This workshop brings together political scientists and legal scholars within the Law and Social Sciences discipline to facilitate greater intellectual coherence in the future research directions of scholars studying the role of comparative and international law. The workshop will assess the extent to which current graduate training and current programmatic focus can be altered in the future in order to facilitate greater intellectual synergy among scholars in this area. As such, the two day workshop will bring together leading junior and senior scholars in this area to define the expected research needs and propose research directions for scholarship and training in this area.
This workshop is anticipated to strengthen existing interdisciplinary engagement within the Law and Social Sciences discipline -- it brings together law faculty with their social science counterparts around key research questions as well as common programmatic concerns.
Today the forces of legalization are proceeding at unparalleled rates around the globe. Traditional local norms and legal institutions are increasingly subject to these global pressures; substituting these diverse local settings with a general law. This trend changes how we come to use the law, practice the law and study the law. Comparative and international legal approaches are at the core of future scientific innovation and the resolution of these critical global challenges. The challenges are many, touching all corners of the globe. High speed electronic communication, expanding transnational economic and political transactions and cooperation are at once led by, but also create vast demands for new modes of legal coordination and regulation. Processes of democratization and economic development are now inextricably linked to the rule of law. Indeed, lawyers and legal experts are becoming more important than ever in structuring new realms of economic market expansion, new forums for commercial arbitration, new forms of transnational (e.g., European Court of Justice) and international (e.g., World Trade Organization) dispute resolution, new protections for human rights, and new institutions of criminal law (e.g., International Criminal Court) – all of which reshape state and local authority in important ways. In sum, the rule of law today is more pervasive and invasive than ever before. Together these challenges illustrate that the contemporary manifestations of law are more variable and volatile than ever. This raises pressing empirical puzzles for not only the scientific community but for policy makers wanting to understand the law's workings and fundamental normative questions about the law's capacity to tame arbitrary power, advance democracy and promote fairness. The intellectual merit of this workshop is the advancement of our knowledge and understanding across the fields of political science and law by the development of a new field of social science research – comparative and international law. The workshop participants formed critical connections and a framework for a transformative change to comparative and international law research and graduate training in the future. The changing role of law in a global age necessitates this rethinking and innovation. In particular, the intellectual merit of the workshop is directly linked to facilitating the development of a new social science based approach to research and training that would be well equipped to face these challenges and train a new generation of scientists. This approach examines law not as a fixed set of rules transplanted from country to country but instead understands it in its social, economic and political context. The broader impact of the workshop is critically linked to its organization and dissemination of proceedings. In particular, the thematic sessions promoted teaching, training and learning in the area of comparative and international law through innovations in methods, data management and the construction of training programs. Inclusion of graduate students in the workshop enhanced their learning and the participants included a broad diversity of individuals who are underrepresented in this field. Finally, the proceedings were disseminated broadly through the participation in national conferences and the development of a thematic network on methods and data collection. Central to the broader impacts is the development of a network of scholars and institutions that can continue to systematically develop this scientific field – a resource that will be invaluable to the policy makers and members of society who are faced with these global legal challenges.
