All this makes the pluralism of the modern world a frightening and hostile place. Roseveare (2013) defines legal pluralism as “the existence of multiple sources of law (governmental and non-state) within the same geographical area. Although the rule of law is often presented as a law developed and administered by the state, a growing body of evidence suggests that the establishment of a range of legal and quasi-legal mechanisms of security and justice creates choices for individuals, communities, and even the state itself” (p. 39). The UN (2011a, pp. 67-68) identifies three main types of legal pluralism: the sources of Islamic law are the Qur`an, the Sunnah and the Ijma, but most modern Western nation-states derive their legal system from the Christian superpowers of the ancients (Britain, France, etc.). This is also the reason why the moral laws found in the Bible have in fact been laws in their own right, with the original basic standard going far back in legal history and thus fulfilling the priority of positivists and naturalists. Hamed Kazemzadeh, orientalist, believes that despite the flattening of many current differences under the influence of science, technology and increasing communication in legal pluralism, we cannot imagine a significant reduction in differences in our fundamental value systems, whether philosophical or cultural, in the near future. [4] Not only is he wrong, but true patriots are those who advocate pluralism in America. 15. On the latter type of state pluralism, see, in particular, Arthurs, H. W., Without the Law: Administrative Justice and Legal Pluralism in 19th Century England (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985), Google Scholar. 14.
See, for example, Woodman, G.R., “Legal Pluralism and Justice” [1996] 40 Journal of African Law 152 at 157CrossRefGoogle Scholar: “Legal pluralism in general can be defined as the state in which a category of industrial relations is in the fields of activity of two or more legal norms. Alternatively, if one does not see it from above in the process of mapping the legal universe, but from the point of view of the individual legal entity, one can say that legal pluralism exists whenever a person is subject to more than one legal entity. See also Vanderlinden, J., “Return to Legal Pluralism: Twenty Years Later” (1989) 28 Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 149CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vanderlinden, J., “Towards a new conception of legal pluralism” (1993) 53 Journal of Legal Research 573Google Scholar, in which the author develops a modification of his earlier position: “I would modify my 1969 definition as follows: legal pluralism is the situation, for an individual, in which legal mechanisms under different orders are likely to apply to that situation.” [emphasis added]. Space has provided a way to reflect on the challenge of pluralism and the promise of granting universal rights, because, after all, no one is more alien than a space extraterrestrial. There is concern that traditional legal systems and Muslim legal systems do not promote women`s rights. Accordingly, members of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) called for the unification of legal systems within countries. Legal pluralism implies the coexistence of multiple legal forms. These include State law, international law, transnational law, customary law, religious law, indigenous law and the law of various ethnic or cultural communities. Legal pluralism is discussed today in legal anthropology, sociology of law, history of law, postcolonial jurisprudence, women`s rights and human rights, comparative law, international law, transnational law, EU law, case law and legal and development studies.
Much confusion and theoretical disagreement surrounds discussions of legal pluralism – which this book seeks to clarify and resolve. Through historical and contemporary studies – including the Middle Ages, the Ottoman Empire, postcolonial societies, indigenous peoples, Jewish and Islamic law, Western constitutional legal systems, transnational law and others – he shows that the dominant image of the state with a unified legal system exercising a monopoly over law is, and always has been, false and misleading. The legal systems of States are pluralistic in various respects, and multiple manifestations of law coexist in each society. This book explains the underlying causes and sources of legal pluralism, identifies its various consequences, discovers its conceptual and normative implications, and resolves current theoretical disputes in a way that is useful to social scientists, theorists, jurists, and legal and development scholars and practitioners.
