The limits of normative legal pluralism: Review of Paul Schiff Berman, Global Legal Pluralism: A Jurisprudence of Law beyond Borders

Abstract

For more than a decade, Paul Schiff Berman has been one of the leading advocates of the normative virtues of legal pluralism. In his book Global Legal Pluralism (CUP, 2012), Berman articulates the core features of his pluralist position. He attempts to make a convincing case for the acceptability and superiority of legal pluralism as the normative framework in dealing with the existence of multiple normative realms.In this essay, we argue that, as it currently stands, legal pluralism does not provide a sufficiently adequate normative framework for managing conflict between and among normative orders. The principal reason for this stance is our conclusion that its basic premises are implausible. Berman’s argument helps us in illuminating the challenges legal pluralists have to overcome if they really want to provide a suitable and cogent alternative to global constitutionalism in relation to the growing complexity of law and its relations to other sources of normativity.For Berman’s reply to our argument, see his How legal pluralism is and is not distinct from liberalism: A response to Alexis Galan and Dennis Patterson (2013) 11(3) International Journal of Constitutional Law 801.