780 articles
All India Muslim Personal Law Board (آل انڈیا مسلم پرسنل لا بورڈ)
All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB, آل انڈیا مسلم پرسنل لا بورڈ), an Indian NGO founded 1973 to protect the Shariat Application Act 1937, runs dar-ul-qaza forums, litigates on triple talaq, UCC, and waqf, and faces Shia and women's rival boards.
Allodial title
Allodial title, or allodial tenure, is ownership of land held in the holder's own right, free of any rent, service, or duty owed to a superior, unlike feudal tenure.
Andrei Iancu
Andrei Iancu (born 1968, Bucharest) is a Romanian-American IP litigator who was USPTO Director and Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, 2018-2021, known for Section 101 guidance, PTAB reforms, and NCEAI; now Co-Head of IP Litigation at Sullivan & Cromwell.
Anna Creek Station
Anna Creek Station, South Australia's largest cattle station, 15,746 sq km east of Coober Pedy; established 1863, Kidman holdings 1935, Williams Cattle Company since 2016, about 17,000 cattle.
Annulment in the Philippines
Annulment in the Philippines is a court process dissolving defective valid marriages, distinct from nullity; the Family Code allows only annulment and legal separation since the Philippines and Vatican City permit no absolute divorce.
Anti-Defamation League
Anti-Defamation League (ADL), American Jewish civil rights organization founded in 1913 by Sigmund Livingston in Chicago; publishes the Audit of Antisemitic Incidents since 1979; led by CEO Jonathan Greenblatt since 2015; FBI ended its partnership in 2025.
Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States
Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States were state statutes banning interracial marriage, in force from the colonial era until Loving v. Virginia struck them down in 1967.
Appanage
Apanage: territory or revenue from the French royal domain granted to younger royal sons, reverting to the crown absent male heirs; also English crown duchies and German princely endowments.
Applicable law for contracts absent choice
Default conflict-of-laws rules for contracts without a governing-law clause: the Rome Convention and Rome I apply the law of closest connection via characteristic performance, with special consumer and employment protections; the 2015 Hague Principles exclude this situation.
Application of Sharia by country
Application of Sharia by country, also called application of Islamic law by country, describes how national legal systems incorporate sharia, from Saudi Arabia's comprehensive system to mixed and secular models.
Arnold v Britton
Arnold v Britton [2015] UKSC 36, UK Supreme Court decision on service charge clauses at Oxwich Leisure Park, upholding a fixed £90 annual charge rising 10% compounded, and a leading authority on contractual interpretation.
Arrears
Arrears (arrearages) are accumulated debts unpaid past their due date, covering rent, mortgage, child support, and tax arrears; also the accounting sense of payments due at period end, from Old French ariere, behind.
Asian News International v. Wikimedia Foundation
Asian News International v. Wikimedia Foundation (CS(OS) 524/2024) is ANI Media's pending Delhi High Court defamation suit over ANI's Wikipedia page, notable for the Supreme Court's 2025 INSC 656 ruling setting aside a takedown order as disproportionate.
Assignment (law)
Assignment (law): transfer by an assignor of rights, property, or benefits to an assignee in contract and property law; distinct from delegation of duties and from novation, which requires all parties' consent.
Assisted Human Reproduction Act
Assisted Human Reproduction Act (AHR Act), S.C. 2004, c. 2: Canadian federal statute assented to March 29, 2004, prohibiting human cloning, paid surrogacy, and trade in gametes and embryos, reshaped by the 2010 SCC Reference and 2012 repeals, with Health Canada enforcing safety, consent, and reimbursement regulations.
Australian family law
Australian family law, governed by the Family Law Act 1975, covers no-fault divorce, children's best interests, property settlement, and child support, with major reforms commencing May 2024 and June 2025.
Australian property law
Australian property law covers the Torrens title-by-registration system with indefeasibility, native title under the Native Title Act 1993 after Mabo (No 2), and Commonwealth foreign investment screening including the 2025 ban on foreign purchases of established dwellings.
Australian trust law
Australian trust law governs trusts, where a trustee holds legal title to property for beneficiaries. Judge-made equity plus state Trustee Acts and Commonwealth tax law; not uniform across jurisdictions; Queensland codified in the Trusts Act 2025.
Baby M
Baby M (Melissa Stern, born 1986) was the New Jersey child at the center of the landmark American surrogacy-custody case between biochemist William Stern and surrogate Mary Beth Whitehead, whose $10,000 contract was voided by the state Supreme Court in 1988.
Balfour v Balfour
Balfour v Balfour [1919] 2 KB 571, English Court of Appeal case establishing the intention to create legal relations doctrine: a husband's £30 monthly maintenance promise to his wife was a domestic arrangement, not a contract, rebuttable presumption in spousal agreements.
Banns of marriage
Banns of marriage: public church announcements of an intended marriage (from 'ban'), required on three Sundays; prescribed churchwide at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, still used by Anglican and Catholic churches, replaced by common licences in some cases.
Barclays Bank Ltd v W J Simms, Son and Cooke (Southern) Ltd
Barclays Bank Ltd v W J Simms, Son and Cooke (Southern) Ltd [1980] QB 677, also cited as Barclays v Simms, is an English restitution case in which Robert Goff J let a bank recover a cheque paid despite a stop instruction, establishing the causative mistake test.
Battered woman syndrome
Battered woman syndrome (BWS), or battered person syndrome, is a psychological pattern from persistent intimate partner violence, introduced by Lenore Walker in 1979; used in self-defense and duress defenses but absent from the DSM.
Best interests
Best interests of the child is a legal standard requiring decisions about a child to rest on evaluating and balancing that child's particular situation, applied in custody and child-protection decisions.
Bilateral divorce and recognition treaties
Bilateral divorce and recognition treaties are agreements between two states governing whether, and on what conditions, a divorce granted by one state's courts is recognized in the other.
Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee
Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee is a 1957 English High Court medical negligence ruling by McNair J that established the Bolam test for professional standards.
Bona fide purchaser
A bona fide purchaser, also known as Equity's darling, is a buyer who acquires property for value and good faith without notice of title defects.
Bond lease
Bond lease covers two instruments: a lease bond, a surety bond guaranteeing a tenant's lease performance in place of a cash deposit (premiums 1–5% yearly), and the bond lease of credit tenant finance, an absolute net lease treated as a bond for Schedule D reporting.
Boomer v. Atlantic Cement Co.
Boomer v. Atlantic Cement Co., 26 N.Y.2d 219 (1970), New York Court of Appeals nuisance case: cement plant near Albany could avoid an injunction by paying $185,000 in permanent damages, creating the classic liability-rule remedy.
Bouvier Affair
The Bouvier Affair is the 2015 dispute in which Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev accused Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier of overcharging him on 38 artworks; all cases were discontinued and the men settled in December 2023.