Mosaic of Global History of Law: 21st Century

It is widely said that temporary migrants have been trapped into otherwise free liberal labor markets, a condition that has persisted and expanded with the retrenchment and privatization of managed migration in the neoliberal knowledge economy. This book examines the recent historical relationship between this status in the labor market and the rise of administrative and regulatory state projects to intervene in economy and society, from periods of planning and organized intervention, into what has been called the competition state, where immigration policy is driven by the neoliberal need to attract purely the best and the brightest minds. The aim of the current research is to bring the intellectual spirit of the different faces of the trajectory of US legal history to the study of more contemporary labor and employment relations. The US has not had a binary between market and carceral labor discipline and rights in the 20th century, nor does it today. The continuous rise of flexible and temporary labor migration shows us that the modern liberal state and labor market is more plural than scholars have asserted.

Bilateral recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments has become a stress point in the commercial, political, and social relationship, especially between neighboring countries. The present book examines in detail how this issue has been solved both at the federal and the state level, focusing on the U.S. and Mexico. By analyzing thoroughly both substantive and procedural law, this book tries to show how any litigant should address the issue when facing a case where a foreign judgment needs to be recognized and enforced in the U.S. or Mexico. The book attempts to locate the current debate and prospective solutions reviewing very succinctly the way arbitral awards have been able to overcome the uncertainty issue faced by foreign decisions because they are basically governed by one universal legal instrument, the United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, which is incorporated into the U.S. legal system through the Federal Arbitration Act. It is important to note that the facts, evidence, and law is applicable to all foreign judgments, including the closest partners of the U.S. such as Mexico or Canada, since as of today the U.S. has not ratified any international treaty with particular countries on the matter.

Historically, the legal profession in China has expanded following a short period of rapid social transition. This research examines the modern Chinese legal history on the public interest nature of legal work, the pro bono work. Previous research offers us a theoretical foundation for pro bono issues in the age of the globalization, and should go beyond individual elements. Instead, the influence from environment, culture, and politics should be seriously taken into consideration. Because of the huge difference in culture and legal tradition between China and western countries, this book addresses this knowledge gap and expands our understanding of the legal profession in China. In addition to factors within the Chinese legal system, the wave of legal globalization warrants investigation of pro bono issues in the Chinese context. The story about Chinese pro bono work is an integral part in the increasingly globalized pro bono system, showing that the development of the legal profession and public interest service in China has been increasingly institutionalized with multiple variations of institutional factors to lawyers' attitudes.

Jurisdictional politics are defined as the judicial determination of legal orders' boundaries. These boundaries are delineated by judicial pronouncements defining the proper forum for dispute resolution, articulating the proper rules for resolving legal disputes, clarifying the application of legal rules, and recognizing, enforcing legal acts. In short, jurisdictional politics is about how courts exercise authority and justify this exercise, aiming at the institutionalized resolution of disagreements. The study of European jurisdictional politics exemplifies in a unique way the process of legal change from a Westphalian state-centered legal order to a pluralistic post-Westphalian one. This book takes the European reality as an example case of supranational legal history, examining how the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights resolve jurisdictional conflicts by means of jurisdictional politics. The book, therefore, will explain the causes and consequences of the jurisdictional regimes for managing transboundary jurisdictional conflicts developed in a multi-ethnic legal context. This book adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the historical development of jurisdictional politics that combines the findings of both law and social science.

The interaction of formal and non-formal normative orders is explored in the context of the resolution of family disputes by analyzing the historical relationship between law, family, and culture in a legally pluralistic postcolonial African society, like Kenya. Current phenomena that have occurred contemporaneously since the late 19th century are examined, such as the transformation of traditional African social structures and the introduction of new legal processes arising from British colonial rule. This book attempts to deal with the question of the confluence of these phenomena, particularly in the context of families with a specific focus on dispute resolution. It is finally argued that the dichotomous view between formal law and custom is not realistic and that these systems do not operate independently, but interact in various mutually constitutive ways. Using a historical and contextual approach, the existence of this dichotomy is challenged by uncovering the processes by which the African family has been constructed and reproduced. The tension between continuity and change is highlighted, with a meticulous analysis of the effects of social change on the African family, which has not conformed to either a purely traditional or modern model, but has developed in unique configurations that encompass both the traditional and the modem.