How can we characterise law and legal theory in the twenty-first century? Law After Modernity argues that we live in an age 'after Modernity' and that legal theory must take account of this fact. The book presents a dynamic analysis of law, which focusses on the richness and pluralism of law, on its historical embeddedness, its cultural contingencies, as well as acknowledging contemporary law's global and transnational dimensions.

However, Law After Modernity also warns that the complexity, fragmentation, pluralism and globalisation of contemporary law may all too easily perpetuate injustice. In this respect, the book departs from many postmodern and pluralist accounts of law. Indeed, it asserts that the quest for justice becomes a crucial issue for law in the era of legal pluralism, and it investigates how it may be achieved.

The approach is fresh, contextual and interdisciplinary, and, unusually for a legal theory work, is illustrated throughout with works of art and visual representations, which serve to re-enforce the messages of the book.

1. Introduction: Beyond the 'Degree Zero' of Law after Modernity
Jurisprudentia
Law and the Image
'Modernity'
'After' Modernity
'Law'
Beyond the 'Degree Zero' of Law in Modernity
Methodology
2. Autonomous Law or Redundant Law? The Elusive Nature of Legal Theory
Autonomous Law
Failures of Legal Autonomy
Replacements and New Understandings
A Broader Definition of Law?
Against the 'One Big Thing'
3. Law as System: The Missing Multidimensionality of Law
Methodical Law
Undermining the System
Beyond State Law
Complexity and Interesting Relationships
The Missing Multidimensionality of Law
Multiple Relationships: 'Strange Loops and Tangled Hierarchies'
Cubist Law? The Lack of a Singular Perspective
4. Reconfiguring the Legal Landscape: The Sojourn of Legal Pluralism
Disorder, Entropy, Chaos: Is Law Like Literature?
A Plurality of Laws and Legal Pluralism
Problematic Pluralism
Positive Crossings, Engagements and Perspectives: Turbulent Beauty?
Visualising Law Today
Conclusion
5. The Injustice of Law after Modernity
Injustice, Insecurity and Flexible, Private Justice
Globalisation and International Commerce
Privatisation, Flexible Law, Governance and Insecurity
Conclusion
6. Law, Justice and Injustice
The Confusions of Justice
The Proximity of Justice to Law
Can Justice Ever Be Transnational?
Transnational Justice
Justice after Modernity
7. Legal Justice I: 'Maimed Justice' and the Rule of Law
Maimed Justice
A Common Conception of Justice? Justice and the Rule of Law
The Shameful Absence of the Rule of Law
8. Legal Justice II: Reclaiming the Rule of Law from its 'Dark Side'-Critical Legal Justice
The Critiques
Against the Critiques
The Need for the Rule of Law
The Rule of Law Transfigured: Critical Legal Justice
Conclusion
9. The Enigma of Human Rights
A Conceptual Lack of Clarity
Foundations
Scepticism
Why Then: An Historical Investigation
Why Are We Still so Preoccupied with Human Rights?
Juridification of Human Rights
Pluralism, Complexity and Human Rights
10. Critical Legal Justice and Beyond: Cosmopolitanism
Cosmopolitanism
The Critique of Cosmopolitanism
Cosmopolitan 'Law'?
Conclusion
11. Beyond Cosmopolitanism: The Murky World of Governance and Global 'Justice'
Reflexive Justice?
Accountability
Restorative and Responsive Justice
Reinforcing Critical Legal Justice
Anarchic Resistance to Injustice
12. Conclusion: Law and Justice after Modernity
Diagnosis and Critique
Justice
Resistance and Demanding Justice

“... the work is interesting, the arguments clear, and the book is well-written.

Douglas-Scott's book has a number of successes. It provides good discussions of a wide range of thinkers and arguments... the survey is wide and largely accurate...It is a work I can and do recommend.

” –  John H. Bogart, Law and Politics Book Review, Volume 24, Number 4

“... a sophisticated and thought-provoking attempt to reinterpret legal theory, amplifying earlier work on legal pluralism, transnational legal theory, and European Union law in order to outline a "cultural" theory of law. It will be of particular interest to those who are troubled by the widespread desire to "constitutionalize" international and European Union law.” –  Umut Özsu, International Journal of Constitutional Law, Volume 12, Number 1