This illuminating book explores the theme of social constructionism in legal theory. It questions just how much freedom and power social groups really have to construct and reconstruct law.

This book explores international law as a social construct by analysing its social foundations and by re-conceptualizing the way in which it is commonly understood. It asks what law is and how it works in society, and shows why it is worth to struggle for new and better-working rules in the international legal order.

The book distils and articulates international law as a social construct. It does so by analysing its social foundations, essence, and roots in practical and socially workable (as opposed to 'pure') reason. In addition to well-known doctrines of jurisprudence and international law, it draws upon psycho-analytic insights into the origins and nature of law, as well as philosophical social constructivism. The work suggests that seeing law as a social construct is crucial to our understanding of international law and to the struggle to create better working rules. The book re-conceptualizes both past and new doctrines of international law as 'constructs', namely, as strategies of concomitantly de-mythologizing and re-mythologizing international law. Key areas of international law, including subjects, sources, hierarchy, values, and remedies, are shown to be part of this process. The social impact on international law of transnational actors and stakeholders, normative fragmentation, global justice, legitimacy of both rules and players, dynamics and hierarchization of norms, compliance and implementation in municipal law is also extensively investigated. Five basic values of the international community, namely security, humanity, wealth, environment, and knowledge, are explored by stressing their inter- and intra-tensions. Finally, the analysis is extended to the role that international courts play in the prosecution of heads of state and other transnational players who violate international law.

Grounded in a wide reading of social theory and supported with interview data, The Civil Rights Society reveals an important dimension of the failure of legal action to address many of the most persistent forms of racial and sexual oppression.

Natural Law, Science, and the Social Construction of Reality looks at changes in knowledge and the relationship to values from the modern era to today. Author Bernie Koenig examines Newton's influence on Locke and Kant, how Kant influenced Darwin and Freud, and the implications of their work for both anthropology and moral theory.

This book explores international law as a social construct by analysing its social foundations and by re-conceptualizing the way in which it is commonly understood. It asks what law is and how it works in society, and shows why it is worth to struggle for new and better-working rules in the international legal order.

This title was first published in 2001. The global legal landscape is littered with attempts to provide context and meaning for sexual harassment law. Most have failed because they have limited themselves to the mere words of law. This cross-national study is the first to expand our notion of sexual harassment law and implementation by exposing the relationship between law and its social context, demonstrating how this fundamentally influences legal understandings and outcomes. Taking a unique theoretical approach, this book explores perceptions of law within national, corporate and the individual contexts, analyzing the potentials of each level to influence the social understanding of law and the wider role of law in society itself. The result is a pioneering work of fresh insight which will appeal to a broad range of academic disciplines.