The Legacy of Critical Legal Thought and Transatlantic Endeavours

The following essay is the new introduction for a republication of the conference proceedings of the famous comparative legal theory conference, held in Bremen (Germany) in 1986, between scholars from the Law Schools at Bremen and the University of Wisconsin. The complete proceedings are now being made available - for the first time - online in the German Law Journal. The proceedings were originally published in 1989 in a much revered blue volume, by Nomos Publishing House in Baden-Baden, Germany. The conference had brought together leading figures in critical legal thought from both the United States and Germany for a series of discussions on the evolution of legal thought in both countries from the 19th century onwards into the present, reflecting on the roles of courts, parliaments, law schools, the profession and students in the shaping of legal culture. The conference occurred at a crucial time in the development of legal thought - and practice. The post-World War II social consensus and the welfare state had come under considerable pressure, law and economics had begun its journey to become the most influential \u27law & society\u27 movement, deep-reaching political transformations were under way, in the United Kingdom, the US and in Germany conservative administrations had taken the reign, and meanwhile the globalization of markets had begun to unfold at breathtaking speed. Yet, the Berlin Wall was still standing - just about.The new introduction offers reflections - and invites feedback - on the past, the future and the present of the 1986 project as seen from today\u27s perspective. In this new introduction, the two original conference conveners, David Trubek and Christian Joerges, are joined by Peer Zumbansen. The permission to prepare the original, not updated materials for online publication with the German Law Journal was generously granted by Nomos. The editorial responsibility for getting the issue into shape lay in the able hands of the GLJ Student Editorial Board at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto and to all of these hardworking students go our sincerest thanks. We are also grateful to our authors, who stood by to answer all arising questions in the process of preparing this Symposium Issue

Theorising Global Governance Inside Out: A Response to Professor Ladeur

Professor Ladeur argues that administrative law’s postmodernism (and by extension Global Administrative Law) necessitates that we move beyond relying on ideas of delegation, account- ability and legitimacy. Global Governance, particularly Global Administrative Law and Global Constitutionalism, should try to adapt and experiment with the changing nature of the postmod- ern legality and support the creation of norms that will adapt to the complexities of globalisation. Ladeur’s contestation, similar to GAL’s propositions, can be challenged. By taking the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, a significant contributor to the field of international criminal law, as an example, it is suggested that the creation of networks that Ladeur makes visible may not account for ‘regulatory capture’. This paper will argue that from the outside, the proliferation of networks may suggest that spontaneous accountability is possible. A closer look, however, drawing on anthropological insights from the ICTR, reveals that international institutions are suscepti- ble to capture by special interests. Furthermore, there are two central themes that animate the response to Professor Ladeur: the political nature of international institutions and the history of international law, and the role of institutions in this history

The Conundrum of Order: The Concept of Governance from an Interdisciplinary Perspective

The term governance has made an impressive career in a number of disciplines concerned with regulation, order and law. This chapter draws on insights from legal studies, sociology, political science, anthropology, history and geography to paint a multifaceted picture of existing, competing and complementing approaches to the concept of governance. For reasons of space, the chapter can but point to the different variations on a theme, as governance occupies an ambivalent place in past and present discourses on political (or, legal or economic) order and society. It is argued that beyond pointing to crucial phases of methodological and theoretical transformation within different disciplines such as the often perceived transition ‘from government to governance’, governance is itself a deeply interdisciplinary concept

TNFα-Induced Apoptosis Enabled by CCN1/CYR61: Pathways of Reactive Oxygen Species Generation and Cytochrome c Release

Although TNFα is a strong inducer of apoptosis, its cytotoxicity in most normal cells in vitro requires blockade of NFκB signaling or inhibition of de novo protein synthesis, typically by the addition of cycloheximide. However, several members of CCN (CYR61/CTGF/NOV) family of extracellular matrix proteins enable TNFα-dependent apoptosis in vitro without inhibiting NFκB or de novo protein synthesis, and CCN1 (CYR61) is essential for optimal TNFα cytotoxicity in vivo. Previous studies showed that CCN1 unmasks the cytotoxicity of TNFα by binding integrins αvβ5, α6β1, and the cell surface heparan sulfate proteoglycan syndecan 4 to induce the accumulation of a high level of reactive oxygen species (ROS), leading to a biphasic activation of JNK necessary for apoptosis. Here we show for the first time that CCN1 interacts with the low density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 1 (LRP1) in a protein complex, and that binding to LRP1 is critical for CCN1-induced ROS generation and apoptotic synergism with TNFα. We also found that neutral sphingomyelinase 1 (nSMase1), which contributes to CCN1-induced ROS generation, is required for CCN1/TNFα-induced apoptosis. Furthermore, CCN1 promotes the activation of p53 and p38 MAPK, which mediate enhanced cytochrome c release to amplify the cytotoxicity of TNFα. By contrast, LRP1, nSMase1, p53, and p38 MAPK are not required when TNFα-dependent apoptosis is facilitated by the presence of cycloheximide, indicating that they function in the CCN1 signaling pathway that converges with TNFα-induced signaling events. Since CCN1/CYR61 is a physiological regulator of TNFα cytotoxicity at least in some contexts, these findings may reveal important mediators of TNFα-induced apoptosis in vivo and identify potential therapeutic targets for thwarting TNFα-dependent tissue damage

