Contending Orders: Legal Pluralism and the Rule of Law
Thursday 17 October 2023
This seminar—led by Patrick Emerton and Zim Nwokora and chaired by Jayani Nadarajalingam—discussed Geoffrey Swenson’s first book, Contending Orders: Legal Pluralism and the Rule of Law. Contending Orders examines the role of legal pluralism in state-building, with a particular focus on efforts to establish democratic governance and the rule of law. The book proposes new ways to better understand how legal pluralism functions in practice, and how state and non-state authorities interact. It also explores the tools and strategies domestic and international actors can use to influence the relationship between state and non-state justice systems. The book uses detailed case studies from two Asia—Pacific countries with extensive legal pluralism, Afghanistan and Timor-Leste.
Swenson’s new research project, Aiding Law Outside the State, seeks to better understand foreign policy toward non-state justice in both theory and practice. It critically examines external initiatives aimed at non-state justice to understand what international actors are seeking to achieve through foreign aid and the actual consequences of their work.
About the panel
Patrick Emerton is Associate Professor in the Deakin Law School. He researches in constitutional law and theory, legal and political theory, and national security law. He has published in leading law and philosophy journals, and is a contributor to The Oxford Handbook of the Australian Constitution (2018) and The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of War (2018). In 2010 the Federal Law Review awarded him the inaugural Leslie Zines Prize for Excellence in Legal Research.
Dr Zim Nwokora is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and Policy Studies at Deakin University, Melbourne, where he coordinates the interdisciplinary PPE programme. His research focuses on constitutions, political parties and political finance, applying theoretical and comparative approaches. This work has been published in leading journals in political science and cognate fields such as the British Journal of Political Science, Governance, International Journal of Constitutional Law, Party Politics, Political Research Quarterly and Political Studies.
Geoffrey Swenson is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) of International Politics at City, University of London, a Senior Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics, a Trustee of the British International Studies Association, and a British Academy Mid-Career Fellow. Swenson completed a PhD in International Relations at Oxford as a Clarendon Scholar and won the Winchester Prize for most outstanding thesis. He holds an MA from Queen’s University Belfast as a Mitchell Scholar, and a JD from Stanford Law School. Swenson has held fellowships at Oxford, LSE, Stanford, and the Carnegie Endowment. Swenson’s book, Contending Orders: Legal Pluralism and the Rule of Law, was recently published by Oxford University Press. His research has been published in leading journals including International Security, World Development, International Studies Review, Third World Quarterly, Disasters, and the Columbia Human Rights Law Review.
Photo by Albert Stoynov on Unsplash