Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Plurality Trilemma: The Contingent Geometry of Global Legal Thought

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Plurality Trilemma

Part of the book series: Philosophy, Public Policy, and Transnational Law ((PPPTL))

  • 251 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter provides a geometrical map of global legal thought from the discussions of Habermasian, Luhmannian, and Dworkinian approaches. In this inquiry, it suggests that the three patterns have different normative preferences on ordering the same social space. With the coordinate system of global legal method, this chapter shows that these normative preferences are mutually irreconcilable and that the search for a single right answer of global legal method is a tilting at windmills. This futility of a single, unified theoretical approach is what I call the Plurality Trilemma.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    See, for such a perspective that is ultimately inspired by Habermas and Hegel, Sergio Dellavalle, Paradigms of Order (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming).

  2. 2.

    For a different view, see Ingo Venzke, How Interpretation Makes International Law: On Semantic Change and Normative Twists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 245f.

  3. 3.

    Rousseau discusses these questions in the Social Contract. See Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Political Economy and the Social Contract, trans. Christopher Betts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). See further, Christopher Bertram, “Jean Jacques Rousseau,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, available at <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/rousseau/>. In Habermas’ legal theory, Rousseau occupies a central position. Jürgen Habermas , Between Facts and Norms, trans. William Rehg (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998), 32.

  4. 4.

    For an initial discussion of the problem, see Thore Prien, Fragmentierte Volkssouveränität – Recht, Gerechtigkeit und der Demokratische Einspruch in der Weltgesellschaft (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2010).

  5. 5.

    See above, Sect. 3.1.1.

  6. 6.

    Jürgen Habermas , The Lure of Technocracy, trans. Ciaran Cronin (Cambridge: Polity, 2015), 56.

  7. 7.

    See above, Sect. 3.1.1.

  8. 8.

    See above, Sect. 3.2.1.

  9. 9.

    Klaus Günther, “Legal Pluralism or Uniform Concept of Law – Globalisation as a Problem of Legal Theory,” No Foundations – Journal of Extreme Legal Positivism 5 (2008): 18.

  10. 10.

    Günther, “Uniform Concept of Law,” 20.

  11. 11.

    See above, Sects. 3.3.3 and 5.5.1.

  12. 12.

    Armin von Bogdandy and Ingo Venzke, In Whose Name? A Public Law Theory of International Adjudication (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 146.

  13. 13.

    See above, Sect. 4.5.1.

  14. 14.

    Paradigmatically for this kind of projects (and its limits), is Joerges’ Conflicts-Law-Constitutionalism. See, Christian Joerges, Poul F. Kjaer and Tommi Ralli, “A New Type of Conflicts Law as Constitutional Form in the Postnational Constellation,” Transnational Legal Theory 2, no. 2 (2011): 153.

  15. 15.

    Gunther Teubner, Constitutional Fragments: Societal Constitutionalism and Globalization (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012), 63.

  16. 16.

    Teubner, Constitutional Fragments, 63.

  17. 17.

    The criticism was here that in contrast to the theory’s post-modern set of ideas, it grants a form of legal subjectivity to functional regimes. See above, Sect. 4.3.3.

  18. 18.

    Andreas Fischer-Lescano, Globalverfassung – Die Geltungsbegründung der Menschenrechte (Weilerswist: Velbrück, 2005), 68–71.

  19. 19.

    Ronald Dworkin, “A New Philosophy for International Law,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 41, no. 1 (2013): 11.

  20. 20.

    See above, Sect. 5.3.3.

  21. 21.

    In Dworkin’s view, this goes further than simply ius cogens. A view which is also shared by formalists, see Christian Tomuschat, “Obligations Arising for States Without or Against their Will,” Recueil des Cours 241 (1993).

  22. 22.

    Dworkin, “New Philosophy,” 19.

  23. 23.

    W. Michael Reisman, Siegfried Wiessner, and Andrew R. Willard, “The New Haven School: A Brief Introduction,” Yale Journal of International Law 32 (2007): 576.

  24. 24.

    See above, Sect. 5.2.2.

  25. 25.

    See above, Sect. 5.3.1.

  26. 26.

