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Law and Learning in an Era of Globalization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Harry W. Arthurs

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The optimists amongst us assume that human hands — our hands — shape legal education, that legal education shapes the law, and that law shapes the world. The pessimists contend that the process works in reverse, that the forces of political economy ultimately have their way with law as a system of social ordering, as a cultural phenomenon and an intellectual enterprise, and as the subject or object of study in law schools. I am a pessimist by nature, so I will begin on a pessimistic note. However, I am trying to overcome my nature, so I will end on what, for me, is an optimistic one.

Type
Section 1: ‘Same Ol’, Same Ol'?' Reflecting on Curricular Reform
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 10 , Issue 6-7: Following the Call of the Wild: The Promises and Perils of Transnationalizing Legal Education , July 2009 , pp. 629 - 640
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

1 More accurately, perhaps, I am trying to recover the optimism I demonstrated in Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Law and Learning / Le droit et le savoir: Report of the Consultative Group on Research and Education in Law (1983) (also known as “the Arthur's Report”), which eroded badly in my subsequent writings, see e.g. Harry Arthurs, The Political Economy of Canadian Legal Education 25 Journal of Law & Society (J. Law & Soc.) 14 (1998); Arthurs, Harry, Poor Canadian Legal Education: So Near to Wall Street, So Far from God, 38 Osgoode Hall Law Journal (OHLJ) 381 (2001); Arthurs, Harry, The State We're In: Legal Education in Canada's New Political Economy, 20 Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice 35 (2001).Google Scholar

2 E.g. Hauser Global Law School (NYU - US); National Law School of Singapore; University of Navarra (Spain); Jindal Global Law School (India) amongst many others.Google Scholar

3 E.g. Melbourne Law School (Australia); Warwick Law School (UK), Osgoode Hall Law School of York University (Canada); Universidade Catolica (Portugal); Rutgers Law School (US) amongst many others.Google Scholar

4 E.g. Scott, Craig, A Core Curriculum for the Transnational Legal Education of JD and LLB Students: Surveying the Approach of the International, Comparative and Transnational Law Program at Osgoode Hall Law School, 23 Penn State International Law Review (Penn St. Int'l L. Rev.) 757 (2005); Aleinikoff, Thomas Alexander, Law in a Globlal Context: Georgetown's Innovative First Year Program, 24 Penn St. Int'l. L. Rev. 825 (2006); Sexton, John E., Curricular Responses to Globalization, 20 Penn St. Int'l L. Rev. 15 (2001-2002); Nancy B. Rapoport, When Local IS Global: Consortium of Law Schools to Encourage Global Thinking, 20 Penn. St. Int'l L. Rev. 19 (2001-2002); Backer, Larry Cata, Parallel Tracks?: Internationalizing the American Law School Curriculum in Light of the Principles in the Carnegie Foundation's Educating Lawyers, available on SSRN at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3papers.cfm?abstract_id=1104098, last accessed 14 June 2009; Duncan Bentley and John Wade, Special Methods and Tools for Educating the Transnational Lawyer, 55 Journal of Legal Education (J. Legal Educ.) 479 (2005); Bogdan, Michael, Is There a Curricular Core for the Transnational Lawyer? 55 J. Legal Educ. 484 (2005); for a description of a British school's ventures in global law teaching, see the description of University College London's Institute for Global Law at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/global_law/, last accessed 14 June 2009 - amongst many others.Google Scholar

5 Over a dozen conventional and online law-related English-language journals appear to be devoted entirely to the theme of globalization: Canadian Journal of Globalization; Global Law Review; Globalization; Global Social Policy; Human Rights and Globalization; Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies; Journal of Global Ethics; Journal of Globalization, Competitiveness and Governability; Law, Social Justice and Global Development; Minnesota Journal of Global Trade; Richmond Journal of Global Law and Business; Washington University Global Studies Law Review. In addition numerous legal journals devoted to international and transnational law, as well as those without specialized mandates, are replete with articles on globalization.Google Scholar

6 Of course, globalization is not altogether a new influence on legal education: British imperial legacies shaped the governments, economies, legal systems and universities of its ex-colonies; the Catholic educational and juristic traditions of France and Spain left their mark on the law faculties of Québec and Latin America; and American legal education and scholarship, in its many manifestations, has influenced the development of law schools throughout (and beyond) the English-speaking world since at least the late 19th century when the United States began its economic and political ascendancy. I am grateful to Roderick Macdonald for calling my attention to this important point.Google Scholar

7 Twining, William, The Camel in the Zoo, in Law in Context: Enlarging a Discipline, 26 (1997).Google Scholar

8 Scheuerman, William, Reflexive Law and the Challenge of Globalization, 9 Journal of Political Philosophy 81, 91 (2001).Google Scholar

9 Scheuerman, William, Liberal Democracy and the Social Acceleration of Time (2004).Google Scholar

10 The curriculum and its intellectual foundations and implications are described in a special issue of the McGill Law Journal (McGill L. J.) titled “Navigating the Transsystemic / Tracer le Transsystemique” released in 2005 (issue 50, volume 4, pages 701 - 1006), available online http://lawjournal.mcgill.ca/issues.php, last accessed 14 June 2009.Google Scholar

11 Roderick Macdonald quoted in Nicholas Kasirer, Bijuralism in Law's Empire and in Law's Cosmos, 52 J. Legal Educ. 29, 39 note 2 (2002).Google Scholar

12 Morissette, Yves-Marie, McGill's Integrated Civil and Common Law Program, 52 J. Legal. Educ. 12, 22 (2002).Google Scholar

13 Kasirer, , supra, note 11 at 31.Google Scholar

14 For my own modest reservations see Harry Arthurs, Madly Off in One Direction: McGill's New Integrated, Polyjural, Transsystemic Law Programme, 50 McGill L. J. 707 (2005) (part of the special issue mentioned in supra, note 10).Google Scholar