The significance in critical legal scholarship of David M Trubek, the beneficiary of this refreshing Festschrift, is celebrated in a collection of thought-provoking and inspiring essays, written by his academic companions, which convincingly advances the salience of critical approaches to understanding the role of law in global governance. A savant of critical legal engagement, Trubek has produced scholarship that is progressive, in the sense of challenging the conservative legal order, as well as in affirming links with varieties of social and legal critical theory associated with the Frankfurt School. De Campos Mello's ‘Brazilian Reality’, the colourful cover image of the dust jacket, fittingly alludes to the global span of Trubek's research; from the US to Brazil and other BRICS states (Russia, India, China and South Africa), and from research of institutions in transnational and international networks to ‘new governance’ scholarship in an EU–US comparative context.
Forged by the editors and leading scholars at a workshop at the European University Institute in Florence in June 2012, the book has six elements. Part I, Critical Pathways in Law, comprises reflections on Trubek's impressive corpus and its critical capacity, kicking off with ‘a kind of condensed intellectual biography’ (vii) from Duncan Kennedy. William Simon evaluates Trubek's critical continuity by comparing his early work on Law and Development, Law and Society and Critical Legal Studies with that of his less explicitly critical engagement with ‘new governance’. Ruth Buchanan explores the haunting legacy of Trubek's seminal article, published with Marc Galanter in 1974, entitled ‘Scholars in Self-Estrangement’, which, she argues, continues to remind readers of the ‘occupational hazards’ (37) of critical legal scholarship. Mario Schapiro and Diogo Coutinho present their current collaboration with Trubek on the relationship between political economy and law in Brazil, as part of the LANDS project on Law and the New Developmental State in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela. Through their personally engaging and candid essays, the contributors survey the course of Trubek's critiques of liberal and neo-liberal globalization, making this section appealing equally to those familiar with, or new to, his work.
The remaining five parts are collections of essays around particular themes: Part II, Transformations in Global Governance, takes a look at the bigger picture, with David Kennedy making an inspiring and persuasive call for academic study to help ‘remake world political economy’ (100) and Peer Zumbansen connecting domestic and global governance discourses, and global constitutionalism discourses. In Part III, the theme of Labour and Globalisation is given the fullest treatment, wherein the five essays plea for a reorientation of the field of labour law in the wake of globalization, particularly the neo-liberal variety. Harry Arthurs suggests that transnational labour standards regulation must develop effective strategies to overcome structural weaknesses of advanced economies owing to processes of global free trade and Lance Compa evaluates the impact of linkages between trade law and labour rights on new forms of global governance. The protection of middle-class labour rights in the developed world is explored by Katherine Stone and Kerry Rittich sets out some of the challenges in regulating work, suggesting ‘more far-reaching complex analyses of labour market regulation’ (186) including engagement with actors in emerging markets and policies adopted to address the economic crisis. Alvaro Santos draws the collection to a close by calling for more exploration of the relationship of economic sectors and labour regimes in order to reimagine market flexibility and labour law and for which he offers some welcome concrete suggestions.
Three contrasting essays engage with law and ‘new governance’ in Part IV on the European Union. While Kenneth Armstrong and Norbert Reich explore the potential of the Open Method of Coordination as a means of new governance in relation to the orthodox Community Method, Christina Joerges and Maria Weimer suggest that proceduralization of EU law through ‘conflicts-law constitutionalism’ is preferable to the ‘executive managerialism’ that they associate with new governance. The essays in Part V on Rights Discourse explore social, civil and human rights through a range of issues and locations: Henry Steiner discusses the headscarf controversy in France; Tamara Hervey locates social rights in the ‘re-imagined jurisprudence’ of European courts; and Helena Alviar Garcia evaluates the degree to which the Colombian Constitutional Court has drawn on social, economic and cultural rights to limit or reinforce the market.
Yves Dezalay and Bryant Garth open the final Part VI on The Legal Profession and Globalisation by linking Trubek's sociological scholarship with Bourdieu and calling for a more reflexive sociology in order to understand the legal field. Michele Papa explores the reformist agenda in BRICS and John Ohnesorge evaluates the extent to which local corporate lawyers providing international legal services should be supported in developing states. Rounding off the collection is David Wilkins's account of the current collaboration with Trubek on GLEE (Globalization, Lawyers and Emerging Economies), reminding us of the need to forge closer links with scholars around the world to study in the intersections of international law and global governance processes (448) and underscoring the significance of this collection as a resource for interdisciplinary research.
The variety of styles, issues and methodological approaches of these papers, addressed in the context of a globalizing world, creates empirical openings that both critical legal, and doctrinal, scholars will find refreshing and illuminating, making it a genuinely valuable resource on global governance. While advancing the salience of critical legal scholarship of global governance, it appears entirely deliberate that the editors stop short of a thorough defence of the ‘critical’, which is a welcome move. For what underpins this collection is not the protection of a particular theoretical position, but the desire of the contributors to touch base with an academic whose scholarship, drive and collaboration has been influential in their own work, thereby creating innovative spaces for exciting and important research projects. So, far from creating a gallimaufry, the editors enable the reader to travel through a coherent and glorious celebration of research inspired by Trubek's work, and in this they succeed in honouring the academic journey of an outstanding critical global scholar.
