Law's Ethical, Global and Theoretical Contexts (original) (raw)
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The Globalization of Law: Implications for the Fulfillment of Human Rights
How does the globalization of law, the emergence of multiple and shifting venues of legal accountability, enhance or evade the fulfillment of international human rights? The utility of law for the fulfillment of human rights can be summarized as a combination of normative principles, universal repertoire of definitions and boundaries, links to state enforcement, predictable processes for conflict resolution, and a doctrine of equal standing (Kinley 2009: 215)
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LAW AND GLOBALIZATION: A CRITIQUE OF A DIALECTIC RELATION - DOI: 10.12818/P.0304-2340.2020v77p339
2020
The connections between Law or, more broadly, normativity, and globalization have been the object of intense scholarly scrutiny for the past three decades. This debate has produced expressions such as “Global Law”, re-signified “Transnational Law” and explored notions such as “Internationalization of Law”. Such literature has not translated, however, into conceptual consensus, nor has it been able to fully explore the complex interplay between two of the central concepts in the field, namely, “Law of globalization” and “Law in globalization”. This paper discusses and problematizes the connections between these two concepts. It aims at highlighting the complexities involving the debate on normativity and globalization, and at pointing out to risks that some of the dynamics involved in these dimensions pose to the rule of Law. The argument starts with a critical review of the literature on the field, and then presents the descriptive-analytical perspective it adopts to examine this ph...
Globalization & the Law. Syllabus. Winter 2015. Osgoode Hall Law School, York University
This seminar interrogates law's relationship with capitalism and colonialism by studying the political, social, and economic structures produced by international legal institutions, and how social movements have deployed law to resist the changing forms of contemporary global capitalism. The first theme of the course addresses 'structures' of international law. It examines the way in which law produces structural relationships impacting issues pertaining to race, gender, and class. These relationships are most clearly manifested through the various interventions of international institutions in the global south. Therefore, students will reflect on the historical relationship between international legal institutions and colonial, and neo-colonial practices. The second theme of the course addresses resistance against these structures. In particular, it focuses on the 'agency' of diverse social movements, from the Arab revolutions, to the Occupy Movement, to anti-austerity movements in Greece, to the Quebec Student Strike, and Idle No More. More specifically, we will look at how social movements use the law, and the legal system in defence of their struggles. The third theme in the course draws all this together, by presenting different theoretical approaches from the various strands of the critical legal tradition(s) (such as: feminist, and queer legal theory, critical race theory, Third World Approaches to International Law, etc. …). These are intended to provide the analytical toolkit necessary to reflect on, and respond to the materials of the course.
A Reconstruction of Transnational Legal Pluralism and Law’s Foundations
Cambridge University Press eBooks, 2021
An outpouring of writings on global or transnational legal pluralism has occurred in the past two decades. Despite its apparent popularity, however, it suffers from deep conceptual problems. After reviewing two decades of this proliferating literature, jurisprudent William Twining remarked, 'I have come away feeling that it is little better than a morass'. 1 This chapter is an attempt to clear up the morass. Three complicating factors bear mention at the outset. First, 'pluralism' is a capacious term that simply means two or more and can be applied to law in a multitude of ways. Second, 'law' is a contested notion that has been conceived of in numerous ways. Third, legal pluralism has been invoked in a variety of fields with very different orientations and objectives, including legal anthropology, legal sociology, postcolonial studies, law and development, human rights, comparative law, international law, transnational law and jurisprudence. The confluence of these factors has resulted in a tangled conceptual mess. With these preliminary comments in mind, I address a series of central issues bearing on global/transnational legal pluralism (labels used interchangeably). The first several parts of this chapter critically examine certain prominent positions in global legal pluralism, showing why they are problematic, after which I construct an alternative account that avoids these problems. First, I demonstrate that, contrary to current accounts, global legal pluralism is not continuous with earlier versions of (postcolonial and sociological) legal pluralism; these are three completely distinct paradigms. Next, I expose the flaw of overinclusiveness that has plagued theoretical conceptions of legal pluralism from the For their helpful critical comments on earlier drafts, I thank
Jeff Handmaker and Karin Arts (eds), Mobilising International Law for ‘Global Justice’, Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-21, 2018
Abstract (as formulated in introductory chapter): The edited volume Mobilising International Law for 'Global Justice' provides new insights into the dynamics between politics and international law and the roles played by state and civic actors in pursuing human rights, development, security and justice through mobilising international law at local and international levels. This includes attempts to hold states, corporations or individuals accountable for violations of international law. Second, this book examines how enforcing international law creates particular challenges for intergovernmental regulators seeking to manage tensions between incompatible legal systems and bringing an end to harmful practices, such as foreign corruption and child abduction. Finally, it explores how international law has local resonance, whereby, for example, cities have taken it upon themselves to give effect to the spirit of international treaties that national governments fail to implement, or even may have refused to ratify. Chapter 2 by Martti Koskenniemi substantially sets the tone of the book and thus all authors make reference to his contribution. Koskenniemi addresses what he refers to as the ‘competing vocabularies’ of international justice, international politics, and international law and their relationship with each other, highlighting justice as the most important and difficult to define of the three. He then highlights how lawyers and political observers view these concepts differently and observes that there is no correct response to the question 'who is right'? Often it is a matter of looking through frames simultaneously, while also explicitly recognising the differences and the implications of each other’s positions. He then revisits his often-stated critique on the fragmentation of international law, emphasising the importance of legal learning on the failure of international law to resolve social problems, which he characterises as the ‘politics of re-description’. He further observes that lawyers need to engage with this rather than avoid it (which lawyers are inclined to do).