Legal Pluralism and the Validity of Law

• Applicant: Peter Gailhofer
• Subject Area: Principles of Law and Jurisprudence
• Term: from 2015 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 283326618

How can the validity of law be justified under conditions of legal pluralism? The paradigm of legal pluralism has been subject to intense debate, originating in the social sciences and gaining significance in legal theoretical contexts. These discussions refer to empirical phenomena as well as to practical problems¿such as the habitual practices of cultural minorities or the normative orders of globalized society (i.e., transnational investment law or the ¿lex mercatoria¿). Many of these problems are politically highly controversial and thus point to a challenging ambivalence of the concept of legal pluralism. Precicely this ambivalence is fruitful from a legal theoretical perspective. The author advances an analysis and reconstruction of the genesis and major issues of legal pluralism¿a complex, contested and in many respects vague concept. Upon this basis, he then develops a theoretically grounded approach to a pluralist concept of legal validity.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants