Law and Globalization from Below: Towards a Cosmopolitan Legality. Edited by Boaventura de Sousa Santos and César A. Rodríguez-Garavito Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. xv+395. $95.00 cloth; $45.00 paper; $36.00 e-book.

Abstract

Law and from Below: Towards a Cosmopolitan Legality. Edited by Boaventura de Sousa Santos and Cesar A. Rodriguez-Garavito. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. xv+395. $95.00 cloth; $45.00 paper; $36.00 e-book. In counterpoint to top-down globalization studies focusing on intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) such as the World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund, globe-spanning transnational corporations, or geopolitics among powerful states, the past decade or so has seen the emergence of a rapidly growing library of bottom-up views of globalization. Many of these works adopt the terminology and imagery of studies, building more or less explicitly on Gramsci's analysis of the role of ideology in reinforcing dominance-subordination relationships. The editors frame this collection in such terms in their introductory chapter, welcoming the many counter-hegemonic movements that challenge power centers in world society and depicting them as developers and beneficiaries of a subaltern cosmopolitan legality. By this they mean commitment in use of the law to the principle of universal inclusion: the poor, the powerless, and the marginalized must be empowered as rights-endowed subjects with access to all of the available legal channels, and they are to be accorded sincere respect in their efforts to meet their needs and protect or improve their life circumstances. The normative underpinnings of the volume are abundantly dear. Globalization from below translates into efforts by those at the low end of the social scale to cope with and shape the impact of powerful globalizing actors, particularly transnational corporations and economic governance IGOs (the economic dimension of globalization is the chief focus, though some chapters consider other dimensions). To some extent, it also translates into the globalization of the movements themselves, as local movements form cross-border alliances with similar movements elsewhere, seek and gain support from global nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and venue shop for foreign jurisdictions where national law can be invoked to rein in corporate behavior (as in the famous 1996 California case, under the Alien Tort Claims Act, that charged Unocal with human rights violations related to its gas pipeline project in Burma). The introductory chapter is only a frame, however. The collage of 15 chapters that fill the frame consists mostly of case studies of a variety of counterhegemonic movements, with little attention to the epistemological concerns of the rather abstruse critical theory approach developed in the introduction. The chapters cover many different places and spaces, from the World Social Forum to indigenous rights struggles in Colombia to constitutional interpretation in India to the Movement of the Landless in Brazil. These case studies are largely devoid of explicit theorizing or theory-building; they concentrate on their stories, with much detail about movement histories, legal and nonlegal (sometimes illegal) actions, legal successes and failures, and so on. In most chapters, the law is at issue at numerous levels. At times, movements challenge local ordinances, municipal plans, or national development projects; at times they focus on interpretations or implementation of national legislation; at times they invoke or challenge regional accords and regulation (NAFTA, the European Union). …