Ugo Mattei, Laura Nader

Plunder

When the Rule of Law Is Illegal

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Plunder examines the dark side of the Rule of Law and explores how it has been used as a powerful political weapon by Western countries in order to legitimize plunder - the practice of violent extraction by stronger political actors victimizing weaker ones.

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The Rule of Law has long been cherished in the US as the ultimate defender of civil liberty and the American way of life - a Rule of Law which no one can quite define, but everyone supports. In this provocative new book, Ugo Mattei and Laura Nader wage a frontal assault on this treasured belief in the sanctity of the Rule of Law, unflinchingly exploring its previously neglected dark side. They expose its intimate relationship with plunder - the practice of violent extraction by stronger political actors victimizing weaker ones - in the service of Western cultural and economic domination.

Boldly conceived and vibrantly written, Plunder dares to ask the paradoxical question - is the Rule of Law itself illegal? Mattei and Nader expose global examples of plunder: of Native American lands, to the plunder of oil in Iraq; of ideas in the form of Western patents and intellectual property rights imposed on weaker peoples; and of liberty and the demise of Rule of Law in the United States. This thought-provoking text is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary law, politics, and social justice.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Wiley & Sons
• 1. Auflage
• Seitenzahl: 304
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. April 2008
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 229mm x 152mm x 16mm
• Gewicht: 425g
• ISBN-13: 9781405178945
• ISBN-10: 1405178949
• Artikelnr.: 23502111

Autorenporträt

Ugo Mattei is Distinguished Professor of International and Comparative Law at University of California, Hastings and at the University of Turin, Italy. He is a widely published scholar in economic and political aspects of law and his work has been translated into many languages. His professional activities have included substantive periods of teaching and research in Europe, Africa, and Latin America. Laura Nader is Professor of Anthropology at University of California, Berkeley and is possibly the leading world authority in Anthropology of Law. She has conducted fieldwork in Lebanon, Mexico, and the US and her groundbreaking work on harmony ideology and access to law and her unmatchable publication list make Nader one of the most interesting voices in the current academic scene.

Inhaltsangabe

Preface. Introduction. 1. Plunder and The Rule of Law. An Anatomy of
Plunder. Plunder, Hegemony, and Positional Superiority. Law, Plunder, and
European Expansionism. Institutionalizing Plunder: The Colonial
Relationship and the Imperial Project. A Story of Continuity: Constructing
the Empire of Law (lessness). 2. Neo-liberalism: Economic Engine of
Plunder. The Argentinean Bonanza. Neo-Liberalism: An Economic Theory of
Simplification and a Spectacular Project. Structural Adjustment Programs
and the Comprehensive Development Framework. Development Frameworks,
Plunder, and the Rule of Law. 3. Before Neo-Liberalism: a Story of Western
Plunder. The European Roots of Colonial Plunder. The Fundamental Structure
of US Law as a Post-Colonial Reception. A Theory of Lack, Yesterday and
Today. Before Neo-Liberalism: Colonial Practices and Harmonious
Strategies--Yesterday and Now. 4. Plunder of Ideas and the Providers of
Legitimacy. Hegemony and legal Consciousness. Intellectual Property as
Plunder of Ideas. Providing Legitimacy: Law and Economics. Providing
Legitimacy: Lawyers and Anthropologists. 5. Constructing the Conditions for
Plunder. Plunder of Oil: Iraq and Elsewhere. The New World Order of
Plunder. Not Only Iraq: Plunder, War, and Legal Ideologies of Intervention.
Institutional Lacks as Conditions for Plunder: Real or Created?. Double
Standards Policy and Plunder. Poverty: Justification for Intervention and
Consequence of Plunder. 6. International Imperial Law. Reactive
Institutions of Imperial Plunder. U.S. Rule of Law: Forms of Global
Domination. The Globalization of the American Way. An Ideological
Institution of Global Governance: International Law. Holocaust Litigation:
Back to the Future. The Swallowing of International Law by U.S. law.
Economic Power and the U.S. Courts as Imperial Agencies. 7. Hegemony and
Plunder. The Demise of the Rule of Law in the United States. Strategies to
Subordinate the Rule of Law to Plunder. Plunder in High Places: Enron and
its Aftermath. Plunder in Even Higher Places: Electoral Politics and
Plunder. Plunder of Liberty: The War on Terror. Plunder Undisrupted: The
Discourse of Patriotism. 8. Beyond an Illegal Rule of Law?. Summing Up:
Plunder and The Global Transformation of the Law. Imperial Rule of Law or
the People's Rule of Law. The Future of Plunder. Notes to Text. Selected
Further Reading. Documentary Film Resources. Index

Rezensionen

"Plunder is a detailed, well written autopsy of how law and our legal system further strengthens the already powerful, while decimating those already located outside the reach of power. In the world of the post-economic collapse, Plunder is a painfully frightening roadmap decrying the dangers of the exact "legal" practices (derivatives, call options, etc.) that brought on the current economic crisis." ( Multinational Monitor , Jan - Feb 2009)

"Mattei and Nader note how win-win situations as ostensibly promoted by Alternative Dispute Resolution practices are in fact harmony ideologies that 'may be used to suppress people s resistance, by socializing them toward conformity by means of consensus, cooperation, passivity, and docility, and by silencing people who speak out angrily." ( Swans Commentary )
"Without doubt this is an important book ... Mattei and Nader have produced a courageous, intellectually refined, and superbly critical book about one of the main instrumentsof society-building in our culture. The book should find a wide audience in law classes, and in graduate courses of sociology, anthropology, and political sciences." ( Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute )