Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-94d59 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T18:02:20.828Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Law in other contexts: stand bravely brothers! A report from the law wars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 October 2008

Oscar Guardiola-Rivera*
Affiliation:
Law, Birkbeck College, University of London

Abstract

This essay argues against the two pillars of current research on law and globalisation, from the perspective of legal theory and political philosophy: first, the distinction between ‘well-ordered’ and ‘not so well-ordered’ societies; second, the sociological model of the subject as pacified, fearful and isolated (to sum up, in harmony). It is argued that mainstream legal theory and political philosophy merely reflects the actual rules of the game of competition, dispute and conflict. In contrast, this essay takes sides with the anthropological and philosophical tradition that conceives the subject as antagonistic and in state of lack, profoundly concerned with the other, whom she imitates and whose standpoint she must be able to share if she is to make sense of the world. Furthermore, it is argued that transitivity or imitation lies at the very origin of conflict and dispute; lack and antagonism remain thus at the core of society, in spite of the surface appearance of harmony that characterises post-modern societies. Because of this, any general theory of law and society that wishes to be relevant at the time of globalisation must make the experience of antagonism and violence, motivated by imitation and envy, and its containment, its object of study. To do this, it must abandon the dualist conception of subjects and societies expressed in the distinction between ‘well-ordered’ (more violent) and ‘not-so-well-ordered’ (less violent) societies that has informed its investigation to this day, in order to declare in the most general terms a critique of violence from the standpoint of the victim, as of a piece with its demand for global social and political justice.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agamben, G. (1999) Potentialities. Collected Essays in Philosophy, Heller-Roazen, D. (ed.). Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Bataille, G. (1998) The Accursed Share, trans. Hurley, R.. New York: Zone Books.Google Scholar
Baxi, U. (2002) The Future of Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Beidelman, T. O. (1966) ‘Swazi Royal Ritual’, Africa 36(4): 373405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benjamin, W. (1969) Illuminations. Arendt, H. (ed.). New York: Schocken Books.Google Scholar
Benjamin, W. (1999) Illuminations. Arendt, H. (ed.). London and New York: Pimlico.Google Scholar
Benjamin, W. (2000) ‘The Right to Use Force’, in Bullock, M. & Jennings, M. W. (eds) Selected Writings. Volume 1, 1913–1926, 3rd edn. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 231–252.Google Scholar
Clastres, P. (1977) Society Against the State. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, Mole Editions.Google Scholar
Comaroff, J. and Roberts, S. (1977) ‘The Invocation of Norms in Dispute Settlement: The Tswana Case’, in Hamnett, Ian (ed.) Social Anthropology and Law. London: Academic Press, 86–159.Google Scholar
De sousa santos, B. (2002) Towards a New Legal Common Sense. London: Butterworths/Lexis Nexis.Google Scholar
De sousa santos, B. (2005) ‘Beyond Neoliberal Governance: The World Social Forum as Subaltern Cosmopolitan Politics and Legality’, in de Sousa Santos, B. and Rodríguez-Garavito, C. (eds) Law and Globalization from Below: Towards a Cosmopolitan Legality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 29–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De sousa santos, B. and Rodríguez-garavito, C. (2005) ‘Law, Politics and the Subaltern in Counter-hegemonic Globalization’, in De Sousa Santos, B. and Rodríguez-Garavito, C. (eds) Law and Globalization From Below: Towards a Cosmopolitan Legality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De tocqueville, A. (1835/1992) De la Démocratie en Amérique, 2 Volumes. Paris: Les Éditions Gallimard.Google Scholar
Dussel, E. (1997) ‘The Architectonics of the Ethics of Liberation. On Material and formal Ethics’, Philosophy and Social Criticism 23(3): 135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dworkin, R. (1986) Law’s Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Escobar, A. (2004) ‘Other Worlds Are (Already) Possible: Self-organisation, Complexity and Post-capitalist Cultures’ in Sen, J., Anand, A., Escobar, A. and Waterman, P. (eds) World Social Forum: Challenging Empires. New Delhi: The Viveka Foundation, 349–358.Google Scholar
Fabian, J. (1983) Time and the Other. How Anthropology Makes Its Objects. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Fleming, C. (2004) René Girard: Mimesis and Violence. Oxford: Polity.Google Scholar
Gil, J. (1978) ‘Costituzione’, in Romano, R. (ed.) Enciclopedia Einaudi 4. Turin: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Gil, J. (1988) Metamorphoses of the Body. Translated by Muecke, Stephen. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press.Google Scholar
Girard, R. (1977) Violence and the Sacred. Translated by Gregory, P.. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greider, W. (2001) ‘The Right and US Trade Law. Invalidating the 20th Century’, The Nation 15 October, 1643; also available online at www.thenation.com/doc/20011015/greiderGoogle Scholar
Guardiola-rivera, O., lópez, D., sandoval, C., vidal, R. and lopez, J. C. (eds) (2000) La Otra Guerra. El Derecho Como Continuación del Conflicto y Lenguaje de Paz. Bogotá: Plaza & Janés.Google Scholar
Hart, H. L. A. (1994) The Concept of Law. 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. (1967) The Phenomenology of Mind. Translated by Bailie, J. B.. New York: Harper Torch Book.Google Scholar
Koskenniemi, M. (2001) The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870–1960 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuper, H. (1947) An African Aristocracy: Rank Among the Swazi. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lacey, N. (2004) A Life of H. L. A. Hart: The Nightmare and the Noble Dream. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Edgardo, Lander (ed.) (2000) La Colonialidad del Saber: Eurocentrismo y Ciencias Sociales. Buenos Aires: CLACSO.Google Scholar
Lerner, M. J. (1975) ‘The Justice Motive in Social Behaviour’, Journal of Social Issues 31: 119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Llewellyn, K. and Hoebel, E. A. (1941) The Cheyenne Way. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Malinowski, B. (1926) Crime and Custom in Savage Society. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Mendieta, E. (2003) Latin American Philosophy. Currents, Debates, Issues. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Nader, L. (1978) ‘The Direction of the Law and the Development of Extra-Judicial Processes in Nation-State Societies’, in Gulliver, P. (ed.) Cross-Examinations: Essays in Memory of Max Gluckman. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 7895.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nader, L. (2002) The Life of the Law: Anthropological Projects. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rajagopal, B. (2003a) ‘International Law and Social Movements: Challenges of Theorizing Resistance’, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 41: 397416.Google Scholar
Rajagopal, B. (2003b) International Law From Below. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawls, J. (2001) The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rivera cusicanqui, S. (1987) Oppressed but not Defeated: Peasant Struggles among the Aymara and Quetchwa in Bolivia, 1900–1990. Geneva: United Nation Research Institute for Social Development.Google Scholar
Rousseau, J. J. (1964) First and Second Discourses. Translated by Masters, R. and Masters, J.. New York: St. Martin’s Press.Google Scholar
Sapir, E. (1921) Language. New York: Harcourt.Google Scholar
Schmitt, C. (1996) The Concept of the Political. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, A. (1982) [1762/3–1766] Lectures on Jurisprudence. Edited by Meek, R. L., Raphael, D. D. and Stein, P. G. for The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.Google Scholar
Tamanaha, B. Z. (2001) A General Jurisprudence of Law and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Twining, W. (2002) ‘The Camel in the Zoo’, in Twining, W., Law in Context: Enlarging a Discipline. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Varela, F. J. (2003) La Habilidad Etica. Barcelona: Debate.Google Scholar
zizek, S. (2000). The Fragile Absolute. London: Verso.Google Scholar