The World of Rules: Eine etwas andere Vermessung der Welt - New Paper on SSRN

April 04, 2016

The World of Rules: Eine etwas andere Vermessung der Welt by Gunnar Folke Schuppert has recently been published in our SSRN Research Paper Series.

Furthermore, the English translation of the contribution will be released this year as a monograph in the institute's book series Global Perspectives on Legal History.

The contribution positions itself against the narrowing focus of (the German) jurisprudence on state law. This is a narrowing, which find its explication in the development of the territorially organised nation state, a type of state in whose understanding of state(hood) law can only be thought of as state law. However, what can be observed – even more so as a result of the process of globalisation – is a process of a gradual decoupling of state and law, which inevitably entails a pluralisation of legal regulations. Jurisprudence has to react to this, if it wants to remain relevant. This can happen through a broadening of its horizon towards a more far-reaching “science of regulation”, in order to grasp the increasing “Variety of Rules” adequately. State law remains an important and central type of law, yet it is no longer the sole type.

If that is the case, it becomes necessary to analyse the following three spheres: (1) the plurality of normative orders, especially those of non-state character; (2) the plurality of norm producers, from state legislature to transnational networks of regulation; (3) finally, the plurality of norm enforcement regimes, from states’ judiciaries via the judiciary of (international) sport to the exercise of social pressure (e. g. political correctness). Those findings of plurality inevitably lead to the follow-up problem of a redefinition of the concept of law and to the question, which types of law/norms can be identified meaningfully.

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