Journal of Law and Society

Publisher:: Wiley
Publication date:: 2021-02-01

ISBN:: 0263-323X

Issue Number

No. 50-4, December 2023

Latest documents

Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Criminal Law OpinionsEdited by Bennett Capers, Sarah Deer, and Corey Rayburn Yung, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023, 306 pp., £39.99
Shari'a, Inshallah: Finding God in Somali Legal Politics By Mark Fathi Massoud, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021, 368 pp., £84.99
Reimagining the Court of Protection: Access to Justice in Mental Capacity Law By Jaime Lindsey, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022, 216 pp., £85.00
‘Would any of them have suffered from a guilty conscience if they had won?’: Rudolf Wiethölter and post‐Second World War German law1
This article reads the theory of law of the Frankfurter jurist Rudolf Wiethölter as an ambitious attempt to realize through law the indispensable radical democratization of post‐Second World War German society. The occasion was provided by the resurgence of critical theory and the subsequent and related emergence and affirmation of the student protest movement of 1968 at the Goethe University Frankfurt. Following the thread of the conflict/dialogue at the university with fellow philosopher Jürgen Habermas, the article brings into focus some stages in the evolution of Wiethölter's critical theory of law and of ‘true jurists’.
Issue Information
Care on the move: the gender care gap and intra‐EU mobility
The structure, interpretation, and implementation of the European Union (EU) free movement of persons rules mean that when one's circumstances involve caring responsibilities, the quality of one's rights and protections under EU law diminishes. The consequence of this, in the context of the gender care gap, is that women who are exercising their free movement rights and living in another EU member state are exposed to a disproportionately increased risk of legal and physical precarity, poverty, destitution, and exploitation. They face challenges in attaining and retaining rights and are at risk of falling through gaps that exist between legal rules. Furthermore, the gender care gap is not visible. The connection between the gender care gap and the EU free movement rules has not been made by EU policy makers and civil society; there is currently no strategy among EU civil society organizations to represent the lived experience of EU citizens and lobby the EU institutions for progress on gender equality in this regard.
The making of neoliberal legality: the legal imagination of business elites and the ‘social constitutionalization’ of ‘free enterprise’ in Latin America
The ‘free enterprise’ system is a normative cornerstone of many Latin American political constitutions and a formative principle of neoliberal legality. However, the way in which this economic model shapes the legal field and conceptions of the rule of law remains understudied. Though lawyers, judges, and legal experts have played an important role in the legal buttressing of the free enterprise model, this article explores the shaping of neoliberal legality from the periphery of the juridical system. We argue that the rise of neoliberal legality in Latin America owes much to the legal imaginary crafted by business associations. In line with this, we examine the ‘norm entrepreneurship’ undertaken since the 1940s by an organization barely noted in mainstream histories of neoliberalism: the Inter‐American Council for Commerce and Production (IACCP). Drawing on the concept of social constitutionalism and archival work, we investigate the IACCP's role in the struggle to give business activities social legitimacy and establish free enterprise as a socio‐legal norm and a source of public law.
Five angry men: advocating for and mobilizing EU gender equality law to advance men's rights
This article analyses the impact of a men's rights organization involved in political lobbying and legal mobilization around gender equality issues at the European level since 1986. Drawing on the as‐yet unexplored archival materials of the Campaign for Equal State Pension Ages (CESPA), an organization that had a membership of about 1,200 individuals in the 1990s and later rebranded itself as PARITY, the article explores the meaning of European Union gender equality advocacy and mobilization by and for an organization initially composed exclusively of men based in the United Kingdom. It argues that anti‐discrimination law was successively used as a strategic tool by this organization to further class equality and as a potentially anti‐feminist instrument to defend men's rights.
Applied Legal Pluralism: Processes, Driving Forces and Effects By Ghislain Otis, Jean LeClair, and Sophie Thériault, London: Routledge, 2022, 284 pp., £130.00
Achieving compliance in the use of force: the production and maintenance of an imminent threat in an aerial targeting operation
This article provides a socio‐legal analysis of the ways in which military personnel orient to the laws of war as they seek to produce and maintain lawful targets for the use of force. In order to further empiricize debates surrounding the United States’ (US) controversial interpretations of core concepts in the laws of war, the article takes up the concept of ‘imminence’ – which is fundamental to the doctrine of anticipatory self‐defence – and details its consequential role within a civilian casualty incident that occurred in Afghanistan in 2010. By analysing the talk of personnel involved in that operation, the article details the ways in which a drone crew and Special Forces team constructed the ‘here‐and‐now’ meaning and relevance of imminence in order to ensure the lawfulness of the strike. In doing so, the article demonstrates that the US’ contemporary orientations to the laws of war expand the scope for lawful violence.