12 September 2013

ARTICLES: Zumbansen on Human Rights, Transitional Justice and Hybridity in Transnational Governance

Two interesting articles by (the always interesting) Peer Zumbasen we can find in Osgoode Hall Law School, Comparative Research in Law & Political Economy (CLPE) Research Paper Series. The first is "Approximating Law and Development, Human Rights and Transitional Justice" written by Peer Zumbasen (New York University - Osgoode Hall Law School)  and Ruth Buchanan (Osgoode Hall Law School - York University). It is the introduction to the forthcoming edited collection "Law in Transition: Human Rights, Developments and Transitional Justice", edited by the authors and forthcoming with Hart Publishing (Oxford, 2013). The book brings together many of the leading experts of the increasingly pertinent intersection of development, rights and transitional justice studies. The Introduction traces the theoretical and practical challenges of this discursive interaction and argues that it is only through such dialogue that a better understanding of the institutional and normative issues arising in contemporary law & development and TJ contexts will be possible. The chapter provides an overview of the history of the law & development movement, which is then discussed together with the rise of human rights theory and critique, especially against the background of decolonization, the rise of so-called ‘Third World Approaches in International Law’ [TWAIL], the rise and ambivalent aftermath of the Washington Consensus as well as the proliferation of post-conflict and law reform initiatives around the world. Transitional Justice, as a relatively young ‘legal’ field, brings to the table a host of interdisciplinary challenges arising from the complexity of post-conflict, state building and law reform contexts. The present chapter as well as the ensuing contributions to the edited collection highlight the importance of bringing these important fields in closer dialogue with each other. 
The other article is "Law and Legal Pluralism: Hybridity in Transnational Governance"This paper takes the currently much belabored concepts of “global governance” and “global constitutionalism” as starting points to ask what they can teach us about the role and function of law today. Suggesting that we take a greater interest in how governance conflicts today must be addressed from a host of national, international, hard and soft “law” norms, disseminated and administered by actors on different levels and often with “non-state” law-making authority, the paper points to the need to see legal norms as part of an evolving regulatory landscape that can best be described as transnational. In light of the shifts and the interesting new forms of co-existence and cooperation between state and non-state actors in the production of transnational norms, it becomes more and more obvious that law, legal theory as well as the sociology of law are part of a more comprehensive and multidisciplinary engagement with the institutional and normative challenges arising in the global context.

About the Author: 


 Canada Research Chair in Transnational Economic Governance and Legal Theory
 

York University - Osgoode Hall Law School

 
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