Categories: Legal Theory and Jurisprudence

Instructor(s)

Trubek, David

Course Data

Room 7113
M 12:30pm-2:00am

Pass/Fail: No

Course Description

















Selected Problems in
Jurisprudence: New Governance and the Transformation of Law Seminar
3 Credits





12:30-2:00PM Mondays



The first
class will meet in Room 7113 at
12:30 PM September 14

 

Instructor: David M. Trubek



This seminar will
explore the rise of new forms of governance and their implications for the
future of law and legal practice. Governments and international organizations around
the world have begun to use new tools and processes to achieve public policies.
Generically labeled “new governance”, these may involve the use of broad
standards instead of fixed rules; rely on networks of policy makers, experts, stakeholders,
NGOs and the public for decision-making; encourage experimentation and
reviseability; employ measurement and monitoring in place of mandates and
sanctions; and privilege self-regulation.  The goal is to create networked governance
that would be reflexive rather than coercive, problem-solving rather than
controlling, coordinating rather than mandatory, bottom-up rather than
top-down. Some scholars decry these developments, considering them a threat to
the rule of law, while others see them as the beginning of a fundamental
transformation of the legal order and one that requires rethinking some basic
ideas about law.

 

To explore these
issues, the seminar will look at the new governance phenomenon in the context
of 20th Century legal theory and current discussions of the changing
role of law and government in selected areas. It will lead up to a Transatlantic
Conference on “New Governance and the
Transformation of Law
” to be held on November 20-21 as the annual Symposium
of the Wisconsin Law Review. This event will bring together leading scholars
from the US, Canada, and Europe to debate these developments. Information
about the conference is available at. http://www.law.wisc.edu/ils/2009novnewgovconf.html/program.html

 

The Seminar is
designed to help students working on the Law Review Symposium and other
interested students. It will proceed in three stages. In Stage One, the entire
class will meet for several background sessions. In Stage Two, students will be
asked to select a topic from the subjects included in the conference. Students
will study the issues in their topic, read the work of the relevant experts
participating in the conference and other scholars, attend the panel on that
topic, and write a paper on some issue in this area of law and policy. During
Stage Two we there will be small group sessions for those working on each topic
Topics are:

 

(1)  
Regulation and the future of the Regulatory State

(2)  
Social Policy including health, labor, and poverty alleviation in the US.

(3)  
Social Policy including health, labor, and poverty alleviation in the
EU.

(4)  
Transnational governance including trade, financial regulation, and tax

(5)  
Environmental Protection in the EU and/or the US

(6)  
Legal theory

 
Stage Three involves attendance at the Conference and
the completion of a 20 page paper.  Students
who wish to qualify for the upper level writing requirement must submit a draft
paper by November 30. All papers will be due in final form by the last day of
the exam period.


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