Transnationalism and migration are recognised contributors to legal pluralism. Scholars of legal pluralism state that in conflicts, social actors sustain their claims with arguments from coexisting legal systems. They manoeuvre between different legal systems, or contradicting norms within one system, to achieve the most satisfactory decision in a conflict. In doing so, they use norms as discursive tools. Indeed, according to data on domestic workers in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, this manoeuvring with norms as discursive tools is often recognisable in conflicts between workers and their employers. However, transnational contractual norms and the legal pluralism they create are not merely discursive tools in existing conflicts; they are also regularly the cause of conflicts. Domestic workers conclude agreements with agents in their countries of origin, while employers conclude agreements with different agents in the destination countries. Both parties believe the other party has signed the same contract, while in reality that is not the case. Because of the differences between the two sets of contractual norms, these norms cause conflicts; they are not merely discursive tools. This finding calls for a division between different types of conflicts, which is proposed here for the purpose of socio-legal analysis of conflicts in general and particularly in situations of transnationalism and legal pluralism. |
Artikel |
Transnationalism, Legal Pluralism and Types of ConflictsContractual Norms Concerning Domestic Workers |
Tijdschrift | Recht der Werkelijkheid, Aflevering 3 2011 |
Auteurs | Antoinette Vlieger |
SamenvattingAuteursinformatie |
Artikel |
The Quest for a Transnational Patent System in EuropeA Preliminary Reconstruction |
Tijdschrift | Recht der Werkelijkheid, Aflevering 3 2011 |
Auteurs | Alex Jettinghoff |
SamenvattingAuteursinformatie |
For a common market, a common patent and a common patent litigation seem self-evident. Although efforts to introduce these common market institutions in Europe started early in the history of the Economic Community, they remained unsuccessful. The reconstruction of this legal history is focused on two theoretical issues.The first concerns the question of power and influence in the EU, in particular the configuration of stakeholders responsible for the non-decision making on this policy issue. The basic mechanism underlying the lack of success of this dossier appears to be a balance of power between the two opposing groups of stakeholders (France and European institutions vs. Germany, UK, supported by their patenting industry and legal experts). This suggests that transnational rule making, proceeding under similar conditions, is likely to have a long (if not unsuccessful) ‘issue career’.The second theoretical issue concerns the agenda-setting mechanisms of recent decades. All initiatives on international or transnational patent policy have mainly been the product of ‘high politics’, although the input of patent legal experts (representatives of ‘low politics’) has increased considerably in recent decades. Further, this history would seem to defy simple schemes of agenda setting. There is no simple sequence of issue initiation, specification, expansion and entrance. At best, it is a series of such sequences. |