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Despite a global consensus that rule of law is desirable, there are important debates about what this entails and how it can be achieved or supported in developing and transitional countries of the Global South. Accordingly, this chapter considers the importance and contextual suitability of rule of law as a building block for ‘peaceful and inclusive societies’ in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). We begin by examining key definitional debates and consider the challenges inherent to monitoring progress towards SDG target 16.3 which seeks to ‘promote the rule of law at the national and international levels, and ensure equal access to justice for all’. We proceed to illustrate some of these definitional and methodological limitations by considering how favourable rankings of model Western democracies mask rule of law deficits that relate to access to justice and the protection of human rights for marginalised populations. This critique highlights an important point that is repeatedly emphasised throughout the rule of law literature: rule of law is not an end state but rather an ideal that all countries must continuously work to realise and sustain. The remainder of the chapter considers the challenges of promoting a Western rule of law agenda in a failed and titular democracy (the Solomon Islands) and a peaceful and prosperous country (Singapore) which adheres to a ‘thin’ definition of the rule of law that does not conform with liberal ideals.

In the dark days of the 1980s and 1990s, the abolition of capital punishment was virtually unthinkable. However, a new form of abolitionism – which I call Rule of Law abolitionism – has raised the hopes of death penalty opponents. In this chapter, I elucidate the logic of the Rule of Law abolitionist argument, distinguishing it from its more familiar doctrinal and moral variants. I then assess its strengths and weaknesses. On the basis of this critique, I indicate the route Rule of Law abolitionism must travel to bring about the demise of the death penalty.

This chapter provides comments and suggestions to the lawmaker, and especially to economic policy-makers in the field of the optimal regulatory framework and implementation of sustainable practices. The main findings are as follows: (1) degradation of the rule of law in several European Union (EU) Member States and constant political undermining of the legal institutions represent the main threat for the implementation of sustainable practices and development; (2) the golden regulatory rule of thumb provides that regulatory intervention is suggested merely in cases of market failures under the condition that the costs of such intervention do not exceed the benefits; (3) over-regulation might impede implementation of sustainable practices, distort the operation of the market, undermine productivity, diminish growth and social wealth and consequently also sustainability; (4) efficiency and wealth maximization should be the lawmaker’s leading normative principle in designing the legal framework that will enable effective implementation of sustainable practices; (5) the efficient level of harmonization or subsidiarity of decision-making in the EU urges for a rigorous investigation of costs and benefits of the EU top-down harmonization policies which should lead to a better, efficient vertical allocation of sustainability agenda between EU and the Member States; and (6) The Reflection Paper on Sustainable Development Goals – “Towards a Sustainable Europe in 2030” – represents an effective institutional framework in pursue of the overall sustainability targets.

While the concept of legal culture has been receiving a growing attention from scholars, this research often overemphasizes the similarity of the opinions held by different segments of population. Furthermore, the relationship of migration and the change of legal-cultural attitudes has not received particular attention. Drawing on 70 in-depth interviews with the immigrants of the early 1990s from the former Soviet Union to Israel and the secular Israeli Jews, this chapter provides a comprehensive account of the various aspects of legal culture of these groups. The second important finding is the persistence of the legal-cultural attitudes and perceptions over time.

Neoclassic economics is a thing of considerable beauty. It yet finds an increasing tendency on the part of those trained in its discipline to rebel from its neatly fitted abstractions and intriguing diagrams. The rebellion stems from two sources. Veblen's sweeping attacks upon its postulates¹⁶ shock its theoretical foundations. The rapid changes in the industrial and business world discredited it on another front by bringing into increasingly sharp relief the divergence between the institutional assumptions of the orthodox theory and the conditions actually obtaining. The giant corporation, overhead costs, and the necessity for maintenance of volume, industrial concentration, the trade association, a widening spread among income classes, advertising, the growing inability of the consumer to gauge quality, the resort to reorganization instead of the “going out of business” of the long-run analyses – what place could the orthodox theory give to these important characteristics of the existing business economy?

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

In this chapter, the author offers a horizontal comparison of interpretation standards contained in international legal instruments of different origin. These legal instruments range from international treaties to model laws. They also originate from different law makers such as the United Nations or individual states as well as trade or academic organisations, mainly regulating civil and commercial matters. The author argues that this comparison can provide the basis for the development of a uniform standard in the application of such law, which is often referred to as uniform law because it provides a single source of law to regulate a multitude of situations spanning across national boundaries. The main point of reference is the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, also known as the VCLT. This UN treaty specifically provides a general interpretation standard. From there newer standards occurring in subsequent uniform laws can be integrated using the lex specialis doctrine. This, in turn, provides opportunities for comprehensive usable methods to be developed for uniform law both in a public and private law settings. These then facilitate transparency, fairness and reasonableness. The correct identification of object and purposes of any given instrument is crucial for the successful interpretation of its content. It is this point that needs further research, and this chapter offers a starting point by providing some detailed examples from a range of uniform laws of varying nature including international sales laws, arbitration laws and Double Taxation Conventions.

Legal intermediation is an emerging theoretical concept developed to grasp the importance of the process and actors who contribute to legal endogenization, in particular in the field of economic activities and work governed by various public regulations. This chapter proposes to extend the analytical category of legal intermediary to all actors who, even if they are not legal professionals, deal on a daily basis with legal categories and provisions. In order to deepen our understanding of these actors and their contribution to how organizations frame legality, this chapter investigates four examples of legal intermediaries who are not legal professionals. Based on field surveys conducted over the past 15 years in France on employment policy, industrial relations, occupational health and safety regulation, and forensic economics, I make three contributions. First, the cases show the diversity of legal intermediaries and their growing and increasingly reflexive roles in our complex economies. Second, while they are not legal professionals per se, to different degrees, these legal intermediaries assume roles similar to those of legal professionals such as legislators, judges, lawyers, inspectors, cops, and even clerks. Finally, depending on their level of legitimacy and power, I show how legal intermediaries take part in the process of legal endogenization and how they more broadly frame ordinary legality.