This book uses Niklas Luhmann's systems theory to explore how the legal system operates as one of modern society's subsystems. It demonstrates how this theory alters our understanding of some of the most important and controversial issues within law: the nature of judicial communication and legal argument * the claim that it can be right to disobey the law * the character of legal pluralism and globalization * time and its construction within the law * the significance of the rule of law and human rights and the role of appeals to, and within, the law. Systems theory enables the book to...

This collection of socio-legal studies, written by leading theorists and researchers from around the world, offers original, perceptive and critical contributions to ideas and theories that have been expounded by Roger Cotterrell over a long and distinguished career. Engaging with many classic issues and theories of the sociology of law, the contributions are likely to become classics themselves as they tackle some of the most significant challenges that modern law faces. They do not shy away from what one of the contributors describes as the complexity and multiplicity of our contemporary...