General Jurisprudence
Understanding Law from a Global Perspective

This book explores the implications of globalisation for the theoretical study of law, justice, and human rights.

William Twining (Author)

9780521738095, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 12 February 2009

544 pages, 5 tables
24.4 x 17.3 x 2.8 cm, 1.07 kg

'… 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

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.

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.

Subject Areas: Legal history [LAZ], Jurisprudence & philosophy of law [LAB]