Book Review: ‘The Public Interest’ in Regulation
| DOI | 10.1177/096466390701600110 |
| Date | 01 March 2007 |
| Author | Elen Stokes |
| Published date | 01 March 2007 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
But in all this it is solely the techniques which are borrowed from other disciplines,
and there is no significant engagement with theories or substantive issues in other
fields, notably international relations or economics.
An additional problem with interdisciplinary borrowing is that the analytical tech-
niques of literary and film narratives can be culturally specific, and in turn contrib-
ute to the already dominant presence of western culture in the emerging international
feminist legal scholarship. While it is certainly creative to present contemporary
accounts of the international as analogous to the cinematic narrative of the Western,
as Buchanan and Johnson do in their chapter, such an approach is profoundly cultur-
ally specific and fails to provide a universally relevant reference.
Collections are often unfairly faulted for not covering the whole field of relevant
topics. Certainly, this book could have provided a forum for innovative feminist
thinking in areas not always addressed in the emerging scholarship. But the identifi-
cation of missing topics serves more as a call for further feminist scholarly engagements
than a criticism of the editors’ choices. In that, for example, one would welcome collec-
tions including a feminist critique of refugee law (given that the majority of refugees
are women), a focus on sexual harassment and sexual exploitation scandals at inter-
national organizations, or the gendered nature of disarmament (especially since femi-
nists mounted a challenge to bias within the field of peace research as early as the 1960s).
Taken together, the essays that are included seek to challenge the disciplinary
boundaries of international law. In this, they succeed admirably and offer thoughtful
and important perspectives on feminist engagement with the international. The
collection will no doubt be of interest and use both to readers who are new to feminist
international scholarship and to those who already possess considerable expertise on
the subject.
NOTE
This is a revised version of a book review first published in the Windsor Yearbook of
Access to Justice. See Nicole LaViolette (2006) ‘Book Review: Feminism and Inter-
national Law’, Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice 24: 425–33.
REFERENCES
Charlesworth, H. and C. Chinkin (2002) The Boundaries of International Law: A
Feminist Analysis. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Charlesworth, H., C. Chinkin and S. Wright (1991) ‘Feminist Approaces to Inter-
national Law’, Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice 24: 425–33.
NICOLE LAVIOLETTE
University of Ottawa, Canada
MIKE FEINTUCK, ‘The Public Interest’ in Regulation. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2004, 290 pp., ISBN 0199269025, £64.95 (hbk).
The concept of public interest is undoubtedly a central aspect of regulatory interven-
tion. Feintuck recognizes that despite its prevalence in this context, there is a lack of
any real understanding of its meaning and value. Claiming that it is ‘so commonly
used, and so historically persistent, that we use it without thinking what it means’
154 SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 16(1)
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