ARTICLE: Legal Modernity and Early Amerindian Laws

The Indigenous Nations & Peoples Law eJournal has published "Legal Modernity and Early Amerindian Laws" by William Conklin. It is now available on SSRN.

This essay claims that the violence characterizing the 20th century has been coloured by the clash of two very different senses of legal authority. These two senses of legal authority correspond with two very different contexts of civil violence: state secession and the violence characterizing a challenge to a state-centric legal authority. Conklin argues that the modern legal authority represents a quest for a source or foundation. Such a sense of legal authority, according to Conklin, clashes such a view with the unwritten laws of early Amerindian traditional societies. Conklin argues further that by arguing that the Amerindian sense of legal authority has been concealed in the dominant modern sense of legal authority.

WORKSHOP: Workshop on Malinowski

 The Commission on Legal Pluralism has announced a workshop on “Malinowski’s Concept of Law from the Native’s Point of View.”

Bronislaw Malinowski’s 130th Birth Anniversary International Workshop. Time: 12-13 September, 2014. Place: Cracow (Poland).

Organizers: Department of Sociology of Law, Jagiellonian University, Cracow (Poland) and International Institute for the Sociology of Law, Oñati (Spain). Participants are invited to send for information about participation in and to submit a short (300 word) abstract of the paper by 1 June 2014. For more information:

Workshop Overview

BOOK: Advanced Introduction To Comparative Constitutional Law

Edward Elgar Publishing has recently published Advanced Introduction To Comparative Constitutional Law by Mark Tushnet.

Description Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences and law, expertly written by some of the world’s leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas.

Mark Tushnet, a world-renowned scholar of constitutional law, presents an introduction to comparative constitutional law through an analysis of topics at the cutting-edge of contemporary scholarship. His authoritative study investigates constitution making, including the problem of unconstitutional constitutional amendments; recent developments in forms of constitutional review, including ‘the battle of the courts’; proportionality analysis and its alternatives; and the emergence of a new ‘transparency’ branch in constitutions around the world. Throughout, the book draws upon examples from a wide range of nations, demonstrating that the field of comparative constitutional law now truly encompasses the world.

Contents

Contents: Introduction 1. Constitution-Making 2. The Structures of Constitutional Review and Some Implications for Substantive Constitutional Law 3. The Structure of Rights Analysis: Proportionality, Rules, and International Law 4. The Structure of Government Conclusion Index