Law as a Means to an End
Threat to the Rule of Law

This book identifies the problems with viewing law as a means to an end.

Brian Z. Tamanaha (Author)

9780521869522, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 October 2006

268 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.57 kg

' … at once a high-paced historical thriller and a clamorous critique of contemporary US legal culture … Tamanaha is an energetic travel companion. We should be grateful for his political sensitivity and his willingness to trawl through what he sees as a kind of Dante's Hell.' The Cambridge Law Journal

The contemporary US legal culture is marked by ubiquitous battles among various groups attempting to seize control of the law and wield it against others in pursuit of their particular agenda. This battle takes place in administrative, legislative, and judicial arenas at both the state and federal levels. This book identifies the underlying source of these battles in the spread of the instrumental view of law - the idea that law is purely a means to an end - in a context of sharp disagreement over the social good. It traces the rise of the instrumental view of law in the course of the past two centuries, then demonstrates the pervasiveness of this view of law and its implications within the contemporary legal culture, and ends by showing the various ways in which seeing law in purely instrumental terms threatens to corrode the rule of law.

Introduction
Part I. The Spread of Legal Instrumentalism: 1. Non-instrumental views of law
2. Changing society and common law in the nineteenth century
3. Nineteenth century legislation and legal profession
4. Instrumentalism of the legal realists
5. Twentieth century Supreme Court instrumentalism
Part II. Contemporary Legal Instrumentalism: 6. Instrumentalism in legal academia in the 1970s
7. Instrumentalism in theories of law
8. Instrumentalism in the legal profession
9. Instrumentalism of cause litigation
10. Instrumentalism and the judiciary
11. Instrumentalism in legislation and administration
Part III. Corroding the Rule of Law: 12. Collapse of higher law, deterioration of common good
13. The threat to legality
Epilogue.

Subject Areas: Educational: Citizenship & social education [YQN], Jurisprudence & general issues [LA], Regional studies [GTB]