The Conceptual Problems Arising from Legal Pluralism

This paper argues that analytical jurisprudence has been insufficiently attentive to three significant puzzles highlighted by the legal pluralist tradition: the existence of commonalities between different types of law, the possibility of a distinction between law and non-law, and the explanatory centrality of the state. I further argue that the resolution of these questions sets the stage for a renewed agenda of analytical jurisprudence and has to be considered in attempts for reconciliation between the academic traditions of analytical jurisprudence and legal pluralism, often called “pluralist jurisprudence.” I also argue that the resolution of these problems affects the empirical, doctrinal, and politico-moral inquiries about legal pluralism.

Legal Pluralism and Science and Technology Studies: Exploring Sources of the Legal Pluriverse

In introducing the contributions to this special section, we explore the links between social and juridical concepts of normativity and science and technology. We follow the Legal Pluralism challenge to the notion of state law as the sole source of normative order and point to how technological transformation creates a pluralistic legal universe that takes on new shapes under conditions of globalization. We promote a science and technology studies (STS)-inspired reworking of Legal Pluralism and suggest expanding the portfolio of legally effective regimes of ordering to include the normativity generated by materiality and technology. This normativity is amply demonstrated in the case studies included in the papers which make up this special section. We conclude that the inclusion of approaches developed in STS research helps analytically to overcome what we view as an incomplete law project, one unable to deal with the technicized lifeworlds of a global modernity. The contributions to this special section illustrate that technomaterial change cannot be understood without recognition of the role of normative impacts, and conversely, the legal pluriverse cannot be understood without recognition of the normative role of techno-material arrangements.

land access and conflict issues of tribal peoples in Bodoland territorial region of Assam, India

Inequitable land access and land disputes are commonly mentioned as major causes of instability in the Bodoland region. Land problems are frequently invoked as a more potent debating tactic in conflict. For tribals in the region, land reform, ownership, registry, legal pluralism, boundary difficulties, landlessness, insecure land usage, and other associated issues are all major concerns. Major land legislation has failed to significantly reduce the number of major land disputes in the region. The British Colonial rule in India created substantial disruptions to land practises and possessions, which are still felt today in various regions of the country and in Northeast India, notably Assam. It's clear that the land issue is still relevant and active.

One Pipeline and Two Impact Assessments: Coproduction, Legal Pluralism, and the Trans Mountain Expansion Project

Canada’s Trans Mountain Expansion Pipeline project is one of the country’s most controversial in recent history. At the heart of the controversy lie questions about how to conduct impact assessments (IAs) of oil spills in marine and coastal ecosystems. This paper offers an analysis of two such IAs: one carried out by Canada through its National Energy Board and the other by Tsleil-Waututh Nation, whose unceded ancestral territory encompasses the last twenty-eight kilometers of the project’s terminus in the Burrard Inlet, British Columbia. The comparison is informed by a science and technology studies approach to coproduction, displaying the close relationship between IA law and applied scientific practice on both sides of the dispute. By attending to differing perspectives on concepts central to IA such as significance and mitigation, this case study illustrates how coproduction supports legal pluralism’s attention to diverse forms of world making inherent in IA. We close by reflecting on how such attention is relevant to Canada’s ongoing commitments, including those under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The most important problems of legal philosophy and the nature of law

The purpose of legal philosophy is frequently defined as the discovery or exploration of the nature of law. The nature of law is usually understood as a set of necessary properties of law. Such an identification of the purpose of legal philosophy raises some doubts. Irrespective of those doubts, I claim that that focusing exclusively on the nature of law may be detrimental to legal philosophy as a whole, as it may be an obstacle to the investigation of certain issues that seem important. Or, at least, not all fundamental problems of legal philosophy may be perceived as pertaining to the nature of the law. Two such problems are briefly discussed: (i) legal pluralism and (ii) certain new categories of non-human legal subjects, such as autonomous machines, environmental legal persons and animals. I argue that focusing on the nature of law does not help the exploration of those important topics.