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Norrie on Twining on General Jurisprudence from a Global Perspective

By Lawrence Solum

Alan W. Norrie (University of Warwick - School of Law) has posted Book Review: William Twining, 'General Jurisprudence: Understanding Law from a Global Perspective' on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

A Book Review of William Twining's 'General Jurisprudence: Understanding Law from a Global Perspective', Cambridge University Press, 517 pp., 2009.

And from the paper:

William Twining claims that it is time for a radical rethink of the way jurisprudence is taught. Adopting a global and pluralistic perspective can point the way to what is wrong and how things may be changed. Twining?s earliest intellectual experiences concerning law were garnered at Oxford under the influence of HLA Hart. These experiences were plainly powerful and long lasting, for his argument rests on an engagement with and radical resetting of the role of legal positivism in legal theory. Jurisprudence (is it just force of habit that maintains this label?) can be divided into analytical, normative and empirical enquiries, and most interesting theoretical work will mix these up. ?General jurisprudence? must be treated as broadly as possible to include enquiries about law that transcend legal traditions and cultures, but the opening up of jurisprudence to empirical study (amongst other things) should not be at the cost of denying the significance of conceptual analysis. The ?philosophy of law? is just one part, though an important one, of jurisprudence, so legal positivism or analytical jurisprudence need to be part of a much wider set of enquiries. Jurisprudence needs further to be pushed into non-state based forms of legal phenomena, and this pluralistic injunction entails that how the line on what is ?law? is ?most sensibly drawn should depend largely on context? (p.xix). A globalised and pluralised account of law will accordingly push one to ?differentiate different levels of relations and of ordering such relations?, providing ?a framework of analytical concepts that can be useful in interpreting, describing, comparing, and generalising about legal phenomena? (ibid.) It will be open to debates about universalism and relativism, about the compatibility of Western values with those of other traditions, and the possibility of cross cultural dialogue. It will continue to absorb the lessons of legal realism, law in context and socio-legal perspectives, as well as reflecting on the developments of feminist, human rights, critical and ?law and development? theory.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on September 15, 2010 (boomark / email).