The Multicultural Classroom as a Comparative Law Site: A United Kingdom Perspective

This chapter studies the impact of the recent multicultural approach to comparative legal studies on comparative law teaching, with a focus on British debates and literature. I will argue that the multicultural turn of (comparative) legal teaching, reflected for example in a greater diversity of teaching techniques, a greater emphasis on minority issues and law &… disciplines, responds to a multiplicity of motivations. Pedagogically, it is a response to the increasingly diverse backgrounds of students and their differing intellectual starting-points. Pragmatically, it is a means to boost students’ employability and intellectual versality in a job market that now values “cultural awareness skills”. Finally, conceptually, it is a tool designed to unravel the pluralistic nature of law. From these diverse drivers to the multicultural turn in (comparative) legal teaching, it is possible to identify similarities with other recent trends of globalisation and internationalisation of legal education. However, this article will submit that differences remain. Having analysed these differences, I will go on to argue and reveal that in them lie the core features of a multicultural approach to legal teaching and its intrinsic connections to comparative law, as the multicultural classroom itself becomes a comparative law site

The Law of Society: Governance Through Contract

This paper focuses on contract law as a central field in contemporary regulatory practice. In recent years, governance by contract has emerged as the central concept in the context of domestic privatization, domestic and transnational commercial relations and law-and-development projects. Meanwhile, as a result of the neo-formalist attack on contract law, governance of contract through contract adjudication, consumer protection law and judicial intervention into private law relations has come under severe pressure. Building on early historical critique of the formalist foundations of an allegedly private law of the market, the paper assesses the current justifications for contractual governance and posits that only an expanded legal realist perspective can adequately explain the complex nature of contractual agreements in contemporary practice. The paper argues for an understanding of contracts as complex societal arrangements that visibilize and negotiate conflicting rationalities and interests. Institutionally, contractual governance has been unfolding in a complex, historically grown and ideologically continually contested regulatory field. Governance through contract, then, denotes a wide field of conflicting concepts, ideas and symbols, that are themselves deeply entrenched in theories of society, market and the state. From this perspective, we are well advised to study contracts in their socio-economic, historical and cultural context. A careful reading of scholars such as Henry Sumner Maine, Morris Cohen, Robert Hale, Karl Llewellyn, Stewart Macaulay and Ian Macneil offers a deeper understanding of the institutional and normative dimensions of contractual governance. Their analysis is particularly helpful in assessing currently ongoing shifts away from a welfare state based regulation (governance) of contractual relations. Such shifts are occurring on two levels. First, they take place against the backdrop of a neo-liberal critique of government interference into allegedly private relations. Secondly, the increasingly influential return to formalism in contract law, which privileges a functionalist, purportedly technical and autonomous design and execution of contractual agreements over the view of regulated contracts, is linked to a particular concept of sovereignty. The ensuing revival of freedom of contract occurs in remarkable neglect of the experiences of welfare state adjudication of private law adjudication and a continuing contestation of the political in private relationships. The paper takes up the Legal Realists\u27 search for the \u27basis of contract\u27, but seeks to redirect the focus from the traditional perspective on state vs. market to a disembedded understanding of contractual governance as delineating multipolar and multirational regulatory regimes. Where Globalization has led to a fragmentation, disembeddedness and transnationalization of contexts and, thus, has been challenging traditional understanding of embeddedness, the task should no longer be to try applying a largely nation-state oriented Legal Realist perspective and critique to the sphere of contemporary contractual governance, but - rather - to translate its aims into a more reflexive set of instruments of legal critique. Even if Globalization has led to a dramatic denationalization of many regulatory fields and functions, it is still not clear, whether and how Globalization replaces, complements or aggravates transformations of societal governance, with and through contract