Book Reviews : Peter Fitzpatrick (ED.), Nationalism, Racism and the Rule of Law. Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1995, 223 pp
| Published date | 01 December 1995 |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466399500400415 |
| Author | Carl F. Stychin |
| Date | 01 December 1995 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
541
Nonetheless,
in
the
end, Unpopular
Cultures
makes
a
valuable
contribution
to
legal
scholarship,
to
freeing
it
from
its
doctrinalism,
to
liberating
it
to
rethink
its
relationship
to
culture,
popular
or
unpopular,
and,
in
so
doing,
to
enabling
new
disciplinary
configurations
both
in
and
beyond
the
academy.
°
.
REFERENCES
Cover,
Robert
(1986)
’Violence
and
the
Word’,
Yale
Law Journal
95(1601).
Sarat,
Austin
and
Thomas
R.
Kearns
(1992)
Law’s
Violence.
Ann
Arbor:
University
of
Michigan
Press.
AUSTIN SARAT
Department
of Law,
Jurisprudence
and
Social
Thought,
Amherst
College,
USA
PETER
FITZPATRICκ
(ED.),
Nationalism,
Racism
and
the
Rule
of
Law.
Aldershot:
Dartmouth,
1995, 223
pp.
Peter
Fitzpatrick’s
edited
collection,
Nationalism,
Racism
and
the
Rule
of
Law,
brings
together
twelve
new
essays,
many
of
which
originated
at
the
Critical
Legal
Conference
in
Oxford
in
September
1993.
The
collection’s
title
captures
the
central
themes
of
the
book:
how
the
’rule
of
law’
attempts
to
constitute
itself
in
universal
terms,
but
in
so
doing
exposes
its
own
particularistic
and
indeed
racist
underpinnings.
Moreover,
nationalism
and
national
identity
inform
legal
discourse
more
generally,
and
this
relationship
between
law and
nation
has served
to
justify
imperialism
and
colonialism
in
the
name
of
law.
Finally,
the
collection
also
explores
a
theme
of
particular
current
interest,
namely,
how
legal
discourse
is
implicated
in
the
simultaneous
movements
toward
consolidation
and
fragmentation
of
national
identities
in
Europe
today.
One
particular
selling
point
of
the
book
is
its
international
scope.
Contributors
focus
on
the
legal
cultures
of
Britain,
Western
Europe,
Canada,
Latvia,
the
Czech
Republic,
New
Zealand
and
South
Africa.
In
addition,
an
essay
by
Fitzpatrick
ties
together
the
rather
disparate
contributions
and
highlights
how
law
mediates
between
universal
claims
of
’nation’
and
the
inevitable
particularity
of
the
nation
state.
Fitzpatrick
demonstrates
how
national
identity
depends
upon
the
constitution
of
an
excluded
other,
which,
although
it
remains
within
the
space
of
nation,
is
outside
national
identity.
The
universality
of
nationhood
thus
becomes
an
impossibility,
for
it
depends
upon
that
which
is
other
to
it.
Several
essays
exemplify
this
argument
in
terms
of
how
law
can
contribute
to
the
particularization
of
the
other
and
its
exclusion
from
the
benefits
of
national
identity
in
the
form
of
citizenship.
Patricia
Tuitt,
for
example,
focuses
upon
the
various
constructions
of
the
’refugee’
in
European
law
and
how
acceptance
of
the
Geneva
Convention
definition
has
been
used
to
assert
a
dominant
ideology
of
the
refugee
which
forecloses
alternative
meanings.
The
’recognized’
refugee
of
Western
Europe
thereby
is
contrasted
to
the
’non-deserving’.
A
related
issue
is
taken
up
by Audrey
Kobayashi
in
the
Canadian
context.
Her
concern
is
how
immigration
law
can
affect
the
ways
in
which
the
national
imaginary
is
envisioned.
Using
the
example
of
the
de
facto
recognition
of
gender
persecution
as
a
basis
for
refugee
status,
Kobayashi
argues
that
the
refugee
determination
process
still
demands
the
construction
of
the
female
refugee
claimant
in
terms
of
her
otherness.
The
granting
of
’rights’
thus
depends
upon
the
claimant’s
marginalization.
Similar
themes
are
explored
in
the
immigration
context
by
Abdul
Paliwala,
whose
thesis
is
that
the increased
integration
of
Western
Europe
in
terms
of
the
elimination
of
border
controls
is
accompanied
by
the
heightened
regulation
of
an
excluded
other -
the
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