NOTICE: Cotterrell on SSRN (by way of Shah and Pluri-Legal)

Prakash Shah recently posted information—on Pluri-Legal—about two articles by Roger Cotterrell that have been posted on SSRN.

The articles include:

"Transnational Networks of Community and International Economic Law" SOCIO-LEGAL APPROACHES TO INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC LAW: TEXT, CONTEXT, SUBTEXT, A. Perry-Kessaris, ed., London: Routledge, 2012 Queen Mary School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 125/2012

Can a perspective on the nature of international economic law be integrated with one on governance in economic networks of community? Would it be useful to reconsider international economic law in relation to transnational economic networks that create their own regulatory expectations and practices? This would be to confront a ‘top-down’ law created by states, treaties, conventions and international institutions supported by states, with the more ‘bottom-up’ production of normative understandings in networks of community. This chapter considers how such an approach may clarify the nature of law regulating transnational economic relations, and the bases of its authority and legitimacy. It draws on recent analyses of transnational private law and considers their relevance for international economic law and in highlighting the regulatory significance of networks of community. Familiar dichotomies – public and private, expert and non-expert input in regulation, top-down and bottom-up lawmaking – can be illuminated in such a perspective. The approach also emphasises a major problem for international economic law – how to avoid the remoteness of regulators from the experience and aspirations of the regulated.



"Socio-Legal Studies, Law Schools, and Legal and Social Theory" Queen Mary School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 126/201

This paper argues initially that socio-legal studies are important for legal education and juristic inquiry, and it outlines problems facing social studies of law in law schools. It claims that legal theory is necessary for practical legal studies but that legal philosophy's purportedly timeless theories about the nature of law have largely failed to meet this need. They have often been relatively unconcerned with social variation and historical change and so have not adequately reflected the varieties of possible legal experience. Juristic theory must be sociologically informed. But, equally, socio-legal studies must examine the nature of law as ideas as well as focusing on behaviour in legal contexts. Legal ideas need sociological interpretation. Social theory is essential to inform legal inquiries, and the long tradition of social theories of law is important. Alongside recent theories, the classics of socio-legal theory give deep perspective for studies of present-day law in society.

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