Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T21:22:02.716Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The King's Many Bodies: The Self-Deconstruction of Law's Hierarchy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Gunther Teubner
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The article connects two strands of the recent sociolegal debate: (1) the empirical discovery of new forms of spontaneous law in the course of globalization, and (2) the emergence of deconstructive theories of law that undermine the law's hierarchy. The article puts forward the thesis that law's hierarchy has successfully resisted all old and new attempts at its deconstruction; it breaks, however, under the pressures of globalization that produced a global law without the state, as self-created law of global society that has no institutionalized support whatsoever in international politics and public international law. Consequendy, the article criticizes deconstructive theories for their lack of autological analysis. These theories do not take into account the historical conditions of deconstruction. Accordingly, deconstructive analysis of law would have to look for new legal distinctions that are plausible under the new conditions of a doubly fragmented global society. The article sketches the contours of an emerging polycontextural law.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , 1997 , pp. 763 - 787
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 by The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

For critical comments I would like to thank Lindsay Farmer, Nicola Lacey, Tim Murphy, Alan Pottage and Anton Schütz.

References

Balkin, Jack M. (1987) “Deconstructive Practice and Legal Theory,” 96 Yale Law J. 743–86.Google Scholar
Balkin, Jack M. (1993) “Understanding Legal Understanding: The Legal Subject and the Problem of Legal Coherence,” 103 Yale Law J. 105–76.Google Scholar
Balkin, Jack M. (1994) “Transcendental Deconstruction, Transcendent Justice,” 92 Michigan Law Rev. 1131–86.Google Scholar
Bercusson, Brian (1997) “Globalizing Labour Law: Transnational Private Regulation and Countervailing Actors in European Labour Law,” in Teubner, ed. 1997c.Google Scholar
Berg, Henk de, & Prangel, Matthias (1995) Differenzen: Systemtheorie zwischen Dekonstruktion und Konstruktivismus. Tübingen: Franke.Google Scholar
Bianchi, Andrea (1997) “Globalization of Human Rights: The Role of Non-State Actors,” in Teubner, ed. 1997c.Google Scholar
Cooter, Robert D. (1994) “Structural Adjudication and the New Law Merchant: A Model of Decentralized Law,” 14 International Rev. of Law & Economics 215–31.Google Scholar
Cornell, Drucilla (1990) “The Violence of the Masquerade: Law Dressed up as Justice,” 11 Cardozo Law Rev. 1047–64.Google Scholar
Cornell, Drucilla (1992a) “The Philosophy of the Limit: Systems Theory and Feminist Legal Reform,” in Cornell, D., Rosenfeld, M., & Carlson, D., eds., Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Carlson, D.-(1992b) “The Relevance of Time to the Relationship between the Philosophy of the Limit and Systems Theory,” 13 Cardozo Law Rev. 1579–1603.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1974) Glas. Paris: Galilée.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques-(1978) “Violence and Metaphysics: An Essay on the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas,” in J. Derrida, Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1988) “Limited Inc abc …,” in J. Derrida, Limited Inc. Evanston, IL: Northwestern Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques-(1990) “Force of Law: The ‘Mystical Foundation of Authority,‘” 11 Cardozo Law Rev. 919–1046.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques-(1994) Specters of Marx, trans P. Kamuf. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Dezalay, Yves (1990) “The Big Bang and the Law: The Internationalization and Restructuration of the Legal Field,” in Featherstone, M., ed., Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Dezalay, Yves, & Garth, Bryant (1995) “Merchants of Law as Moral Entrepreneurs: Constructing International Justice from the Competition for Transnational Business Disputes,” 29 Law & Society Rev. 12–64.Google Scholar
Douzinas, Costas, & Warrington, Ronnie (1994) Justice Miscarried: Ethics and Aesthetics in Law. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar
