After the Backlash: A New PRIDE for Transnational Law

Forthcoming, Jessup's Bold Proposal: Critical Engagements with Transnational Law (Peer Zumbansen ed., Cambridge University Press, 2019)

Duke Law School Public Law & Legal Theory Series No. 2019-26

16 Pages Posted: 12 Apr 2019

See all articles by Ralf Michaels

Ralf Michaels

Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law

Date Written: April 12, 2019

Abstract

The chapter discusses the current backlash against transnational law, as exemplified in the Brexit discussions underway in the United Kingdom. That backlash, it is argued, is based on an irrational nostalgic desire for the past: there is no return to the nation state as it existed. But much contemporary transnational law suffers from a nostalgia of its own—nostalgia for the period, some sixty years ago, when transnational law was first developed. That time, the post-war area, is as irreversibly passé as is the nation state, and transnational law, it is argued, can no longer rest on the ideas of its birth. Instead, the chapter advocates for a renewal of transnational law based on a new “PRIDE.” That PRIDE consists of a number of elements: politicization of law, redistribution as challenge, inclusion of outsiders (including opponents), democratization of law making and adjudication instead of exaggerated trust in experts or seemingly natural consequences, and energization and emotion to counter the emotionality of opponents. An earlier version of sections I and II was published as Ralf Michaels, Does Brexit Spell the Death of Transnational Law?, 17 GERMAN L. J. 51-61 (Brexit Special Supplement 2016).

Keywords: transnational law, Brexit, legal theory, European Union

Suggested Citation

Michaels, Ralf, After the Backlash: A New PRIDE for Transnational Law (April 12, 2019). Forthcoming, Jessup's Bold Proposal: Critical Engagements with Transnational Law (Peer Zumbansen ed., Cambridge University Press, 2019), Duke Law School Public Law & Legal Theory Series No. 2019-26, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3370926

Ralf Michaels (Contact Author)

Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law ( email )

Mittelweg 187
Hamburg, D-20148
Germany

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
112
Abstract Views
756
Rank
441,712
PlumX Metrics