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Plunder : when the rule of law is illegal / Ugo Mattei and Laura Nader.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Mattei, Ugo.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Rule of law.
- Law and ethics.
- Law and anthropology.
- Physical Description:
- x, 283 pages ; 23 cm
- Place of Publication:
- Malden, MA : Blackwell Pub., 2008.
- Summary:
- The Rule of Law has long been cherished in the US as the ultimate defender of civil liberty and the American way of life - a Rule of Law which no one can quite define, but everyone supports. In this provocative new book, Ugo Mattei and Laura Nader wage a frontal assault on this treasured belief in the sanctity of the Rule of Law, unflinchingly exploring its previously neglected dark side. They expose its intimate relationship with plunder - the practice of violent extraction by stronger political actors victimizing weaker ones - in the service of Western cultural and economic domination.
- Boldly conceived and vibrantly written, Plunder dares to ask the paradoxical question - is the Rule of Law itself illegal? Mattei and Nader expose global examples of plunder: of Native American lands, to colonialist interventions in Africa and Latin America, to the plunder of oil in Iraq; of ideas in the form of Western patents and intellectual property rights imposed on weaker peoples; and of liberty and the demise of the Rule of Law in the United States. This thought-provoking text is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary law, politics, and social justice.
- Contents:
- 1 Plunder and the Rule of Law 10
- An Anatomy of Plunder 10
- Plunder, Hegemony, and Positional Superiority 17
- Law, Plunder, and European Expansionism 20
- Institutionalizing Plunder: the Colonial Relationship and the Imperial Project 26
- A Story of Continuity: Constructing the Empire of Law (lessness) 28
- 2 Neo-liberalism: Economic Engine of Plunder 35
- The Argentinean Bonanza 35
- Neo-Liberalism: an Economic Theory of Simplification and a Spectacular Project 42
- Structural Adjustment Programs and the Comprehensive Development Framework 53
- Development Frameworks, Plunder, and the Rule of Law 58
- 3 Before Neo-liberalism: a Story of Western Plunder 64
- The European Roots of Colonial Plunder 64
- The Fundamental Structure of US Law as a Post-colonial Reception 65
- A Theory of Lack, Yesterday and Today 67
- Before Neo-liberalism: Colonial Practices and Harmonious Strategies - Yesterday and Now 76
- 4 Plunder of Ideas and the Providers of Legitimacy 81
- Hegemony and Legal Consciousness 81
- Intellectual Property as Plunder of Ideas 83
- Providing Legitimacy: Law and Economics 88
- Providing Legitimacy: Lawyers and Anthropologists 100
- 5 Constructing the Conditions for Plunder 111
- The Plunder of Oil: Iraq and Elsewhere 111
- The New World Order of Plunder 120
- Not Only Iraq: Plunder, War, and Legal Ideologies of Intervention 123
- Institutional Lacks as Conditions for Plunder: Real or Created? 128
- "Double Standards Policy" and Plunder 130
- Poverty: Justification for Intervention and Consequence of Plunder 133
- 6 International Imperial Law 137
- Reactive Institutions of Imperial Plunder 137
- US Rule of Law: Forms of Global Domination 142
- Globalization of the American Way 144
- An Ideological Institution of Global Governance: International Law 150
- Holocaust Litigation: Back to the Future 155
- The Swallowing of International Law by US Law 158
- Economic Power and the US Courts as Imperial Agencies 164
- 7 Hegemony and Plunder: Dismantling Legality in the United States 168
- Strategies to Subordinate the Rule of Law to Plunder 168
- Plunder in High Places: Enron and its Aftermath 172
- Plunder in Even Higher Places: Electoral Politics and Plunder 176
- Plunder of Liberty: the War on Terror 179
- Plunder Undisrupted: the Discourse of Patriotism 191
- 8 Beyond an Illegal Rule of Law? 196
- Summing Up: Plunder and the Global Transformation of Law 196
- Imperial Rule of Law or the People's Rule of Law? 202
- The Future of Plunder 211.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 217-265) and index.
- "Documentary film resources": pages 266-271.
- ISBN:
- 9781405178945
- 1405178949
- 9781405178952
- 1405178957
- OCLC:
- 145732991
- Online:
- Contributor biographical information
- Publisher description
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