New Legal Realism's Rejoinder

Leiden Journal of International Law, (response to Klabbers and Augsberg), Vol. 28, No. 3, 2015, Forthcoming

UC Irvine School of Law Research Paper No. 2015-55

9 Pages Posted: 13 May 2015 Last revised: 20 May 2015

See all articles by Gregory Shaffer

Gregory Shaffer

Georgetown University Law Center

Date Written: May 11, 2015

Abstract

This rejoinder responds to criticisms by Jan Klabbers and Ino Augsburg of the The New Legal Realist Approach to International Law (Leiden Journal of International Law, vol. 28: 2, 2015). The new legal realism brings together empirical and pragmatic perspectives in order to build theory regarding how law obtains meaning, is practiced, and changes over time. Unlike conceptualists, such as Augsburg, legal realists do not accept the priority of concepts over facts, but rather stress the interaction of concepts with experience in shaping law’s meaning and practice. Klabbers, as a legal positivist, questions the value of the turn to empirical work and asks whether it is a fad. The rejoinder contends that the new legal realism has deep jurisprudential roots in Europe and the United States, constituting a third stream of jurisprudence involving the development of socio-legal theory, in complement with, but not opposed to, analytic and normative theory.

Keywords: new legal realism; empiricism; pragmatism; conceptualism; legal positivism; socio-legal theory

Suggested Citation

Shaffer, Gregory, New Legal Realism's Rejoinder (May 11, 2015). Leiden Journal of International Law, (response to Klabbers and Augsberg), Vol. 28, No. 3, 2015, Forthcoming, UC Irvine School of Law Research Paper No. 2015-55, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2605539

Gregory Shaffer (Contact Author)

Georgetown University Law Center ( email )

600 New Jersey Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001
United States

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