Matthew Stone - New Critical Legal Thinking: Law and the Political

New Critical Legal Thinking articulates the emergence of a stream of critical legal theory which is directly concerned with the relation between law and the political. The early critical legal studies claim that all law is politics is displaced with a different and more nuanced theoretical arsenal. Combining grand theory with a concern for grounded political interventions, the various contributors to this book draw on political theorists and continental philosophers in order to engage with current legal problematics, such as the recent global economic crisis, the Arab Spring and the emergence of biopolitics. The contributions instantiate the fact that a new and radical political legal scholarship has come into being: one which critically interrogates and intervenes in the contemporary relationship between law and power.

Matthew Stone is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Essex. His research addresses questions of laws relation with ethics and subjectivity, with particular focus on continental theory. He holds a PhD from Birkbeck College, University of London.

Illan rua Wall is a Senior Lecturer in Law at Oxford Brookes University. He holds a PhD in legal theory from Birkbeck College, University of London, and is the author of Human Rights and Constituent Power (Routledge, 2012).

Costas Douzinas is a Professor of Law at Birkbeck College and the Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities. His recent books include Resistance and Philosophy of the Crisis (Athens, 2011), The Idea of Communism, edited with Slavoj Zizek (Verso, 2010) and Human Rights and Empire: The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism (Routledge-Cavendish, 2007).

Law and the Political

Edited by Matthew Stone,

Illan rua Wall and

Costas Douzinas

First published 2012

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

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A Birkbeck Law Press title

Birkbeck Law Press is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2012 Matthew Stone, Illan rua Wall and Costas Douzinas

The right of Matthew Stone, Illan rua Wall and Costas Douzinas to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

New critical legal thinking: law and the political / edited by

Matthew Stone, Illan Rua Wall and Costas Douzinas.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

1. LawPolitical aspects. 2. Critical legal studies. I. Stone, Matthew, 1981- editor of compilation. II. Wall, Illan Rua, editor of compilation. III. Douzinas, Costas, 1951- editor of compilation. IV. Whyte, Jessica (Jessica Stephanie). Human rights.

K487.P65N49 2012

340.11dc23

2011049716

ISBN 978-0-415-61957-8 (hbk)

ISBN 978-0-203-11446-9 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9780203114469

Typeset in Baskerville

by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk

• MATTHEW STONE, ILLAN RUA WALL, COSTAS DOUZINAS

• 1. JESSICA WHYTE

  2. COSTAS DOUZINAS

  3. ILLAN RUA WALL

  4. CONNAL PARSLEY

• 1. BEN GOLDER

  2. BRENNA BHANDAR

  3. TARIK KOCHI

  4. JASON A. BECKETT

  5. VINCENT KETER

• 1. ELENA LOIZIDOU

  2. MATTHEW STONE

  3. OSCAR GUARDIOLA-RIVERA

  4. GILBERT LEUNG

Jason A. Beckett is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Leicester, and a Visiting Professor at the American University in Cairo. He holds a PhD from the University of Glasgow. His current research focuses on the use of normative and epistemic structures to shield citizens of the developed world from their implication in, and subsidisation by, the perpetuation of extreme global poverty.

Brenna Bhandar is a Lecturer at the School of Law, Queen Mary, University of London. Her research focuses on the relationship between practices of ownership and dispossession in colonial settler contexts and, more generally, the relationship between property and ontology. She has published articles on the themes of indigenous rights, critical race theory, secularism and multiculturalism, and the politics of recognition

Costas Douzinas is a Professor of Law at Birkbeck College and the Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities. His recent books include Resistance and Philosophy of the Crisis (Athens, 2011), The Idea of Communism, edited with Slavoj Zizek (Verso, 2010) and Human Rights and Empire: The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism (Routledge-Cavendish, 2007).

Ben Golder is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of New South Wales, Australia. He is author of Foucaults Law (Routledge, 2009) and his current research proposes a critical re-reading of contemporary human rights discourse via Foucault.

Oscar Guardiola-Rivera is the author of the award winning book What If Latin America Ruled the World? (Bloomsbury, 2010). He teaches at the Birkbeck School of Law and collaborates with the Birkbeck Institute of the Humanities, the BBC World Service and Monocle 24.

Vincent Keter held a PhD from Birkbeck College, University of London.

Tarik Kochi is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Sussex. He is the author of The Others War (Birkbeck Law Press, 2009).

Gilbert Leung holds a PhD from Birkbeck, University of London. He is currently working on a monograph entitled Jean-Luc Nancy: The First Question of Law.

Elena Loizidou is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Law, Birkbeck College. She is the author of Judith Butler: Ethics, Law, Politics (Routledge-Glasshouse, 2007). She is currently working on a book, Anarchism: an art of living and an edited collection on Disobedience: concept/practice (2012).

Connal Parsley teaches legal theory and legal ethics at the University of Melbourne, where he is currently completing doctoral studies on the relation between law, the image and juridical personhood in the work of Giorgio Agamben.

Matthew Stone is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Essex. His research addresses questions of laws relation with ethics and subjectivity, with particular focus on continental theory.

Illan rua Wall is a Senior Lecturer in Law at Oxford Brookes University. He is author of Human Rights and Constituent Power (Routledge, 2012) and works on questions of human rights, political theory and continental philosophy.