Our world abounds with injustices, and the struggle to challenge and transform these has only become more urgent with the multiple crises facing Western society. But in our efforts to realise better worlds, the role of law has been relatively unexamined. While particular laws are often focused on as rules or processes that need changing, and many social movements invoke arguments based on ‘human’ rights and seek social transformation through law, the bigger picture of law and the legal system has been overlooked.
Despite operating in the background, law is pervasive. It influences almost the totality of human activities: family and interpersonal relationships, employment conditions, accessing housing, the relationship with our environment, and much more. Law is generally seen as somewhat neutral – a technical part of the state or a set of rules and norms controlled by those with political power. But it also a social system which itself needs to be transformed as part of an emancipatory politics. While law is not the magic solution to changing everything, it must be a necessary part of a transformative and political project.
Interconnected Law
First, some background: I started thinking about law’s role in society, its political role and what a just legal system would look like during my undergraduate degree. Some years and a fair amount of reading and thinking later, these thoughts have developed into what I am calling ‘Interconnected Law’ – an approach to law based on human interconnection.
