The Rule of Law History, Theory and Criticism

ISBN-13: 9781402057441 / Angielski / Twarda / 2007 / 700 str.

Pietro Costa; Danilo Zolo

Opis

Authors Costa and Zolo share the conviction that a proper understanding of the rule of law today requires reference to a global problematic horizon. This book offers some relevant guides for orienting the reader through a political and legal debate where the rule of law (and the doctrine of human rights) is a concept both controversial and significant at the national and international levels.

Spis treści

Introductions. Theory and critique of the rule of law, Danilo Zolo. The rule of law: an historical introduction, Pietro Costa. Part I: The European and the North-American historical experiences. The rule of law and the ‘liberties of the English’. The interpretation by Albert Venn Dicey, Emilio Santoro. Popular sovereignty, rule of law and ‘rule of judges’ in the United States of America, Brunella Casalini. Rechtsstaat and individual rights in German constitutional history, Gustavo Gozzi. État de droit and national sovereignty in France, Alain Laquièze. Rechtsstaat and constitutional justice in Austria. Hans Kelsen’s contribution, Giorgio Bongiovanni. Part II: The contemporary theoretical debate. The rule of law between past and future, Luigi Ferrajoli. Beyond the rule law: tyranny of judges or anarchy of lawyers?, Pier Paolo Portinaro. Rule of law and gender identity, Anna Loretoni. Machiavelli, the republican tradition and the rule of law, Luca Baccelli. Rule of law and spontaneous order. Bruno Leoni and Friedrich von Hayek’s criticism of the Euro-continental rule of law, Maria Chiara Pievatolo. Part III: Rule of law and colonialism. Rule of law and natives in North America, Bartolomé Clavero. The colonial model of the rule of law: the African constitution in Guinea, Carlos Petit. Part IV: Rule of law and Islamic culture. Islamic perspectives on constitutionalism, Raja Bahlul. The rule of morally constrained law. The case of contemporary Egypt, Baudouin Dupret. Part V: Rule of law and oriental cultures. ‘Asian values’ and the rule of law, Alice Ehr-Soon Tay. The rule of law and Indian society. From colonialism to post-colonialism, Ananta Kumar Giri. The Chinese legal tradition and the European spirit of the rule of law, Wu Shu-chen. Modern constitutional development in China, Lin Feng. Human rightsand the rule of law in contemporary Chinese legal philosophy and political practice, Wang Zhenmin and Li Zhenghui. Appendix. Bibliographical essay, Francesco Paolo Vertova. The authors. Name index.

Blurb

Costa and Zolo share the conviction that a proper understanding of the rule of law today requires referring to a global problematic horizon. It seems unavoidable to investigate into the relationship between Europe and the United States, on the one hand, and the ‘rest’ of the world, on the other. Over the last centuries this relationship developed in terms of conquest and colonisation, on the widespread view that Western ‘civilisation’ should be opposed as a whole to ‘barbaric’ others. Today, however, the notion of rule of law is still rousing a debate that cannot be said to have come to an end. The reason is quite simple: if the origins of the rule of law are in ‘Western’ societies and cultures, and if until recently the West took the lion’s share in the debate on our subject matter, it remains true that today other societies and other cultures take an active and creative part into a sustained philosophical-political debate. This is by no means a merely intellectual or academic question: the Arab-Islamic world, India, China, are not far away planets whose orbits never crossed the European and American West. On the contrary, in fairly recent times the encounters have been close and traumatic.

In sum, the book intends to offer some relevant guides for orienting the reader through a political and legal debate where the rule of law (and the doctrine of ‘human rights’) is a concept both controversial and significant at the national and international levels.