination of materials of this kind. With that in mind, principles from evidence law can be used to help us to think about facts as part of the analysis of a legal problem. Indeed, turning your mind to the rich body of evidence law is essential. It is not possible in a book like this to engage with evidence law in any detail. Evidence law in Australia is comprehensively examined by several authoritative authors, to which the reader is referred to for detail.

The discipline of law is unique as a body of knowledge. It is both theoretical and applied. Abstract and concrete. Moral and amoral. Just and cruel. And at its heart is a moment in which the abstract is translated into concrete action, a process that depends on theoretical application to the physical world. That application is linked to the art of problem solving. Human beings are problem-solving animals. All of us possess skills and experiences that enable us to engage with obstacles and problems in life. A problem is characterised by some event, experience or situation where our usual methods of operating and achieving desired ends are slowed down, prevented from operating or simply no longer work in that environment. Failure to successfully navigate a problem creates a crisis, during which we engage in different forms of conduct and thinking to find a resolution. Crises operate on a spectrum. Some are life- threatening. Some are innocuous. But the underlying dynamic is much the same. Problem solving is an adaptive and evolved trait that humans share with other animals and that enables us to survive in changing environments.

Writing up your answer is shaped by context. As a student, you are often called upon to answer a problem question in a specific format, such as a memorandum or letter of advice, with the added complication of a word limit. Students are often not aware that the requirement to write in a particular manner, with specific limits, is a pedagogical tool intended to reflect the kinds of documents used in practice, along with the need to strike a balance between accuracy and brevity. Being able to write sharply is an important skill in practice. Practitioners are also restricted by context. By now you should have a sense that the process is a complex one, and part of the art of lawyering is being able to translate complexity in ways that different audiences need to understand the situation. A person without legal training needs to have things explained as simply as possible. A practitioner will need the necessary detail, but keep in mind that time is money, and verbose correspondence is unnecessary and not appreciated. A barrister will need all the relevant information presented in such a way that the issues and complexities are clear and sharply identified.

In this chapter the aim is to undertake something of a guided analysis of a problem and apply the principles discussed so far. To that end, let’s now return to the problem set out in Appendix A. For this exercise, it is useful to begin by making notes, both of the information within the hypothetical and of the law. Using the steps explored in the last chapter as a guide, simply begin by reading the hypothetical in Appendix A. Note the people involved, the event(s), and especially the question you have been asked. Make some notes on your initial thoughts, before looking back over the Chapter 5 context. Then begin a systematic examination of the information.

Problem solving is an art form, which takes years of practice, experience, a thorough understanding of the law, and a thorough understanding of human behaviour. This chapter presents some basic ideas to set you on the path. There are several steps involved in dealing with a problem. Please keep in mind that legal reasoning is not linear, although it can be. Much depends on the nature of the problem. It involves the ability to proceed in a linear, logical approach in some cases, and a universal, nomadic approach in others. In this chapter we look at strategies for problem solving. Up to now we have talked about way of thinking about law and fact in the context of a problem solving analytic. The discussion is then steered towards application. Two approaches are suggested: one basic, the other advanced. Both approaches are outlined here. The model you choose really depends on your purpose and the depth of analytical detail needed.

You will have seen that a significant part of legal reasoning is linked to interpretation, and that the law plays an important part in shaping the rules of interpretation. This is especially true in the interpretation of legislation, which forms most of the conceptual terrain in which contemporary criminal law is located. This chapter introduces some of the core concepts linked to statutory interpretation principles applicable to the criminal law. Please note that this is by no means a comprehensive review but serves as an introductory overview.

Law is an applied and theoretical discipline. To that end, the law must be applied to the facts available when assessing the alignment of the facts with the law. In this respect law is an empirical discipline, one that requires objective fact and law in association with one another in its application. Evidence must exist to establish fact, while law must exist to establish the rule structure. The relationship between law and evidence is unique, for it is not simply the existence of objectively present objects that will establish the fact – the fact in law is subject to further legal construction through the laws of evidence. One aspect of that process is an object or event that has actual existence may not, as a matter of law, be available to the decision maker because of legal invalidity. Hence the empirical foundations of law are based on admissible evidence rather than mere evidence. This will be considered in more detail in Chapter 3.

