The Limits Of Law And Development

The book examines the well-established field of ‘law and development’ and asks whether the concept of development and discourses on law and development have outlived their usefulness. The contributors ask whether instead of these amorphous and contested concepts we should focus upon social injustices such as patriarchy, impoverishment, human rights violations, the exploitation of indigenous peoples, and global heating? If we abandoned the idea of development, would we end up adopting another, equally problematic term to replace a concept which, for all its flaws, serves as a commonly understood shorthand? The contributors analyse the links between conventional academic approaches to law and development, neoliberal governance and activism through historical and contemporary case studies. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of development, international law, international economic law, governance and politics and international relations.

Many legal experts no longer share an unbounded trust in the potential of law to govern society efficiently and responsibly. They often experience the 'limits of the law', as they are confronted with striking inadequacies in their legal toolbox, with inner inconsistencies of the law, with problems of enforcement and obedience, and with undesired side-effects, and so on. The contributors to this book engage in the challenging task of making sense of this experience. Against the background of broader cultural transformations (such as globalisation, new technologies, individualism and cultural diversity), they revisit a wide range of areas of the law and map different types of limits in relation to some basic functions and characteristics of the law. Additionally, they offer a set of strategies to manage justifiably law's limits, such as dedramatising law's limits, conceptual refinement ('constructivism'), striking the right balance between different functions of the law, seeking for complementarity between law and other social practices.

Developing countries commonly adopt reforms to improve their governments yet they usually fail to produce more functional and effective governments. Andrews argues that reforms often fail to make governments better because they are introduced as signals to gain short-term support. These signals introduce unrealistic best practices that do not fit developing country contexts and are not considered relevant by implementing agents. The result is a set of new forms that do not function. However, there are realistic solutions emerging from institutional reforms in some developing countries. Lessons from these experiences suggest that reform limits, although challenging to adopt, can be overcome by focusing change on problem solving through an incremental process that involves multiple agents.

This book draws on the analytical framework of New Institutional Economics (NIE) to critically examine the role which law and the legal system play in economic development. Analytical concepts from NIE are used to assess policies which have been supported by multilateral development organisations including securing private property rights, reform of the legal system and financial development. The importance of culture in shaping the legal environment, which in turn influences financial sector development, is also assessed using Oliver Williamson’s ‘levels of social analysis’ framework.

In this thoroughly revised and updated second edition, Mariana Mota Prado and Michael J. Trebilcock offer a succinct and readable introduction to the main concepts and debates in the field of law and development. They examine the role of legal systems and institutions, investigate perceptions around what laws and legal arrangements encourage and facilitate development, and probe the issues arising in both private law and public law as well as in international economic relations. Written with the insight of two top experts in the field, this Advanced Introduction covers the most recent trends in law and development research and highlights areas that remain underexplored.

The Oxford Handbook of Law and Anthropology is a ground-breaking collection of essays that provides an original and internationally framed conception of the historical, theoretical, and ethnographic interconnections of law and anthropology. Each of the chapters in the Handbook provides a survey of the current state of scholarly debate and an argument about the future direction of research in this dynamic and interdisciplinary field. The structure of the Handbook is animated by an overarching collective narrative about how law and anthropology have and should relate to each other as intersecting domains of inquiry that address such fundamental questions as dispute resolution, normative ordering, social organization, and legal, political, and social identity. The need for such a comprehensive project has become even more pressing as lawyers and anthropologists work together in an ever-increasing number of areas, including immigration and asylum processes, international justice forums, cultural heritage certification and monitoring, and the writing of new national constitutions, among many others. The Handbook takes critical stock of these various points of intersection in order to identify and conceptualize the most promising areas of innovation and sociolegal relevance, as well as to acknowledge the points of tension, open questions, and areas for future development.

Since the mid-twentieth century, 'international law' and 'international development' have become two of the most prominent secular languages through which aspirations about a better world are articulated.. They have shaped the both the treatment and self-understanding of the 'developing' world, often by positing the West as a universal model against which developing states, their citizens, and natural environments should be measured and disciplined. In recent years, however, critical scholars have investigated the deep linkages between the concept of development, the doctrines and institutions of international law, and broader projects of ordering at the international level. They have shown how the leading models de-radicalise, if not derail, initiatives to redefine development and pursue other forms of global well-being. Bringing together scholars from both the Global South and the Global North, the contributions in this Handbook invite readers to consider the limits of common normative and developmentalist assumptions. At the same time, the Handbook demonstrates how disparate but still identifiable set of ideas, imaginaries, norms, and institutional practices - related to law, development and international governance - shape today's profoundly unequal material conditions, threatening the future of human and nonhuman life on the planet. The book focuses on five distinct areas: existing disciplinary frameworks, institutions and actors, regional theatres of international law and development, competing social and economic agendas, and alternative futures. Offering a unique overview of the field of international law and development and assembling major critical, historical, and political economic insights, this Handbook is an unmissable resource for scholars of international law, international relations, development studies, and global history, as well as anyone interested in the past, present, and future of our world.