Toward a New Legal Common Sense

Engaging in sociological analyses of law, this 2002 text shows the need for a reconstruction of the idea of legality based on locality, nationality and globality. It shows how suprastate organizations such as the EU and international human rights law can be given a proper place in the sociology of law.

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There are those who believe that modern society's reliance upon law, politics and science to both regulate and emancipate society has reached a crisis point and can no longer provide answers to current social problems. Toward a New Legal Common Sense engages in a series of sociological analyses of law in order to illustrate the need for a profound theoretical reconstruction of the notion of legality based on locality, nationality and globality. In this way the author shows how developments including suprastate organisations such as the European Union and international human rights law can be given their proper place in the sociology of law, and suggests a new set of social structures that might sustain the emancipatory elements that have disappeared from modern society. This 2002 edition, of a title originally published by Routledge (New York), is part of the acclaimed Law in Context Series, whose aim is to develop broad interdisciplinary perspectives on law. Toward a New Legal Common Sense is written for students taking law and globalisation courses, and political science, philosophy and sociology students doing optional subjects.