Dupuy, Jean-Pierre (1990) “Deconstructing Deconstruction: Supplement and Hierarchy,” 7 Stanford Literature Rev. 101–21.Google Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald (1986) Law's Empire. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Fish, Stanley (1989) Doing What Comes Naturally: Change, Rhetoric, and the Practice of Theory in Literary and Legal Studies. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Foerster, Heinz von (1981) Observing Systems. Seaside, CA: Intersystems Publications.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel (1979) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Friedman, Lawrence (1996) “Borders: On the Emerging Sociaology of Transnational Law,” 32 Stanford J. of International Law 65–90.Google Scholar
Fuchs, Peter (1995) Die Umschrift: Zwei kommunikationstheoretische Studien, “japanische Kommunikation” und “Autismus.” Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Gerstenberg, Oliver (1997) “Law's Polyarchy: A Comment on Cohen and Sabel,” 3 European Law J. 343–58.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony (1990) The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford, GA: Stanford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich (1991) “Epistemologie/Fragmente,” in Gumbrecht, H. U. & Pfeiffer, K.L., eds., Paradoxien, Dissonanzen, Zusammenbrüche: Situationen offener Epistemologie. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Günther, Gotthard (1976a) “Cybernetic Ontology and Transjunctional Operations,” in Günther, ed 1976c.Google Scholar
Günther, Gotthard-(1976b) “Life as Poly-Contexturality,” in Günther, ed. 1976c.Google Scholar
Günther, Gotthard, ed. (1976c) Beiträge zur Grundlegung einer operationsfähigen Dialektik I. Hamburg: Meiner.Google Scholar
Hahn, Marcus (1996) “Vom Kopfstand des Phonozentrismus auf den Brettern der Systemtheorie oder: Luhmann und/oder Derrida—einfach eine Entscheidung? Anmerkungen zu ‘Die Form der Schrift’ von Niklas Luhmann,” 2 Soziale Systeme 283–306.Google Scholar
Hart, H. L. A. (1961) The Concept of Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Heller, Thomas C. (1985) “Legal Discourse in the Positive State: A Post-Structuralist Account,” in Teubner, G., ed., Dilemmas of Law in the Welfare State. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Holmes, Stephen (1987) “Poesie der Indifferenz,” in Baecker, D., Markowitz, J., Stichweh, R., Tyrell, H., & Willke, H., eds., Theorie als Passion: Niklas Luhmann zum 60. Geburtstag. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Kantorowicz, Ernst Hartwig (1957) The King's Two Bodies. A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Kelsen, Hans (1971) What Is Justice? Justice, Law and Politics in the Mirror of Science: Collected Essays. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.Google Scholar
Kerchove, Kerchove Michel van, & Ost, Francois (1992) Le droit, Ou, Les paradoxes du jeu. Paris: Presses Univ. de France.Google Scholar
King, Michael, & Schütz, Anton (1994) “The Ambitious Modesty of Niklas Luhmann,” 21 J. of Law & Society 261–87.Google Scholar
Kramer, Matthew (1988) “The Rule of Misrecognition in the Hart of Jurisprudence,” 8 Oxford J of Legal Studies 401–33.Google Scholar
Kramer, Matthew-(1991) Legal Theory, Political Theory and Deconstruction: Against Rhadamanthus. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Ladeur, Karl-Heinz (1995) “Post-modern Law and the Subject: Overcoming Uncertainty by ‘Deconstructing’ the Subject, Intersubjective Discourse Rationality or Trans-Subjective Learning Processes?” Presented at Conference on Indeterminacy of Social Integration, Vienna.Google Scholar
Levinas, Emmanuel (1979) Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. The Hague: Nijhoff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luhmann, Niklas (1982) “The World Society as a Social System,” 8 International J. of General Systems 131–38.Google Scholar
Luhmann, Niklas-(1985) A Sociological Theory of Law. Boston: Routledge.Google Scholar
Luhmann, Niklas-(1987) “The Unity of the Legal System,” in G. Teubner, Autopoietic Law: A New Approach to Law and Society. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Luhmann, Niklas-(1988) “The Third Question: The Creative Use of Paradoxes in Law and Legal History,” 15 J. of Law & Society 153–65.Google Scholar
Luhmann, Niklas-(1989) “Law as a Social System,” 83 Northwestern Univ. Law Rev. 136–50.Google Scholar
Luhmann, Niklas (1992a) “The Coding of the Legal System,” in Febbrajo, A. & Teubner, G., eds., State, Law, and Economy as Autopoietic Systems: Regulation and Autonomy in a New Perspective. Milano: Giuffrè.Google Scholar
Teubner, G.-(1992b) “Operational Closure and Structural Coupling: The Differentiation of the Legal System,” 13 Cardozo Law Rev. 1419–41.Google Scholar