    Mattias Kumm, “The Cosmopolitan Turn in Constitutionalism – On the Relationship between Constitutionalism in and beyond the State,” in Ruling The World? Constitutionalism, International Law and Global Governance, eds. Joel P. Trachtman and Jeffrey L. Dunoff (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 268.

  27. 27.

    Kumm, “Cosmopolitan Turn,” 268.

  28. 28.

    Kumm, “Cosmopolitan Turn,” 273.

  29. 29.

    Von Bogdandy and Venzke, In Whose Name?, 146.

  30. 30.

    See above, Sect. 5.5.2.

  31. 31.

    Arguably, this could be avoided in a democratic environment where the content of rights is increasingly positivized.

  32. 32.

    Rousseau discusses these questions in the Social Contract.

  33. 33.

    See, paradigmatically, Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1948).

  34. 34.

    See, for this debate, Sect. 4.4.3.

  35. 35.

    See Sect. 3.1.1.

  36. 36.

    Habermas, Lure of Technocracy, 56.

  37. 37.

    Habermas, Lure of Technocracy, 55.

  38. 38.

    Karl-Heinz Ladeur, “Globalization and the Conversion of Democracy to Polycentric Networks – Can Democracy Survive the End of the Nation State?” in Public Governance in the Age of Globalization, ed. Karl-Heinz Ladeur (London: Routledge, 2004), 89, 98.

  39. 39.

    See above, Sect. 4.4.3.

  40. 40.

    Karl Marx, “Zur Judenfrage,” in Karl Marx / Friedrich Engels – Werke (MEW), Volume 1 (Berlin: Dietz, 1990), 367–368.

  41. 41.

    Possible emancipatory models in this respect are discussed in Daniel Loick, Kritik der Souveränität (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2012), 279f.

  42. 42.

    See above, Sects. 5.1.1 and 5.1.2.

  43. 43.

    Günther, “Uniform Concept of Law,” 19.

  44. 44.

    See above, in particular, Sect. 3.5.1.

  45. 45.

    Benedict Kingsbury, “The Concept of ‘Law’ in Global Administrative Law,” European Journal of International Law 20, no. 1 (2009): 32–33. Armin von Bogdandy, Philip Dann and Matthias Goldmann, “Developing the Publicness of Publicness of Public International Law: Towards a Legal Framework of Global Governance Activities,” German Law Journal 9, no. 11 (2008): 1383.

  46. 46.

    For the differing views in this respect, see the discussion in Sects. 3.4.2 and 3.4.3.

  47. 47.

    For a recent and equally thin view of ethics—yet situated in the Dworkinian paradigm. Steven R. Ratner, The Thin Justice of International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).

  48. 48.

    Dirk Pulkowski, The Law and Politics of International Regime Conflict (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2014), 265.

  49. 49.

    See the discussion in Sect. 3.1.2 and critique in Sect. 3.1.3.

  50. 50.

    See in particular Sect. 4.4.2.

  51. 51.

    See above, Sect. 4.4.1.

  52. 52.

    Jacques Rancière, Das Unvernehmen – Politik und Philosophie, trans. Richard Steurer (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2002), 46.

  53. 53.

    Teubner, Constitutional Fragments, 63.

  54. 54.

    See, Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977), 132f.

  55. 55.

    See, Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously, in particular Chapter 13.

  56. 56.

    Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 222.

  57. 57.

    Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 225.

  58. 58.

    Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 228.

  59. 59.

    This becomes particularly clear in Teubner’s theoretical project. See, Sect. 4.1.1.

  60. 60.

    Kenneth Abbott and Duncan Snidal, “Hard Law and Soft Law in International Governance,” International Organization 54, no. 3 (2000): 421.

  61. 61.

    Anne-Marie Slaughter, “International Law and International Relations Theory: A Dual Agenda,” American Journal of International Law 87, no. 2 (1993): 209.

  62. 62.

    Ladeur explicitly draws on Slaughter’s account, yet criticizes her focus on state organs. Karl-Heinz Ladeur, “Towards a Legal Theory of Supranationality – The Viability of the Network Concept,” European Law Journal 3, no. 1 (1997): 47.

  63. 63.

