Examining (international) law: towards a systematic, coherent and radical theory

Boyd, Christopher M.J. (2012) Examining (international) law: towards a systematic, coherent and radical theory. LL.M(R) thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This thesis examines accounts of law – and more particularly public international law – provided by Marxian scholarship. It does so with the aim of revealing and analysing those aspects which can help build the conceptual framework necessary for the creation of a systematic, coherent and radical theory of the contemporary world order. In order to be intellectually satisfying and practically useful, such a theory must be capable of addressing the relationships amongst law, state and economy at the global level, and accounting for the form, content, function and structure of the global legal order.

Throughout, this thesis draws on a number of different traditions of legal, political and economic thought from American Legal Realism and French Structuralism to World Polity Theory and Pashukanite and Gramscian Marxism. However, it seeks to highlight, in particular, those insights available from theorists whose works have hitherto failed to receive the attention they deserve within critical international legal scholarship because of their primary association with domestic legal or political criticism.

The intention in doing so is to demonstrate the benefits of rejecting the a priori distinction between the domestic and international legal fields so common within orthodox legal scholarship on both sides of the divide. What is hoped will be provided by such a rejection is the conceptual space for generating a theory relevant not simply to public international law but to every legal field and, thus, ‘the Law’ as a whole.

• Item Type: Thesis (LL.M(R))
• Qualification Level: Masters
• Keywords: International Law, domestic law, Marx, transnational, class, Theory, orthodox scholarship, Structualism, state, imperialism, apparatus
• Subjects: J Political Science > JX International law; K Law > K Law (General); J Political Science > JC Political theory
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Law
• Supervisor's Name: Rasulov, Dr. Akbar
• Date of Award: 2012
• Depositing User: Mr Christopher Boyd
• Unique ID: glathesis:2012-3312
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 26 Apr 2012
• Last Modified: 10 Dec 2012 14:06
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/3312