This book explores how globalisation influences the understanding of law. Adopting a broad concept of law and a global perspective, it critically reviews mainstream Western traditions of academic law and legal theory. Its central thesis is that most processes of so-called 'globalisation' take place at sub-global levels and that a healthy cosmopolitan discipline of law should encompass all levels of social relations and the legal ordering of these relations. It illustrates how the mainstream Western canon of jurisprudence needs to be critically reviewed and extended to take account of other legal traditions and cultures. Written by the one of the foremost scholars in the field, this important work presents an exciting alternative vision of jurisprudence. It challenges the traditional canon of legal theorists and guides the reader through a field undergoing seismic changes in the era of globalisation. This is essential reading for all students of jurisprudence and legal theory.
- Presents a coherent overview of the implications of globalisation for academic law and legal theory and a new vision of post-millennium general jurisprudence
- Provides a critical introduction to the new generation of legal theorists concerned with globalisation and introduces four (neglected) southern-hemisphere jurists
- Links mainstream jurists, such as Bentham, Hohfeld, Hart and Rawls, to the global context, thus offering a stimulating and provoking view of jurisprudence that challenges mainstream theories from a global perspective
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Reviews & endorsements
'With general exhortation and detailed illustration, this book promotes the skills and techniques of municipal jurisprudence and challenges its complacencies, through making the case for a global perspective on law.' Andrew Haplin, Swansea University
'Having long advocated a contextual appreciation of law, in General Jurisprudence, William Twining insists that we cannot understand law without taking a more cosmopolitan approach - an approach that moves beyond Western legal traditions to embrace the many different practices of social ordering. This is vintage Twining, clear and compelling while always challenging.' Roger Brownsword, King's College London
'… General Jurisprudence is at once a call to action about reorienting how the idea of jurisprudence should be pursues in today's globalized environment, and the reflection of an exemplary career as a legal scholar.' Journal of Law and Society
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Product details
- Date Published: May 2009
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9780521738095
- length: 544 pages
- dimensions: 244 x 173 x 28 mm
- weight: 1.07kg
- contains: 5 tables
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
Part I:
1. Jurisprudence, globalisation and the discipline of law: the need for a new general jurisprudence
2. Analytical jurisprudence in a global context
3. Mapping law: families, civilisations, cultures, and traditions
4. Constructing conceptions of law: beyond Hart, Tamanaha and Llewellyn
5. Normative jurisprudence, utilitarianism, and theories of justice
6. Human rights as moral, political and legal rights
7. Meeting the challenges to human rights as moral rights: Griffin, Tasioulas and Sen
8. Empirical dimensions of law and justice
Part II:
9. Diffusion of law: a global perspective
10. Surface law
11. Is law important? Law and the Millennium Development Goals
12. The significance of non-state law
13. Human rights: Southern voices
14. Conclusion.
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Author
William Twining, University College London
William Twining is Quain Professor of Jurisprudence Emeritus of University College London. He has worked extensively in Eastern Africa, the Commonwealth and the United States and is a leading proponent of broader approaches to the study of law. His recent books include Globalisation and Legal Theory (2000) and The Great Juristic Bazaar (2002) to which this is a successor.