    See, for the illustration of the different aspects, Sect. 4.1.3 and 5.1.1.

  64. 64.

    Rosalyn Higgins, Problems and Process – International Law and How We Use It (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 2.

  65. 65.

    Nicole Roughan, Authorities: Conflicts, Cooperation and Transnational Legal Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 136f.

  66. 66.

    Andreas Fischer-Lescano and Gunther Teubner, “Regime-Collisions: The Vain Search for Legal Unity in the Fragmentation of Global Law,” Michigan Journal of International Law 25 (2004): 999.

  67. 67.

    Gunther Teubner, “Self-Subversive Justice: Contingency or Transcendence Formula of Law?,” Modern Law Review 72, no. 1 (2009): 19.

  68. 68.

    This is the point of reference for the Habermasian approaches in Chap. 3.

  69. 69.

    Günther, “Uniform Concept of Law,” 5–6.

  70. 70.

    See above, Sect. 3.1.2.

  71. 71.

    These remarks are collected in Ingeborg Maus, Über Volkssouveränität (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2011).

  72. 72.

    Ingeborg Maus, “Verfassung oder Vertrag? Zur Verrechtlichung Globaler Politik,” in Anarchie der Kommunikativen Freiheit, eds. Peter Niesen and Benjamon Herborth (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2007), 381–382.

  73. 73.

    Maus , “Verfassung oder Vertrag,” 382.

  74. 74.

    Michel Foucault, “Governmentality,” in The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, eds. Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon and Peter Miller (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 87.

  75. 75.

    See, Jacques Rancière, Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy, trans. Julie Rose (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 21f.

  76. 76.

    Rancière, Disagreement, 11.

  77. 77.

    See, for this argument, Andreas Fischer-Lescano and Ralph Christensen, “Auctoritatis Interpositio – How Systems Theory Deconstructs Decisionism,” Social Legal Studies 21, no. 1 (2012): 93.

  78. 78.

    This foundational difference is reflected in theoretical similarities. Ladeur and Slaughter understand law as networks, though from different perspectives. It is further reflected in the curious fact that the scholarship of Carl Schmitt is received by the political left and right. See Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations – The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), chapter 6; For a discussion of the changing roles of Carl Schmitt, see David Dyzenhaus, “Putting the State Back in Credit,” in The Challenge of Carl Schmitt, ed. Chantal Mouffe (London: Verso, 1999), 75–91.

  79. 79.

    See, Christopher McMahon, Reasonable Disagreement: A Theory of Political Morality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 93.

Bibliography

  • Abbott, Kenneth, and Duncan Snidal. 2000. Hard Law and Soft Law in International Governance. International Organization 54 (3): 421–456.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bertram, Christopher. Jean Jacques Rousseau. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Last modified 2012. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/rousseau/