The growing professionalisation of the law and the natural sciences owed much to the spread of the empire – and Cambridge intellectuals would benefit more than most from these processes. Natural philosophers travelled across the empire amassing botantical, geological, and antiquarian collections and expanding scientific knowledge, with much of the credit for their findings owed to local enslavers or enslaved Africans. Britons with financial investments in slave-trading organisations also donated to found professorships. In the case of the law, experts in international law and treaty-making, particularly Sir Nathaniel Lloyd, applied their expert knowledge to cases concerning piracy, plantation holdings, and imperial companies. As with missionary organisations, the problem of enslavement continued to be a source of debate in the eighteenth century, as philosophers of natural law and rights considered the ethical justifications for racial enslavement.

This tri-part chapter reports early and modern women’s roles in language contact, transmission and codification, acknowledging limitations of mediated and absent evidence. In contact, English has been both a colonising and colonised language. Women’s surviving Englishes index privilege or vulnerability, and contextualised social values: Standard English mediating ex-slave narratives symbolised tyranny and humanity simultaneously. In corpus studies, surviving correspondence and other genres hint at literate women’s roles in the transmission and development of English; records and roles are more elusive as status falls. Women’s linguistic innovations in changes ‘from below’ may reflect social subordination. Educated women increasingly lead changes ‘from above’, as education and standardisation spread. Women’s codifying texts initially overrepresented their roles as domestic educators, but their rhetorical responses to social inequities occasionally provoke statutory redefinitions of terms such as person and woman.

This concluding chapter, “Governing the Unknown: Legal–Scientific Settlements,” offers a new framework to describe the momentary stabilization of scientific facts in and through lawmaking: legal–scientific settlements. From these legal–scientific settlements emerge a range of distributional consequences that have material effects on people’s lives and shape the ability of individuals to survive and thrive despite public health crises.

We highlight the essential role of law and governance in advancing the transformative potential of One Health. While One Health has traditionally focused on public health and zoonotic disease, its broader application encompasses challenges such as biodiversity loss, climate change, and antimicrobial resistance. Despite its potential, One Health remains underutilised in governance and law, with much of its implementation focused on siloed scientific endeavours.

This book addresses these gaps, demonstrating how legal frameworks can embed and sustain One Health principles. It explores diverse themes, including multilevel governance, Indigenous Knowledge systems, environmental law, and emerging legal mechanisms, to showcase the interdisciplinary nature of One Health. Contributors emphasise the need for multisectoral collaboration, enforceable standards, and cross-disciplinary engagement to address governance barriers and ensure holistic, equitable outcomes.

By presenting a vision for the institutionalisation of One Health through law and policy, this volume challenges traditional approaches and offers pathways for integrating One Health into governance systems.

This introduction lays out a core argument of the book: that social movements mobilize law and legal institutions to unsettle expert consensus and alter the distribution of material resources. This chapter describes how feminist activists concerned about women and AIDS sought to reset public health practice on surveillance, diagnosis, risk, and treatment to effectuate feminist goals, including access to public health resources and welfare benefits.

Chapter 1, “‘We Are Not Immune’: A New Branch of the Feminist Women’s Health Movement,” begins by describing the emergence of a new coalition of feminists who turned their attention to the HIV epidemic in an attempt to understand how the virus would impact women. Together they realized that HIV was killing women more often than the those in charge of the AIDS response acknowledged. The failure to recognize and respond to issues facing women with HIV was due, in part, to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention definition of AIDS that did not include gynecological infections. The incomplete definition of AIDS resulted in a lack of data on women with HIV and impacted the Social Security Administration’s determinations of who should receive benefits. Allying with lawyers and fellow activists, feminists set out to challenge the law and science of the epidemic.

Chapter 2, “Litigating Risk: The Law and Politics of Disease in the Administrative State,” turns to the litigation and activism that resulted in the shift in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention definition of AIDS and turned attention to women’s risk of contracting HIV. The chapter tracks how litigation and advocacy were central to the shift in the CDC definition of AIDS. Feminist success would result in many more women being diagnosed with HIV, resulting in a greater ability to access benefits. This life-changing shift would mark a major victory for the feminist women’s health movement.