Teubner, G. (1993a) “Deconstruction as Second-Order Observing,” 24 New Literary History 763–82.Google Scholar
Teubner, G.-(1993b) “Observing Re-entries,” 16 Graduate Faculty Philosophy J. 485–98.Google Scholar
Teubner, G. (1993c) Das Recht der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. (English trans. forthcoming: Society's Law. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.).Google Scholar
Teubner, G. (1995a) “The Paradoxy of Observing Systems,” 31 Cultural Critique 37–55.Google Scholar
Teubner, G.-(1995b) Social Systems, trans. Bednarz, J. Jr., with Baecker, D.. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Mann, Frederick A. (1984) “England Rejects ‘Delocalized’ Contracts and Arbitration,” 33 International & Comparative Law Q. 193–98.Google Scholar
McGrew, Anthony G., & Lewis, Paul G. (1992) Global Politics: Globalisation and the Nation State. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Muchlinski, Peter T. (1997) “‘Global Bukowina’ Examined: Viewing the Multinational Enterprise as a Transnational Law-Making Community,” in Teubner, ed. 1997c.Google Scholar
Nafziger, James A. R. (1996) “International Sports Law as a Process for Resolving Disputes,” 45 International & Comparative Law Q. 130–49.Google Scholar
Petersen, Hanne, & Zahle, Henrik, eds. (1995) Legal Polycentricity: Consequences of Pluralism in Law. Aldershot: Dartmouth.Google Scholar
Robé, Jean-Philippe (1997) “Multinational Enterprises: The Constitution of a Pluralistic Legal Order,” in Teubner, ed. 1997c.Google Scholar
Savigny, Savigny Friedrich Karl (1840) System des heutigen Römischen Rechts, vol. 1. Berlin: Veit. (English trans.: System of the Roman Law. Madras: Higginbotham, 1867.).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schlag, Pierre (1990) “‘Le Hors de Texte, C'est Moi’: The Politics of Form and the Domestication of Deconstruction,” 11 Cardozo Law Rev. 1631–74.Google Scholar
Schlag, Pierre-(1991) “Normativity and the Politics of Form,” 139 Univ. of Pennsylvania Law Rev. 801–931.Google Scholar
Schütz, Anton (1997) “The Twilight of the Global Polis: On Losing Paradigms, Environing Systems and Observing World Society,” in Teubner, ed. 1997c.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Martin (1993) “The Globalization of Law,” 1 Indiana J. of Global Legal Studies 37–64.Google Scholar
Simon, Gérald (1990) Puissance sportive et ordre juridique étatique. Paris: Librairie générate de droit et de jurisprudence.Google Scholar
Sinha, Surya P. (1995) “Legal Polycentricity,” in Petersen & Zahle, eds. 1995.Google Scholar
Somek, Alexander (1995) “Haben Sie heute schon dekonstruiert? Zur Bedeutung der Dekonstruktion in der neueren amerikanischen Rechtstheorie,” 27 Rechtstheorie 201–22.Google Scholar
Stäheli, Urs (1996) “Der Code als leerer Significant: Diskurstheoretische Betrachtungen,” 2 Soziale Systeme 257–81.Google Scholar
Stein, Ursula (1995) Lex mercatoria: Realität und Theorie. Frankfurt: Klostermann.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teubner, Gunther (1993) Law as an Autopoietic System. London: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Teubner, Gunther-(1997a) “Altera Pars Audiatur: Law in the Collision of Discourses” in Rawlings, R., ed., Law, Society and Economy: Centenary Essays for the London School of Economics and Political Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Rawlings, R. (1997b) “Global Bukowina: Legal Pluralism in the World Society,” in Teubner, ed. 1997c.Google Scholar
Rawlings, R., ed. (1997c) Global Law without a State. Aldershot: Dartmouth Gower.Google Scholar
Trubek, David M. (1993) “Global Restructuring and the Law: The Internationalization of Legal Fields and the Creation of Transnational Arenas.” Working Papers on the Political Economy of Legal Change, No. 1. Madison: Global Studies Research Program, Univ. of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Twining, William (1996) “Globalisation and Legal Theory: Some Local Implications,” 49 Current Legal Problems 1–42.Google Scholar
Vismann, Cornelia (1992) “Das Gesetz ‘Der Dekonstruktion,‘” 11 Rechtshistorisches J. 250–64.Google Scholar
Wiethölter, Rudolf (1986) “Social Science Models in Economic Law,” in Daintith, T. & Teubner, G., eds., Contract and Organisation: Legal Analysis in the Light of Economic and Social Theory. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Zizek, Slavoj (1992) Enjoy Your Symptom! Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and out. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar