The Redress of Law: Globalisation, Constitutionalism and Market Capture

Abstract

Emilios Christodoulidis’ The Redress of Law: Globalisation, Constitutionalism and Market Capture is a major achievement for law as both an academic discipline and self-reflexive practice. It skilfully combines an intricate analysis of political constitutionalism’s nature, dynamics and subjection to economic ideologies and market forces with a critical proposal for a new, dignified political constitutionalism freed from the latter. More specifically, it calls for a critical reading of the philosophies and practices that have informed Europe’s sociopolitical, legal and economic development over the past few decades; and a contextual, disruptive framing of a new sociopolitical and legal consciousness released from ‘market coordinates’ (p 355) and centred around what Christodoulidis believes to be the necessary conditions that ought to be fulfilled if our social existence is to be truly just. Thus, The Redress of Law is best described as ‘a treatise in critical constitutional theory’ (p 4) advocating ‘a restatement of praxis philosophy’ (p 2) capable of attaining radical sociopolitical and legal change.