Comparative Law and the Task of Negative Critique

This book's essays aim to cleanse comparative law of epistemic detritus and seek a radical refurbishment to address the governing epistemology and assumptions about the acquisition of knowledge about foreign law. It aims to do justice to foreign law as it is appropriated and travestied by comparatists for ideological purposes, enhancing comparative law's institutional, intellectual, and ethical respectability.

Format: Hardback
Length: 306 pages
Publication date: 09 May 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This book's essays aim to cleanse comparative law of the epistemic detritus it has accumulated and has cluttered its theory and practice, to the point where this flotsam has effectively stifled 'good comparison'. While a critique would pursue adjustments to the prevailing model, this text's negative critique seeks a much more radical refurbishment as it utters an emphatic 'no' to the governing epistemology. It pursues, in effect, a deposition and a disposition of the leading epistemic configuration and the various assumptions regarding the acquisition of knowledge about foreign law that inform it. Negative comparative law thus operates at a primordial level, as it concerns the matter of justice. It aims to do justice to foreign law as foreignness finds itself appropriated and travestied by comparatists for ideological purposes. In the process, negative critique purports significantly to enhance comparative law's institutional, intellectual, and ethical respectability.

This book will benefit all law teachers and postgraduate law students interested in the workings of law on the international scene, whether specialists in comparative law, public international law, private international law, transnational law, or foreign relations law – in particular, individuals bringing a critical inclination to their subject-matter.

Weight: 740g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367723002