  • Dellavalle, Sergio. forthcoming. Paradigms of Order. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dworkin, Ronald. 1977. Taking Rights Seriously. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2013. A New Philosophy for International Law. Philosophy and Public Affairs 41 (1): 2–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dyzenhaus, David. 1999. Putting the State Back in Credit. In The Challenge of Carl Schmitt, ed. Chantal Mouffe, 75–91. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fischer-Lescano, Andreas. 2005. Globalverfassung – Die Geltungsbegründung der Menschenrechte. Weilerswist: Velbrück.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fischer-Lescano, Andreas, and Ralph Christensen. 2012. Auctoritatis Interpositio – How Systems Theory Deconstructs Decisionism. Social Legal Studies 21 (1): 93–120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fischer-Lescano, Andreas, and Gunther Teubner. 2004. Regime-Collisions: The Vain Search for Legal Unity in the Fragmentation of Global Law. Michigan Journal of International Law 25: 999–1046.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, Michel. 1991. Governmentality. In The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, ed. Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller, 87–104. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Günther, Klaus. 2008. Legal Pluralism or Uniform Concept of Law – Globalization as a Problem of Legal Theory. No Foundations – Journal of Extreme Legal Positivism 5: 5–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Habermas, Jürgen. 1998. Between Facts and Norms. Trans. William Rehg. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2015. The Lure of Technocracy. Trans. Ciaran Cronin. Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Higgins, Rosalyn. 1994. Problems and Process – International Law and How We Use It. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Joerges, Christian, Poul F. Kjaer, and Tommi Ralli. 2011. A New Type of Conflicts Law as Constitutional Form in the Postnational Constellation. Transnational Legal Theory 2 (2): 153–165.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kingsbury, Benedict. 2009. The Concept of ‘Law’ in Global Administrative Law. European Journal of International Law 20 (1): 23–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Koskenniemi, Martti. 2014. The Gentle Civilizer of Nations – The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870–1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kumm, Mattias. 2009. The Cosmopolitan Turn in Constitutionalism – On the Relationship Between Constitutionalism in and Beyond the State. In Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law and Global Governance, ed. Joel P. Trachtman and Jeffrey L. Dunoff, 258–325. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Ladeur, Karl-Heinz. 1997. Towards a Legal Theory of Supranationality – The Viability of the Network Concept. European Law Journal 3 (1): 33–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2004. Globalization and the Conversion of Democracy to Polycentric Networks – Can Democracy Survive the End of the Nation State? In Public Governance in the Age of Globalization, ed. Karl-Heinz Ladeur, 89–118. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Loick, Daniel. 2012. Kritik der Souveränität. Frankfurt am Main: Campus.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marx, Karl. 1990. Zur Judenfrage. In Karl Marx/Friedrich Engels – Werke (MEW), vol. 1, 347–377. Berlin: Dietz.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maus, Ingeborg. 2007. Verfassung oder Vertrag? Zur Verrechtlichung Globaler Politik. In Anarchie der Kommunikativen Freiheit, ed. Peter Niesen and Benjamin Herborth, 383–405. Berlin: Suhrkamp.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2011. Über Volkssouveränität. Berlin: Suhrkamp.

    Google Scholar 

  • McMahon, Christopher. 2005. Reasonable Disagreement: A Theory of Political Morality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morgenthau, Hans. 1948. Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace. New York: A. A. Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prien, Thore. 2010. Fragmentierte Volkssouveränität – Recht, Gerechtigkeit und der Demokratische Einspruch in der Weltgesellschaft. Baden-Baden: Nomos.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pulkowski, Dirk. 2014. The Law and Politics of International Regime Conflict. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Rancière, Jacques. 1998. Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy. Trans. Julie Rose. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2002. Das Unvernehmen – Politik und Philosophie. Trans. Richard Steurer. Berlin: Suhrkamp.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ratner, Steven R. 2015. The Thin Justice of International Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Reisman, W. Michael, Siegfried Wiessner, and Andrew R. Willard. 2007. The New Haven School: A Brief Introduction. Yale Journal of International Law 32: 575–582.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roughan, Nicole. 2013. Authorities: Conflicts, Cooperation and Transnational Legal Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1994. Discourse on Political Economy and the Social Contract. Trans. Christopher Betts. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Slaughter, Anne-Marie. 1993. International Law and International Relations Theory: A Dual Agenda. American Journal of International Law 87 (2): 205–239.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Teubner, Gunther. 2009. Self-Subversive Justice: Contingency or Transcendence Formula of Law? Modern Law Review 72 (1): 1–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2012. Constitutional Fragments: Societal Constitutionalism and Globalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Tomuschat, Christian. 1993. Obligations Arising for States Without or Against Their Will. Recueil des Cours 241: 195–374.

    Google Scholar 

  • Venzke, Ingo. 2012. How Interpretation Makes International Law: On Semantic Change and Normative Twists. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • von Bogdandy, Armin, and Ingo Venzke. 2014.  In Whose Name? A Public Law Theory of International Adjudication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • von Bogdandy, Armin, Philip Dann, and Matthias Goldmann. 2008. Developing the Publicness of Publicness of Public International Law: Towards a Legal Framework of Global Governance Activities. German Law Journal 9 (11): 1375–1400.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Normative Orders, Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany

    David Roth-Isigkeit

Authors
  1. David Roth-Isigkeit
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Roth-Isigkeit, D. (2018). The Plurality Trilemma: The Contingent Geometry of Global Legal Thought. In: The Plurality Trilemma. Philosophy, Public Policy, and Transnational Law. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72856-8_6

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation