New Legal Science: Toward Law as a Global Discipline

Abstract

This essay has two parts: In Part 1, I consider the need for a new approach to the study of law beyond traditional parochial boundaries, explore how one might go about developing such an approach, and outline what such an approach might look like (New Legal Science). The point of the New Legal Science is to bridge the divide between the study of law in common law and civil law countries, marked by the abandonment of the project of legal science in the former and its continued pursuit in the latter, and thereby to facilitate the transformation of law from a parochial into a global discipline. In Part 2, I briefly illustrate this approach by applying it to the study of penal law, as part of a comprehensive critical analysis of state penal power from the perspectives of law and police (the Dual Penal State).