Plunder (eBook)

When the Rule of Law is Illegal

Ugo Mattei, Laura Nader (Autoren)

eBook Download: PDF

2008
John Wiley & Sons (Verlag)
978-0-470-69580-7 (ISBN)

Infos

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.

• Challenges traditionally held beliefs in the sanctity of the Rule of Law by exposing its dark side
• Examines the Rule of Law's relationship with 'plunder' - the practice of violent extraction by stronger political actors victimizing weaker ones - in the service of Western cultural and economic domination
• Provides global examples of plunder: of oil in Iraq; of ideas in the form of Western patents and intellectual property rights imposed on weaker peoples; and of liberty in the United States
• Dares to ask the paradoxical question - is the Rule of Law itself illegal?

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.

Inhalt

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 instruments of
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)

"Richly textured and strikingly original, Plunder draws on
history, communication theory, and political analysis to show how
U.S. policy expands influence and raids the pocketbooks of weaker
nations. Even if we do not call it by its old
name--imperialism--but globalization, free trade, or spreading
democracy, the result is the same. And at the heart of this
aggressively acquisitive policy lies a crown jewel of Enlightenment
thought, the rule of law. A gripping read."

-Richard Delgado, University of Pittsburgh

"This is a provocative, courageous, and path-breaking expose of
the dark side of 'the rule of law', by two authors of
wide-ranging practical experience and theoretical insight."

-George Bisharat, University of California, Hasting
College of the Law

"Plunder is the powerful product of interdisciplinary
research that reveals how international law has become not an
instrument of protecting the weak against the strong, but a means
of legitimizing and enriching the powerful."

-David H. Price, Saint Martin's University

"Ugo Mattei and Laura Nader are advancing a profoundly
disturbing message. The 'rule of law' is not only a
barrier to achieving a just society, but an ideological mechanism
for subjugating peoples and imposing injustice. I am impressed by
their insights and especially by their courage."

-William Greider, author, The Soul of Capitalism:
Opening Paths to a Moral Economy

"Through a sweeping exploration of global processes from
colonialism to neo-liberalism, Plunder offers an eye-opening look
at the "dark side" of the rule of law. This powerful
and disturbing analysis of the ways law has legitimated and
facilitated the appropriation of knowledge and property challenges
widespread views of the law."

-Sally Engle Merry, New York University

"A lucid and implacable analysis of the crucial relationship
between law and life in the age of global capitalism. A beam of
harsh light on the murky area where the rule of law comes into
contact with and is shaped by power, violence and abuse."

-Aldo Schiavone, Istituto Studi Umanistici

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 30.4.2008
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Archäologie
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Vor- und Frühgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Recht / Steuern ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Recht / Steuern ► EU / Internationales Recht
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• Themenwelt: Technik
• Schlagworte: Actors • Ökonomische u. politische Anthropologie • Anthropologie • Anthropology • Assault • Book • civil • Dark • Defender • Economic & Political Anthropology • extraction • frontal • Internationale Beziehungen • International Relations • Intimate • Law • Liberty • Long • New • Ökonomische u. politische Anthropologie • Plunder • Political • Political Science • Politikwissenschaft • Practice • Provocative • Recht • Relationship • Rule • sanctity • Sozialanthropologie • Stronger • treasured • Ugo • Ultimate • US • Victimizing • violent
• ISBN-10: 0-470-69580-3 / 0470695803
• ISBN-13: 978-0-470-69580-7 / 9780470695807