Hakimi: The Integrative Effects of Global Legal Pluralism

Monica Hakimi (Univ. of Michigan - Law) has posted The Integrative Effects of Global Legal Pluralism (in The Oxford Handbook of Global Legal Pluralism, Paul Schiff Berman ed., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

International lawyers widely understand that legal pluralism is a fact of global life and that it can, in certain settings, be desirable. But many still approach it with some trepidation. A prominent skeptical claim is that pluralist structures lack the integrative resources that unify people around a shared governance project. This claim has been prominent with respect to two kinds of conflicts that are routine in international law: (1) conflicts that play out within particular legal arrangements, and (2) conflicts that cut across legal arrangements. For each kind of conflict, the skeptical claim is directed at the pluralist structure itself. The stated problem -- the thing that is thought to disintegrate the association -- is that competing legal positions are not reconciled or resolved but allowed to coexist, fester, and repeatedly reappear.

This book chapter challenges that skeptical claim. Although other scholars have already argued that it is overdrawn, I aim to contest its central premise. I argue that ineradicable governance conflicts are not necessarily dissociative for the people who partake in them. Creating space for these people to have their conflicts in relatively constructive ways can instead by productive for the group. It is a way for them to engage together and invest in a joint governance project, despite their many disagreements, and thus to preserve the project as a going concern that binds them.